JMU faculty are invited to learn how to apply the fundamental principles of universal design for learning (UDL) in a new fellowship. Each fellow will receive a stipend of $500 for their evidence-based participation and co-development between May 2023 and May 2024.

Participants can expect to spend about 12 to 16 hours of synchronous and asynchronous participation and project time over the course of the fellowship (not including in-depth scholarship time, including data analysis, manuscript preparation, etc.).

Apply here by May 1, 2023!

About the Fellowship:

Co-sponsored by the College of Health and Behavioral Studies, JMU Libraries, and the Center for Faculty Innovation, this fellowship is a pilot program. Built on content from our self-paced offering, Learning Access through Universal Design, it is intended to be an opportunity for faculty participants to develop UDL course components (e.g. an accessible syllabus, instructional media, or assessment item) and to document this problem-solving process in a real teaching context as educational design research.

By joining this community focusing on collaborative learning, UDL content building, and design research, faculty participants can expect consultative support in areas of:

UDL strategies
Inclusive pedagogy
Practical skillsets to build UDL content
Workflow and venues for an educational design research effort

The program will also scaffold faculty participants to plan, generate and implement a research plan that optimally suits the course context for which the UDL content will be developed. This research may be presented at conferences (such as the JMU Diversity Conference, the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy, May Symposium, and other scholarship of teaching and learning conferences) or submitted to the peer-reviewed Teaching Online Pedagogy Repository (TOPR) or other journals.

Logistics

There are 6 seats in this pilot program, with 3 prioritized for faculty applicants from College of Health and Behavioral Studies (CHBS), and 3 open to other JMU faculty. Each JMU faculty fellow will receive a stipend of $500 for their evidence-based participation and co-development. Participants can expect to spend about 12-16 hours of synchronous and asynchronous participation and project time between May 2023 and May 2024, depending on the sophistication of their project.

Two introductory synchronous online meetings will take place on May 23 and 30, from 9:30-11:30. The cohort of fellows will collaboratively determine the format of this fellowship program at these first two synchronous meetings. Communication and support modes among participants and facilitators will also be established.

Objectives

By participating in this fellowship, you will make progress towards:

Appreciating the effect of UDL practices on scaffolding inclusive learning experiences.
Identifying accessibility functions with day-to-day digital tools such as Canvas and Microsoft Office 365 suite, and possibly physical classroom settings.
Developing an UDL-oriented syllabus.
Building an accessible and inclusive assessment item for a class.
Documenting design research for scholarly work development.
Pursuing a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project (if applicable to your course design project), which can include but is not limited to submitting a protocol for review by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), collecting data, and planning for a conference presentation.