How Technology Can Equalize Learning Differences

James Yang for The Chronicle

For a moment, let’s put aside the debate over whether laptops are a distraction in the classroom.

Disregard the Twitter threads and op-eds alternately calling for a ban on such electronic devices or a ban on banning devices. Let’s instead recognize that the debate over whether laptops belong in the classroom — or even technology writ large — misses the fundamental issue.

The heart of the issue is not whether technology is a distraction in the classroom. It’s that different students learn differently. We should be discussing how to organize our teaching to engage diverse learning styles. And yes, some of those strategies involve the use of technology. There is a great need for professors to be both pedagogically trained to support learning differences in the classroom and to understand the changing landscape of learning accommodations.

We could stand to learn a thing or two from our high-school counterparts. While 94 percent of high-school students with learning differences get support, only 17 percent of college students do. Important legal differences exist, of course, in how high schools must accommodate learning differences. But even more important, high schools have been more willing to experiment with pedagogy, to use technology in classrooms, and to shape their classrooms into student- and learning-centered spaces.

So why do we at the college level stubbornly cling to ineffective pedagogies? We know the lecture format is one of the least effective tools. When educators resist moving forward from old-school strategies, the problem is a lack of knowledge of how students learn and how we can help.

This may be, in part, because many of us were lectured at in our undergraduate courses, and that must have been fine because we ended up in Ph.D. programs, right? By the very fact of our academic success, most of us were able to adapt to conventional learning environments. Large swaths of the professoriate never experienced as students the excitement of a learning-centered classroom or the enthusiasm of a teacher open to new strategies. Conventional is our comfort zone.

Many of us also completed our education before the widespread understanding and diagnosis of conditions like ADD, ADHD, and learning differences. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of full-time college teachers age 65 or older nearly doubled. These decades align with widespread, systemic changes in how secondary schools understand and support students with special needs. This is not to suggest that older educators are out of touch, but on the whole, the professoriate needs to be brought up to speed on the tools and pedagogies necessary to create inclusive learning environments.

According to the College Board, the number of students requesting accommodations for the SAT has doubled over the last five years. These are students who presumably — since they are taking a college-entrance exam — plan to pursue some sort of postsecondary program. The National Center for Learning Disabilities found that just a quarter of students who receive support in high school continue to do so in college. The possible reasons for this are numerous: Students are living away from their support systems; they feel stigmatized seeking out accommodations; they find it difficult to navigate complex university systems on their own. But this precipitous drop tells us something is wrong, and, as teachers, we are on the front lines. We must assume part of the responsibility for teaching all of our students, not just those who can tolerate a long lecture.

The spectrum of accommodations includes many things: extended time on tests and quizzes or alternative formats, note-takers, and adaptive technologies. Students arrive in our classrooms with a host of emotional, mental, and physical needs that affect their ability to learn. And yet many college educators are unprepared to effectively teach these students.

I encounter more students with learning disabilities in my classroom each semester, and as their numbers increase, departments and institutions will want to routinely identify, support, and retain them. As it stands now, this process usually begins with a student giving me a letter from the university disability office notifying me of his or her needs. The letter documents precisely what I must provide to the student, but beyond that, there is little guidance on how I can reduce barriers to learning.

We need to move beyond the standard “accommodations letter” model while ensuring the student’s right to privacy. This requires logistical and pedagogical changes. Logistically, it is up to administrators, university disability and accessibility offices, and teachers to create structures for accommodations. I struggle with many of the practicalities of student accommodations, even while it remains of utmost importance to me to reinforce to my students that they have the right to an accessible education.

For example, how do I manage multiple formats of exams, especially when students have different time allotments? How can faculty schedules and classroom space be arranged so that each student’s testing needs are met, without sending the message that they are an inconvenience? Institutions are obligated to help professors and students alike answer these questions.

Accommodations in the classroom mean teachers need to step outside their comfort zones. It may mean additional preparation time, rethinking an exam format, or incorporating additional policies into their syllabus. And some practices (sometimes called Universal Design for Learning or UDL) are remarkably easy to incorporate into a syllabus. Showing a movie or film clip? Turn on the captions. Not only is this a simple method to increase accessibility for hearing-impaired students, it also serves English-language learners. Using images or paintings to accompany a lecture? Add a brief description in alt text; when you make your slides available to the class, students who use adaptive technology, like screen readers, will have access to that content. The result is increased learning for all students.

There have been innumerable calls to teach pedagogy in graduate schools and to emphasize and value teaching — and not just research — in higher education. Both are noble and necessary things. But we must not forget the students already filling our classrooms — they deserve the best teaching we can provide. These student want to learn. It’s our job to help them.

Kathleen L. Daly is an adjunct professor in the department of history and social sciences at Bryant University.