hi there my name is Megan I'm a junior at Miami a disability studies minor and
one of the co-presidents of the students with disabilities Advisory Council
here on campus I want to take a few minutes to talk to
you all today about this accessible classroom and how it came to be. So it
all started with DST 272 introduction to disability studies here at Miami and
one of the core concepts in that class is the action project
it's a semester long project that students take part in as they start
to explore what is disability what does that actually look like how can I
manifest my support for the disability community in a concrete way
right here on Miami's campus so as you can imagine this sort of project has come
forth with some really neat results over the years and one of those ideas started a
few semesters ago when students tackled the idea of what is an accessible
classroom what might that look like and how can we bring it to bear here at
Miami they'd started making lists of technologies and furnitures different
sorts of designs they could be implemented in the classroom that would
really be accessible truly accessible to anyone that was a part of the Miami
community I was fortunate enough as a student in DST 272 last semester
last fall to be able to take on this project along with a few of my peers and
start looking at how can we make this a reality
what we ended up doing was presenting a proposal to Dr. Sherrill Sellers the
associate dean of EHS and she was able to give us some great tips kind of point
us in the right direction and after that semester ended we put together another
group of students some from the class and some from students with disabilities
Advisory Council we ended up writing a proposal for the student tech fee clinic
committee asking for some funding to purchase some technology to make this
thing a reality and when I say technology I'm talking about not only
specific disability dedicated technology like different types of mice or
keyboards for computers magnifiers screen readers or that sort of stuff but also
everyday commonplace technology that we don't realize can actually be really
useful to someone with a disability like an Amazon echo or like a Livescribe
pen all these sorts of emerging technologies that can really enhance the
classroom experience and open it up for student with disability so we submitted
our proposal to the grant committee and we were very lucky to receive almost
everything we asked for $35,000 and that will go really long way in purchasing
all those technologies filling the classroom with resources that will really
be cutting edge we think that this classroom will really set Miami apart
from a lot of your institutions in showing this acceptance of diversity
fostering inclusion we were making it a cutting edge learning environment for
everyone something that's very engaging and a very different sort of learning
environment that a lot of people might be used to we think that this will be
really engaging for students as well as faculty who might have the chance to
teach in the classroom members in the Miami community too - we want to open this
up we want to make it up lab space for everyone to come in and explore while
class isn't in session we hope to have technologies available for people
to check out to use at their own leisure and explore how can it
make their own learning experience better whether or not they have a disability we
think that this really enriched a lot of classrooms far beyond just McGuffey 121
here and we certainly hope that it's not the only one of its kind here in Miami
and throughout the country although it certainly is the
first-of-its-kind we're very very grateful for that we're hoping to spread
the word about it by having all DST 272
all disability studies classes actually take place in that classroom so
that students who are interested in the field actually have the experience of
working in a totally universally designed space we think that'll be a
really enriching experience for them but we also want students across the
university to encounter the space and to interact with it so we're hoping that
open houses that technology rentals all those sorts of things we'll
be able to open this up to everyone at Miami We're really excited for this project
were really grateful that all of you have come out today to support it to
check it out and we hope that you continue to be interested in following
what we're doing as we make this a really innovative space for Miami
University so thank you so much for everything that you've done all of your
support and we hope to see you a lot around here and the next coming year or so
How do you plan on using the features of this room to teach students?
definitely, so the features of this room I'm going to use a lot definitely the first thing I think of is
being able to access the room with the automatic doors compared to other
rooms where that access is limited and then I'm really excited about not
being limited to a teacher station that is at an inaccessible height so
being able to have portable technology that's going to enable me to teach in
the classroom using my ability level is something that's really important to me so that's gonna
be great and then in the classroom itself the whiteboard on the wall is going to
be an interactive way to engage with students that are sitting over there but
also you know get people up and moving around so that's one of the other really
great pieces of the room
How do you think the features in this room will help your students learn?
So I think the various interactive features of the room really create
an engaging learning environment so we not only have
you know the lecture style for teachers
I think that's important we also have the technology so we're gonna be able to
interact with students in a different level that other classrooms don't have
with the integration of the technology from students to the teacher and I think
that's gonna be another great aspect of it there's going to be a lot of
additional technology that's added and when that's all there I think collectively
between the teaching style of learning as well as the physical technological
room are really gonna create to be engaged
for really good model for transfer to other academic departments and other
universities
yes it's definitely my hope and wish that we do see more of these classrooms
on campus I think with the trend of you know creating inclusive environment for
everyone on campus and keeping students engaged and you know integrating faculty
more in an interactive and Universal Design for Learning approach to teaching
in higher education classrooms like this will be popping up in all sorts of areas
not only in education colleges but I also think you know different STEM
fields and those colleges but hopefully this branches out past Miami and across
to other campuses as well
I think this classroom is better than last year because it's more flexible and
follows Universal Design and principles there's more space and more people can
use this room last year we had to look up computers to do presentations but new
presentation system gives us more opportunities we have a lot of different
people in our class but this room makes learning easier for everyone I'm looking
forward to see you went and the works seeing what's in the works and having
class in your next year to see what else you can bring to add to our learning
studies is where people where we look at society and see how we can improve
Society yes we used to look at disability where people this witness had
to change themselves so now we look at that's right where how can such a
society change 15-4 disabilities and how to advocate for ourselves and how to be
better Ally like how to help people that might have disabilities so that's what
disability studies
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