How can you improve e-learning for diverse learners?

It sounds fancy, but it's a skillset you already have. When guests are coming to your home, what do you do to make a good experience for them? Use this same mentality to serve the people who will be arriving to your eLearning. Do you want things to feel personal and welcoming? Personally welcome your target audience into real conversations with you, and learn from them. Want to gain trust? Be clear about what you're going to do, then deliver like you promised. Respect people's time. Want to delight people? Add some unexpected benefits for them. Want to make your content work for someone with specific needs? Test it, see where they struggle, where they don't, and adjust. This is not about dispensing content, it is about serving people.

Embracing diversity in e-learning is key! We believe that learning isn't a 'one-size-fits-all' journey. By tapping into digital tools, we offer varied learning modalities to meet each unique learner where they are—be it through videos for visual learners, podcasts for auditory ones, or interactive tasks for the hands-on enthusiasts. Digital platform can offer a buffet of knowledge, catering to every taste and preference.

A common mistake is to make all course material “accessible” right from the start without looking at the bigger picture. This is not always the best approach. Behring and Tobin (2018) recommend adopting Plus One thinking in applying UDL in course design. Reflect on where the issues are, then address one of those issues by adding one more option for students to provide flexibility and remove potential barriers. Consider issues such as are video captions preferable to a transcript? You may not need both. Or, how about accepting a video presentation or audio recording in place of a written submission? By adopting the One Plus approach you continually review your course material, improving each time you offer the course again.

It's great that we have things like the WCAG standard, but please remember this is the base minimum, not the sum of all best practices for everyone in all contexts. Ultimately, like everything, it comes down to usability testing. If you want to know something is good for the people you made it for, test and see. Taking the time to craft your work into something that works better for edge-case needs is almost always an improvement in all use cases. The more usability testing you do, the more you will see just how true this is!

It is essential that there is a meaningful utilization of accessibility features, going beyond mere compliance obligations. Imagine the following sentences and attempt to visualize them: 1. Two boys posing for the camera. 2. A pair of lively boys caught in a playful pose, being photographed. 3. Two enthusiastic boys, one standing behind the other, wearing smiles. They hold a sign advocating for 'Support Childhood Cancer.' Did distinct visualizations emerge for each sentence? This is what an individual with visual impairments experiences. Similar instances exist where the improper application of WCAG guidelines diminishes their impact. Thus, while your course must align with WCAG principles, the emphasis lies in their meaningful use.

Use Multimodal content. Presenting information in multiple formats (text, audio, video, interactive modules) caters to diverse learning styles and preferences. This will allow learners to choose the format that best suits their needs. Use inclusive language and imagery in learning materials to ensure that they are welcoming and relevant to all learners.

In my experience creating diverse learning spaces, I’ve found that encouraging students to provide feedback to one another not only boots engagement, but it fosters a strong sense of trust and community. I often share guidelines for how to offer feedback; like a glow and a grow or sentence stems to help get their ideas going. Students are supported by having the option to provide text, audio or graphic-based feedback.

The old rhyme, "Make new friends but keep the old; One is silver and the other's gold," can be applied here. Create your learning unit, and add adjunct material in iterative processes. If you start with still images, add gifs later. If you start with videos, add printable job aids later. By providing multi-format learning experiences and iterating on our courses, we create an environment where learners have a menu of options and can select the materials that best fit their individual needs. We also create opportunities for us as instructional designers to validate and revalidate material organically.

Be sure your photos, images, etc., are inclusive and sourced appropriately with a track record of purchase or acquisition source. While this may seem a "given," it's often not. Copyright infringement claims are coming in hot and heavy with all the acquisitions of image producers.