UDL: Practicing What We Preach

The purpose of this study was to explore the use of UDL in a special education program’s coursework and analyze how it affects college students outcomes beyond their classrooms. Past research has suggested that UDL has been increasingly used in college-level coursework design, and courses designed with UDL have higher reports of college student achievement. Based on the principles of UDL and andragogy, this study identified four central research questions. Specifically, a small qual/large quant mixed-method research design was used to investigate instructor utilization of the UDL principles, teacher candidate corroboration of UDL elements in their coursework, and an exploration of current student use of the skills learned in various courses from a special education program in the 2020-2021 academic year. Additionally, it was tested to determine of the EnACT UDL syllabus rubric could be used to predict instructor use of UDL. A Ruskal-Wallis H test was used to determine if there were significant different between instructor and teacher candidate responses, as well as differences between the instructor responses and EnACT UDL syllabus tool items. Results indicated that the EnACT UDL syllabus tool was not useful to predict instructor use of UDL in their coursework design. Further, results of specific differences between instructor and teacher candidates reports of UDL elements are presented and discussed. Limitations and implications for instructor implementation of UDL research, practice, and policy are discussed

Practicing What We Preach: Risk-Taking and Failure as a Joint Endeavor

Faculty and administrators often present risk-taking as something honors students must do, but rarely do they take risks themselves. In an ideal situation, communal risk-taking would subvert institutional power dynamics, free students from grade-associated anxiety, and enable them to build dynamic partnerships with faculty. This paper discusses how one honors college piloted self-grading in the second semester of its first-year seminar as a mechanism of liberatory learning for both faculty and students. While self-grading was originally intended to provide increased freedom for risk-taking, in truth it led to increased anxiety in students and high levels of frustration for faculty. This pilot program demonstrated the underlying flaws in the concept of risk-taking and ultimately failed. Although faculty may have good intentions, simply removing grades does not remove internalized, perceived judgment. Real risk-taking requires all parties to participate with enthusiasm and to adapt when necessary in order to be successful. While self-grading did not accomplish its original aims, the process demonstrated previously underappreciated underlying cultural tensions that fundamentally affect student and faculty freedom and risk-taking, displaying how deeply entrenched the social mores are for honors faculty and students, as well as how much work is left to encourage risk-taking by both groups

Practicing what we preach? Reflecting on environmental sustainable research practices of the IS community

Over the past decade, research on IS solutions for environmental sustainability evolved and produced a modest but firm body of knowledge. Despite this progressive understanding about ICT’s solution potential for environmental sustainability, our research practices seem widely unaffected by these insights. Most of us travel by air for work several times a year, to conferences, research stays, or guest lectures. Our community meetings do not seem well aligned with ecological goals. We research and apply technologies, such as blockchain or artificial intelligence, without sufficiently acknowledging the enormous amounts of energy they consume. It raises the fundamental question: Do we practice what we preach? While recognizing the good intentions IS research pursues, should we no longer ignore the environmental ‘elephant in the room’? In this inclusive panel discussion, we openly debate these issues. Thereby, we intend to capture the status-quo of the sustainability of our research practices and develop recommendations on how to improve it and ways of measuring the carbon footprint of some key activities