On Monday, May 8th, the TLC-FMG Spring Event on inclusive education took place. The purpose of this event was to provide teachers and UvA employees with the tools and knowledge to contribute to a more inclusive learning environment for students with physical disabilities. This event was organised in collaboration with IDEAS, ECIO, and a UvA students and alumna expert in this field.

Watch the 3 minute recap here or the full registration below.

For many teachers, it can be challenging to effectively facilitate students with disabilities in the classroom setting. This difficulty does not necessarily stem from a lack of willingness, but often from a lack of awareness and knowledge, and the absence of appropriate tools. Therefore, this event aims at providing teachers with insights and tools to effectively support students with disabilities. Although the primary audience for this event is teachers, the topic can also be relevant for programme directors, study advisors, programme committee and examination board members, policymakers and others.

In collaboration with UvA IDEAS, ECIO and an UvA alumna expert on the subject, the TLC-FMG has created this event to contribute to discussions on studying with a disability and to enable teachers and UvA staff with the tools and knowledge to contribute to a more inclusive learning environment for students with a physical disability.

What did we learn?

From the present (experienced) experts, we learned the following key points. Always communicate well and openly with your students about this topic. Even if you find this uncomfortable, not talking about it is even more uncomfortable. Moreover, it is not about what is the issue with the student, but rather what they need to optimise their learning process. This concerns a more general basic attitude in which you consider the student’s needs. In addition, there are more practical matters such as reading the contents and describing any pictures on sheets during class. Furthermore, there are ways to ensure that your course material is offered in multiple formats (visual/auditory/text) where possible and is accessible to, for example, text-to-speech software. And some students are greatly helped by providing the sheets in advance. ECIO showed us how we can achieve this using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which is a teaching approach that aims to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and wants to eliminate unnecessary hurdles in the learning process.

Lastly we would like to thank all speakers who contributed to the event. Ihab Laachir for sharing his experiences, Ellen van Veen and Elke van Doorn from ECIO for their insightful presentation and activity and Michel Telkamp for sharing the UvA’s next steps concerning studying with a disability. If you have any ideas of what we need to address regarding this topic, you can contact us via tlc-fmg@uva.nl