Inclusive Education the CloudFirst Way

Inclusivity is at the heart of Deakin’s values: we embrace difference and nurture a connected, safe and respectful community.¹ Creating inclusive learning experiences for students is key, and the best way to achieve this is to consider inclusivity from the beginning of the design phase.  CloudFirst Learning Design offers one way to design for inclusivity. Deakin’s Inclusive Education Principles can be mapped to CloudFirst Learning Design, so staff are guided to consider key inclusivity elements from the start.

Many of the inclusive techniques used in CloudFirst Learning Design are simple and what we would expect of a ‘best practice’ design.

For example:

• Clearly identify learning aims
• Scaffold content, activities and assessments
• Provide captions, transcripts and consistent heading levels
• Design self-check opportunities complete with explanatory feedback
• Build in opportunities for peer learning and social connections
• Guide students through clearly-signposted learning pathways with study support resources embedded at key times.

Other creative techniques include, creating personas that represent the diversity of our student cohort, providing options in assessment tasks that give students genuine opportunities to demonstrate their learning in different ways, and representing content in multiple mediums such as imagery, video and audio.

These examples and other practical strategies were discussed at Deakin’s Inclusive Education Community of Practice August event, demonstrating that at Deakin, best practice is inclusive practice in learning design. You can view the presentation and other Inclusive Education resources at the CoP event page, or, if you would like to know more about CloudFirst Learning Design, please contact Darci Taylor.

¹Deakin University. (2019). Values. Retrieved from: https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/values

Some Useful Resources

CloudFirst Learning Design Toolkit

Inclusive Curriculum and Capacity Building