This page details selected workshops that I periodically offer to the general public and by request to specific institutions or groups. If you would like to offer one of these workshops to your institution or group, please contact me. If you would like to learn more about my consulting offerings, including developing custom workshops, please visit my consulting page.

Signature offerings: Neurodiversity for Educators Workshops

Learn more on my Neurodiversity in Education page.

Low-Tech Teaching and Accessibility

There has recently been renewed interest in low- or no-tech teaching. Some potential reasons for this renewed interest include: (1) Increasing recognition of the downsides of internet-connected devices in the classroom. (2) Instructors are concerned that the temptation to take shortcuts on important learning tasks using AI is too great. (3) Due to digital oversaturation, instructors want to make their classrooms into refuges from the pulls of the digital world to encourage connection and the embrace of friction in the learning process

However, classroom technology also provides the basic infrastructure for accessibility in the classroom. For example, electronic text especially has made information available to people with a wide range of disabilities, and many laptop and handheld computers enable access to information and participation that simply wouldn’t exist otherwise. This workshop and discussion will ask an important emerging question: How can those instructors who wish to explore the potential benefits of low-tech pedagogy take accessibility seriously? Learn more

Access Friction: What can we learning from situation in which access needs differ and conflict?

Even instructors who are very committed to inclusive teaching experience friction in their practice: For example, one student is highly sensitive to the volume of amplified sound while another is hard of hearing. In this participatory workshop, participants will explore the idea that inclusive teaching is not only about implementing specific inclusive strategies, but also about navigating complex learning situations in which there are multiple competing needs. Participants will define access friction, a term derived from the disability community that describes situations in which there are two or more competing access needs. Then, examples of access friction from participants’ own contexts will be shared and analyzed. Lastly, participants will use the concept of access friction to consider how to talk about inclusive and accessible teaching with students and colleagues: Instead of assuming that we can easily “include all students” with a few simple strategies, we expect and constructively engage with the friction that is part of our inclusive teaching journey. Learn more

Inclusive Group Learning: Balancing learning outcomes, access needs, and student interests

Collaborative or group learning activities simultaneously have one of the richest evidence bases in research on learning and are the most difficult to design in an inclusive manner. This workshop will walk participants through design strategies that can help determine whether your learning outcomes are best achieved through a group assignment and scaffold the learning experience by helping students establish effective communication before working towards deliverables. Participants will draft a plan to guide students working in groups to share their communications styles and needs, select mutually agreeable modalities, and divide roles in an equitable way. Participants will also work through several case studies of supporting group work for students with approved accommodations. Learn more

Why should we embrace accessible course design? On the potential of accessibility and the problems of “retrofitting”

Why should we embrace accessible course design? The concept of “retrofitting” can help us understand the stakes of accessible design by revealing the consequences when we do not consider disabilities and other differences when designing our courses: Retrofitting, or the addition of new features to older systems, often results in some amount of access but in a way that can lack basic dignity. This talk will introduce participants to the concepts of accessibility and retrofitting, the role these ideas have played in disability advocacy and politics, and how accessibility and retrofitting play out in our classroom teaching contexts. As new rules for the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II come into effect, requiring educational materials in public education to be accessible to people with disabilities, we will explore how creating accessible materials and accessible learning experiences more broadly is not just an issue of compliance but an opportunity to work towards educational equity. Learn more

Three directions for inclusive and accessible course design

Accessible course design strategies can make course content usable by a variety of students (including students with disabilities) without additional modifications or accommodations. In this participatory workshop, instructors will explore three related inclusive design strategies that will help them set goals for moving their courses toward greater accessibility. Participants will first learn about the accessibility of electronic materials: How can text, documents, images, and video be formatted so that it is easy to perceive by people with disabilities and more accessible for all students. Second, participants will explore the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which suggests designing learning for a variety of student motivations and communication methods. Lastly, participants will discuss the principles of “mobile-aware” course design, or design strategies that make sure students can easily use course materials if a mobile device is the only or easiest device for them to use for course work. Learn more

Re-imagining academic integrity without surveillance

Remote proctoring and other academic surveillance technologies sell themselves as “academic integrity” tools. When we look more closely at these products, we see how they compromise relationships between students and instructors by encouraging a “pedagogy of suspicion” and rely on difference as a proxy for wrongdoing, leading many instructors to avoid them. However, decisions surrounding academic integrity and technology are never simple. Participants in this workshop first review some of the documented harms of surveillance technologies like remote proctoring and plagiarism/AI detection to individual students, the classroom community, and to educational institutions. Participants explore the framework of “harm reduction,” which aims to help learning communities avoid the worst harms of surveillance technologies while balancing other legitimate needs. Learn more