DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH ….

Post #3 – discussion about what’s coming around the bend

Jane, my learning partner, and I have been interested in how the trends in our respective fields and in adult education in general, have overlapped and intertwined. Gone are the days where the calendar was ruled by a university academic year for learners. Increasingly, education is becoming available on demand, whether through on-line synchronous or asynchronous intakes, hybrid models of on-line and in-person as well as a variety of self-directed models. The principles of universal design, once thought only in terms of environmental considerations, are no longer solely being defined by concrete or physical spaces – instead, we are learning that access and accommodations can be blended into formats in virtual or on-line spaces, that include learners who have been historically or typically excluded in more traditional models.

While Jane’s focus has evolved around strategies to include a diversity of BIPOC learners and indeed embed BIPOC-based content into employee or staff-based educational opportunities around Stress and PTSD, she has been exploring disability-based challenges to access and content contribution as well. My focus, around how to provide access to, and participation with neuro-divergent learners in educational opportunities around disability support, and in expanding lived experience ‘expertise’ in curriculum content for disability-related courses, has also lead to explorations around expanded access in a variety of ways.

We agree that considering the needs of neuro-divergent learners is an emergent trend in education research, and that exploring ways of expanding access, through curated content development and research with learners is under development. Certainly, multiple modalities with flexible ways to access content is needed and will need fine-tuning with learners. The days of bricks and mortar education only are past, and educators (formal or in-house, self-directed or hybrid) have to embrace the needs of a variety of very diverse learners in new ways that blend spaces with technological awareness and content-sharing flexibility in the years ahead