New KPU course offers support for students with disabilities

Including All Citizens features a “diverse range of learners”

Thanks to Teresa Morishita and Fiona Whittington-Walsh, KPU’s Langley campus has now successfully brought 28 average university students, two high school students, and five students with intellectual disabilities together to successfully teach all of them the same curriculum. Unlike the university’s Access Programs for People with Disabilities, which are zero-credit and adapted for those with disabilities, Including All Citizens gave “a diverse range of learners” three credits each for completing the first-year sociology course.

Morishita, chair of the APPD, and Whittington-Walsh both organized and instructed the course, and together they have been trying to make learning more inclusive for students with disabilities over the past two years.

“Introduction to Society: Processes and Structures” is a pre-existing course, but Whittington-Walsh “transformed her teaching using the principles of universal design” to make the content “more accessible to a diverse range of learners.” She does so by generally shifting the focus of academia off of traditional essay-writing and instead “having a wide range of ways that students can demonstrate their knowledge of issues.”

The universal design for learning “is an educational framework and set of principles that maximizes learning opportunities for all learners,” as defined on Durham College’s website. Because it doesn’t specifically favour any certain kind of student, it will serve all who learn under its framework, leading Whittington-Walsh and Morishita to suggest it as a style for more courses in the future.

“My approach is that universal design is for all learners. It really opens it up so that you can have a diverse range of learning styles and learning abilities in the same classroom,” she says.

KPU’s vision statement for 2018 echoes that belief, championing all sorts of knowledge and open access to university.

Last year, KPU became the first university to become an affiliate member of the Inclusion BC federation, of which Whittington-Walsh is the vice-president. The organization “strives to advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, making sure that they’re fully included in all aspects of social life,” and the university’s community partnership with them made a statement about its dedication to inclusivity for those with disabilities.

Although there is still room for improvement—by making more courses and parts of the campus increasingly accessible—KPU’s dean of the faculty of arts, dean of career and academic advancement, as well as KPU President Alan Davis all supported the course. For that reason, Whittington-Walsh “figured that KPU was really ready for this type of big step.”

“In this, they’re actually doing the same work, and they’re being graded on the same rubric as their peers in the classroom,” she says of the five students who enrolled in the course. “They really loved being included.”

The five students are graduates of the APPD program and research collaborators in one of Whittington-Walsh’s research projects. They are working towards receiving their 30-credit faculty of arts certificates, and the course pilot will continue to be a part of their academic careers until they achieve them.