315 - Coaching with Accessibility in Mind - with Chrystal Trapani & Katie Fielding

Join us as we welcome special guests Katie Fielding and Crystal Trapani to discuss accessibility and how coaches can integrate it into their work. Katie and Crystal share their personal journeys to accessibility advocacy. They offer tips for making materials more accessible through simple changes like font selection, alt text for images, and leveraging closed captions. Other highlights include modeling inclusive practices, starting small when working with teachers, empowering others, and vulnerability. Katie and Crystal emphasize that accessibility benefits everyone. They encourage coaches to survey their staff on accessibility needs, focus on andragogy for adult learners, and make sure their own materials are accessible. Tune in for an insightful discussion on becoming an accessibility advocate as a coach.

Podcast Team
Hosts- Katie  Ritter & Justin Thomas
Editing Team- Michael Roush, Justin Thomas 
Social Media/ Promo Team- Annamarie Rinehart, Jordan Petri, Alyssa Faubion
Creative/Content Team- Justin Thomas, Brooke Conklin
Producer- Justin Thomas

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Transcript

Aloha, I'm Katie Ritter.
And I'm Justin Thomas. And this is the restart recharge podcast a podcast by coaches for coaches, where we bring you the tips and tricks help you in your everyday work as instructional coach or whatever they call in your school. So hopefully you're gonna leave this episode today feeling just a little bit less on your own coaching Island.
Yes, and as educators we need to make sure that we are able to reach all of our students. So accessibility is such an important part of education and we as coaches can play a vital role for accessibility in our schools. So today we are going to chat with Katie Fielding and at Crystal Japanning. And they're going to join us to talk about how coaches can actually coach with accessibility in mind. So let me go to introduce crystal here crystal Tripp Hani is the lead instructional technologist and accessibility architect with digital innovation at Old Dominion University and adjunct instructor in the Department of English at Old U and also a Google Certified Trainer, Microsoft Innovative Educator expert and a doctoral graduates graduate student at ODU. In the Instructional Design and Technology Program, her research focuses on instructor attitudes towards Lee accessible course materials. She has been recognized as the Educator of the Year in 2022, a deal college course award and OD use 40 under 40. She blends her experience working with first generation non traditional students curriculum development, creating interactive and accessible online course content and training faculty to help them achieve positive student outcomes and success in working with faculty. So let's welcome in crystal and go monarchs.

Welcome here, so we're excited to have you here today. Happy to be here. Yeah. And I'll just give a little plug for Crystal who did in in I don't know how she had the time to do. So. Thank you. But crystal actually did a presentation for our own coaching team here at forward edge is kind of how this this episode came to be a little bit ago and it was just phenomenal. So if you don't follow her and both of our guests today, please make sure you do. And with that, I'll introduce our second guests that we have with us today. Katie Fielding, she serves as a stem coach at the renowned Prince William County schools where her ardent passion for blending, accessibility and creativity and pedagogy shines. In her role, Katie discovered her distinct ability to impart successful instructional practices to her peers, which led to her being recognized as the visti tech Coach of the Year and 2019. Congrats. with a penchant for fostering self sufficiency and others Katie delights in equipping individuals with the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly digital environment. As part of her ongoing commitment to professional growth. She's an active participant in several distinguished educator communities. These include SC certified educators Canvas certified educator, Google certified innovator, trainer and coach, Apple learning coach and the Microsoft Innovative Educator expert group. For more insights into Katie's journey and her remarkable contributions to the field of education. Visit her personal website at Katie fielding.com.
Yeah, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. So obviously, both of your pads have cross prior to us having you both come on this podcast. So do you want to talk a little bit about where did you first meet? How did you first kind of connect?
I think the first time like I actually met Katie was at the visti conference in Roanoke. Three years ago, two years ago. 2021 Yeah, I don't think there was one in 2020 the blurry years. I think that's what it was. Yeah, exactly.
So and we met we happen to cross paths at a presentation and we've kind of we we run into each other things every once in a while. And yeah, I came to her presentation because I saw it was about accessibility. And I'm always wanting to learn more about the topic and and network and meet people who are also interested in it. So that's how we connected I said, Have you all presented together yet? And if not, can we anticipate maybe a joint presentation in the future?
We have not but we I'm always open so yeah, we don't have anything planned, but you never know what's gonna happen.
Yeah, we're like, educator matchmaking show. Me a dynamite combo. Okay, and I am also going to ask question before we dive in to accessibility here. So we talked to Emily all about the creation and the formation of the VC coach certification. And Crystal, you've actually gone through the VC coach certification. So just wanted to kind of quickly before we transition topics here, just wanted to get any insight that you might want to share with any of our Virginia coach listeners about that program, if there's anything you wanted to share about your experience with it.
So I was kind of the odd duck as the higher ed person in the group. And there's a It was absolutely, absolutely for I'm gonna do it, it was an amazing experience in general, but being in higher ed, a lot of people don't think that we overlap with K 12. But reality we absolutely do. Because coaching technology is coaching technology. And so it really, I kind of tell people now if I run into them, you know, when they're in, in Virginia, and like, you know, you have the opportunity, you have the ED money to do it, you should do it, it was it was totally worth it. There was this great analogy within the course about talking to faculty as like being a driving instructor versus being a mechanic. And that was an absolute game changer, not just for me, but our entire team. And so like, every every meeting we had, I think we met twice a month for four or five months. But I always came away with something that I could share with my team. So I really encourage people, you have access to professional development funds, you know, good monopolize on them. And it's a good opportunity.
Awesome, thank you. We're so glad that that was a worthwhile experience for you. And Katie, you also are a member of all of these fantastic communities and experience, particularly kind of on on the note of, you're a member of VISTA and you got the Coach of the Year award. A couple of years ago, any shout outs for other Virginia coaches just in particular, maybe what you enjoy most about being a part of ISTE, or any recommendations or encouragement that you might give to other coaches to become members of their either their state organization or some of the other organizations that you're a part of as well. Yeah, my top Clifton strength is learner. So I'm always looking to, to learn and grow. And so the city and I'm sure other state organizations like it really provide me the people that I can learn from. So that's been really powerful for me over the years. But I'm obviously actually really excited, because I'm going to start the visti coaching certification this fall. Oh, that is awesome. Okay, well, good. We'll have to circle back around with you. In the spring or the school year, depending on which cohort you're in.
Be back on later. Next season.
That's awesome. Well, good. Well, thanks for, you know, reaching out to go through that program to,
yeah, that's gonna be great. We'll go and dive into accessibility. Now. Let's do it. So obviously, both of you are great advocates and finding the best ways to accommodate all of the learners. What got both of you interested in working with teachers to keep accessibility in mind, these ideas that we need to have all educators have that in mind as they're going through. So now we want to do as coaches, all educators, obviously want to have accessible materials. But both of you have been champions in creating some of those and working with teachers to do so. So how do you kind of how did you get that interest to initially start going about being the advocates? And now that you are both very awesome advocates in it? What are some ideas that you kind of worked with them? And how can that really help the educators with that in mind, so I got into accessibility because I myself am a disabled person. I was born with a genetic disease, cystic fibrosis. And while I don't have any, you know, academic needs or supports, I am part of the disabled community. And that is very much a part of my identity. And so when I learned upon being my, my school's webmaster, basically, about all of the accessibility considerations that I needed to take in, I really realized, wow, this is really what teachers need to be doing with all the digital content that they create, not just the school's website. And so being a part of the disabled community, it just became a space where I could advocate for the rest of my people. Yeah.
So that's an awesome connection of Katie just like, pulling it from this one piece. And how can we translate that so very, very cool connection you made from the web to like, instructional materials?
Yeah, yeah. So I got into it, um, my sister is disabled, and she will, she will always need somebody who to tell take care of her. And then that's kind of the intersection of when I was a kid, right, school was a little different. It was a different time that it is now and your teachers just kind of flippantly said to me, my peers in the class well, you need do you need to go to the spared class, you know, just very ugly and, and not very accommodating and warm. And it wasn't until I got to college and I was in an education class. I was an undergrad. You And we were working through a unit on accessibility and I'm in class and we're like talking about like, the big accessibility things and that impacts students. We're talking about it. And in that class period, I realized I am textbook dyslexic. It my teachers never said to my parents, Hey, have you had her tested? They instead would tell my parents Oh, well, she's rushing her work. She's being lazy. And that's why she's writing numbers and letters backwards and juxtaposing them. And that's, that's really kind of a scary epiphany to have in the middle class is not undergrad. Yeah. And are things perfect now, absolutely not. But I'm glad we are coming to a place where we truly consider helping students achieve success no matter what success looks like for them. But in higher ed in particular, most faculty have never had any education course, most people's first foray into the college classroom is literally as a teaching assistant, where like two weeks before class, they're given somebody else a syllabus and a textbook and told Good luck, if they're lucky, they have a good mentor, but most don't. And so this is, this is really, I would argue, one of the strengths that K 12 has, there is some attention to accessibility, and there is some training there, where it really doesn't exist in higher ed, and that it's that lack of support that I really am trying to change, you know, kind of higher ed level.
Yeah. I have a quick question before you ask a follow up question, Justin, just out of trying to be, you know, as respectful as possible in how we discuss accessibility and disability when I was going through, I think it was my undergrad, in particular, a teacher prep program. You know, we were taught not to use disability first language. So you don't say the, you know, cystic fibrosis student, you'd say, the student who has cystic fibrosis, so I'm just curious, and I've heard recently, like debate in different education communities around that, like, No, that is coming back to us disability, first language, I'm completely ignorant to the topic. So I'd like to just kind of hear your opinions on like, how to talk about individuals who may have a particular circumstance, yeah, I'll go. And I'll just say, I think it really, you need to ask the person what they prefer, it's really just that simple. She, just as in racial identities, people have preferences as to how they identify are the same as the disability community. So I would refer to myself as I'm disabled, I don't have any problem with anyone saying I'm disabled. But in like the cystic fibrosis world, often we get put with other language. So we'll put like, cystic fibrosis warrior. Now that's language I have really like a lot of trouble with and I don't appreciate. So yeah, I would say you definitely just need to ask the person, what they prefer.
To echo what Katie said, I agree, ask them what they prefer. I will be honest, in research, when I write, I tend to do disability first, because the reality is, I can't leave my dyslexia at home at can't leave her sister versus a home and the width kind of insinuates that I could leave that somewhere. And that's certainly not the experience. But I open always just default to what you know that what that individual wants, how they want to be talked about and discussed.
Great. Thank you. I appreciate that perspective, from both of you.
Yes. And obviously, when you were both working with educators, what are maybe three things that you see that can be easily changed, like something that maybe it's just educators or creating materials, but that needs to be changed a little bit, it's a quick, easy fix, they just aren't really sure about it until you have a conversation with them, what are maybe like a couple of those things that we can all start to really think like, Hey, this is quick, easy fix. So contrast and font selection, just about everybody is comfortable, changing their fonts, and changing colors, and no matter what they're working in. And I always like starting with something easy, because it's approachable, like, and you empower that person in that moment, use and edit closed captions, it helps everybody. It helps everybody. And there's been large scale studies that have shown that students will use captions, even if they don't have an auditory disability. And then stop relying on PDFs, there's so inaccessible, nobody takes the time to make them accessible. Just use those native documents that you already have. So when
I think of three things, I think of what are the most common errors. And so Web Accessibility in Mind, they're a great website to go to, to learn more about web accessibility. And every year they do an audit of the top 100 million web pages and the front page of the web page. And the three most common things that they see are the first thing Crystal mentioned the low contrast text. That's the number one. So just stick to black text on white background. Simple stick to it. Number two is missing alternative text on images, homepages and the web enlarge is becoming increasingly visual. So over those years of them doing As audit, they've actually seen like a 10% rise in images on home pages. And if there was have no alternative text, think of all the information that those who are blind or low vision are missing out on or add alternative text to your images. And then third, make sure links work. That's a real simple one. The links are meaningful that the it tells the person where they're going. Thank you.
Um, okay, so now that we have everyone on the edge of their seat with already getting some great tips, stick with us, we're going to take a quick break from our sponsor, and we will be right back.
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Welcome back to the restart recharge podcast, we are talking all things, accessibility and tips on how we as coaches can really help our educators keep these topics in mind to make materials more accessible for their students. And not only that, but how we as coaches can ensure that our materials are accessible for the teachers and the educators that we are serving. So kind of on that note flipping a little bit to think, in particular, how can coaches support teachers in creating accessibility resources and materials that can make their lessons more accessible. So you both kind of served in this role, right? Like it's it's easy to take the reins when you're in charge. But when you've got to kind of coach other people and help other people do it, what are some tips and strategies that you all have been able to implement to help other people as they're building materials, to think about some of maybe some of the tips you gave, and maybe some others.
So for me, it's all about modeling. And it's, it's practicing those accessibility and inclusive practices all around. And also, sometimes just directly noting what those are. For instance, right now I'm talking to you and I'm wearing a black shirt on a light background, that's intentional. I don't know if in the meeting, someone might have low vision, and might need that contrast of even what I'm wearing to my background. So just modeling it and practicing it is great. And then secondly, like whenever you're introducing a new tool to them, I highlight those accessibility features. That's like the first and foremost, as much as the fun stuff that you know, comes along with it. So those would be mine.
Mine would be start small, start small, start with approachable, don't give them everything at once. Because you're just going to overwhelm them. And it's, it can be overwhelming. In fact, then somebody's like, well, Oh, can you teach us everything about accessibility? And our I'm like, I have 40 hours? Yeah, probably take me about that. But start small start approachable, empower people, right? Because we just like when we're working with students, if they are empowered, they're going to be more engaged with it. But just have to help them understand it does take time, and they're not going to get it perfect every time. And you are a welcoming place to ask for help. All too often I hear people involved with accessibility, getting very negative and kind of fire and brimstone, oh, you've got this one thing wrong. Nobody wants to learn and ask for help. When they're in trouble, they're just not going to ask and then they're not going to do it. But also just be be vulnerable and be willing to admit you don't know. I don't know everything. Sometimes I have to say, You know what? That's a great question. I need to do some research, and I will get back to you. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like we can't know what we don't know. You know, and so you just have to be vulnerable and just say, Hey, I don't know. I'll find out though, and I'll share it with you when I find out.
Yeah, I'm going to take a tip from both of you. Yeah, I think we need to invest in lighting it for our space. Because Katie, as you're saying that I Mike, you know now that our team's gonna be posting these videos, not happy with you all still. But now that you've been posting these videos of us now you can't see us very well. So anyway, already learning and implementing it for the pot. So thank you for those ideas. Yeah.
And we're kind of hitting the end of our episode here today. And we'd like to finish all of our episodes with our top three tips for instructional coaches. So for both of you, can you give us some top three tips here from each of you? On how can instructional coaches really walk the walk and be an accessibility advocate? So what should coaches be thinking about when they're developing materials for teachers, but also when they're working with teachers to develop materials for students?
So be careful the technology you're suggesting? A lot of the Ed Tech out there does really cool things and it should I mean, it's cool. And I get it, like, I get excited about it too. But then you start looking at is not accessible. And the reality is if you tell a teacher, they can use this technology, they're counting on you as the expert. There'll be suggesting best practices. And if you're suggesting an inaccessible technology, they're not going to realize it's not accessible, and they're not even going to know to check most times. And that's, it's, it's frustrating, because a lot of the tools out there are built with accessibility as an afterthought and not first in mind. So what are maybe some top offenders that you've seen crystal that, you know, a lot of teachers are using that that are some of the top offenders of not people, cop offenders of the tools that that a lot of teachers are using without realizing just maybe how inaccessible it is? Do you have one or two you could share of the quizzing apps out there? Okay. Not accessible? Or are the accessibility pieces behind a paywall? That is cost prohibitive? Okay, that's that's, that's been one we've been, at least internally at my team itself, we've been trying to find one that does that, that is accessible. And we've it's been a struggle, we have not found one yet. And we've been searching for months, that as you think about how many teachers use flashcards, and those kinds of things for knowledge checks, yeah, that one?
And what is it sorry, I'm gonna dig just continued to dig in for someone who may not know, but like, what is it about most of those quizzing apps or flashcard, study, you know, repetition type things, what it is about those apps that's typically inaccessible about or at least, you know, from what you're saying, and what I understand there might be a lot, but what's like the biggest hitters that these are the, you know, the biggest complications, a lot of times, it's that we can't add alt text images, that's kind of that's been a big one. And the other one has been that it's either not keyboard navigatable. So you're able to just entirely navigate the interface with your keyboard, or the screen reader just won't read parts of the interface.
Okay. Great to know, and good things to keep in mind download in VBA. And listen to their course content, it is a free screen reader. And if you ever want to have a kind of an interesting experience to really think about your course, and the different ways, as have assistive technology, read your course to know what you say the name of that resource again, in v dA, in V. Da. And as a Nancy, yes. Great. Thank you. Sorry, and I cut you off. Again, Tip one alt text, because you can have the screen reader read the alt text to you know, you can ask the the faculty member hey, does this say what is? Could you pass your course with that alt text? Yeah, great question. And then my third one would be sometimes working with faculty members is particularly difficult, and they need some persuasion. And sometimes we have to have those hard conversations. But the other day on social media, somebody had shared our perspective from a presentation they went through, and I wish they had cited who they went to, because they didn't. And it was a really great quote. And they suggested if you have a faculty member that you're struggling to get on board to ask them, if you're not willing to bet excessively, then who are you willing to exclude? Because that kind of makes them verbalize the reality of what they're claiming? They can't do or they don't have time to do or they don't want to do? And that that's not going to change everybody. But that certainly does make people think about the claim they're making. Yeah, that's an incredibly powerful question to pose to someone. All right, awesome. Top three tips. Katie, what are your top three tips?
Yeah, my first one would be to make sure your like, weekly tech tip or whatever kind of newsletter you give to teachers is accessible, like that modeling piece that I talked about. I personally love like a wakelet. Flip combination. wakelet has immersive reader built in. So if I'm supporting some teachers who may not be native English speakers, they have the option to easily turn that newsletter into the home language of their choice. Which kind of leads me into the next thing. Number two, we don't have IEP or 504 plans or weta levels for our staff members, we have to ask our staff members what kind of learning support they need. And we have to build like a culture and an environment where they're comfortable telling us right. So I would say you know, survey at the beginning of the year and also just you know, leverage those relationships you build. And when you get an ask for feedback on what you've done, use it. You can't like ignore the feedback you receive.
Yeah, I love that. Sorry, Kate. I'm gonna interrupt you too. I love that idea. So much. So many, you know so many coaches right now are preparing those back to school surveys to get to know their staff and all sorts of things. So I just want to pull that nugget out that you said you know, include that question. I think that's, that's, that's awesome. And immediately by asking, we're starting to lay the groundwork that we as long as we use it, right, because nobody likes to be surveyed and then never put into place why they do this? Yeah. So, you know, ask the question, and then actually show that you're using that information, and you're already creating, you know, a safer space in that culture of making it, you know, talk about eating and addressing it and all sorts of stuff. So I love that excellent tip. Sorry, number three.
And my last problem with the, you know, your, if you've been in education a while you're probably really, you're now a coach, you're probably really good with pedagogy, I would just really have you move and focus on andragogy. And making sure that the training that you're providing teachers follows those best practices for adult learning. It's a different space than student learning. It has to be, you know, job embedded, and really meaningful to the teachers. And so we're never going to get them to really get excited about accessibility, if we're teaching them in a way that doesn't work for adults. So that would be my number three.
Excellent tips. Okay, sorry, I know we say we end on top three tips. And I do this a lot. But then I have follow up questions. What okay, what aren't we asking? Right? Like, if you you know, what, what haven't we asked that you want coaches, educators, just people to take away from your experience, what you have learned under the topic of accessibility, particularly related to learners,
I would say accessibility is for everyone. A lot of times people think it's for those specific people who need it. But it benefits so many people, for instance, that alternative tax, which we've been talking about a little bit, like yes, that's really important for our blind students. But it also can be helpful for neurodivergent students. And it also can be helpful for students who may have a really slow bandwidth at home, because they can download that alternative text and not download the image. So accessibility benefits, everyone is what I would say.
I'd agree with that. I'd also say that a lot of times the technology we have now. And accessible document actually looks more polished, more professional and nicer than an inaccessible document. It often you get your descriptive links, use the all the formatting within the formatting structure within within whatever, whatever you're using word Google Docs, what have you, it usually looks better, it usually looks nicer. Like, and that's, that's kind of the bitter irony of it is like you're doing something that's going to help everybody is gonna make you look better. And then people tell me, I don't know how to do it. I'm like, but it's gonna make your course content look better.
Yeah. That's great. more great tips. Okay, I have thought of another question. As you were talking about, keeps kind of like building off the bog guys, though. And I'm curious in terms of and I think Crystal, I think it was you who mentioned at the beginning for a quick thing that you see people not doing that they can do is the use of closed captions. And, you know, turning on closed captions when you can, whether it's, you know, videos are during presentations that support showing closed captions while you're doing like, I know, Google Slides does sure PowerPoint has something very similar. So my question is not a fully fleshed out thought. But I'm just curious around this concept of transcripts and captions, because we there is right, like our kids in particular, they use video, you know, and our adults are using video more and more. So my I'm being pulled to this whole caption thing a little bit in the context of that podcasts are so popular videos are so popular. What advice, or thoughts do you have around services, embedded features, just tips things people don't think about when it comes to video captions and transcripts for materials.
So a couple different things to technically be compliant. You have to have not just captions, but human edited captions. And that's something a lot of people don't realize. machine generated captions actually do not meet compliance standards. And its captions are something like you said help everybody, but they also help whoever's generating the content. So technically, if you have audio only you only need a transcript. If you have video, you must have the closed captions and that's as you would think of on like, your Netflix where it's got at the bottom, it's given you all the words. But if you write up a script, when you're going to record no matter what it is, it's going to make your life editing so much easier. Because you're gonna stay on track. You have a focused expected kind of train of thought. And then you know, immediately Oh, I got off track here. I need to edit here. And it's not wrong wanting to also give your students the capital or the transcript also with your video. It's not wrong at all. But they but it's kind of one of those things that a lot of times we have faculty who are like, Well, I just lecture about my head, I'm like, Yeah, but do you want to spend all that time editing? Wouldn't it be easier to just get it right the first time. And it's also going to help you kind of prevent having these videos that go on, and on and on. You know, nobody wants to sit through a three hour video anymore. If but your students want to sit through five minute videos, three minute video, seven minute videos, it's gonna help you stay focused and stay in that. So that's another one of those, like, accessibility helps everybody but it also helps you do your job more efficiently.
That's great. Jenny, do you have any anything to add to those thoughts?
No, she's exactly right. You have to go back and edit edit your captions. It's not negotiable. I love captions. I use them all the time. So I think it's definitely very popular in the younger generation.
Yeah, anyone who's ever taken their, their phone to the bathroom with them, has benefited from captured these days. So yeah, so great. No, thank you. That's really helpful. You know, just even just related to the podcast. You know, we tried to do transcripts, but already have a few ideas spinning through my head on how we can make that even better. So it helps your search engine optimization to you didn't know that helps your SEO.
Well, there we go. All right. Great. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a power packed episode. So I am so excited for our listeners to get to hear this and already I've been like literally my papers full just taking notes as you both are talking, talking of things that I want to make sure we are doing to the best of our ability. So thank you so so much.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, thanks for having me as well.
Not a problem at all. Glad we had this conversation tune in next time for a another great episode. We have some guests that were lined up. I'm not sure when that's all getting recorded and whatnot. So we're trying to get all the logistics worked out here.
But it will be in two more weeks. Tune in then. So be sure to subscribe to the restart, recharge podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also go to restart, recharge podcast.com And follow us on Twitter, Instagram, all the social media at our our coach
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