Episode

Episode | Quick Take

In Episode 151 of The A&P Professor podcast, host Kevin Patton is joined by Jennifer Stokes, Rachel Hopp, and Abbey Breckling to discuss the Anatomy and Physiology Student Accommodations Handbook. This handbook released by the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), provides instructors with evidence-based suggestions and best practices for making A&P labs and classrooms more inclusive and accessible for all students. Developed by a HAPS subcommittee, the handbook offers guidance on accommodating students with a wide range of needs, from physical limitations to visual or hearing impairments. The goal is to help instructors identify meaningful alternatives to standard lab protocols that promote student success. The handbook is organized by common accommodation requests and includes sections on universal design principles, making accommodations for temporary conditions, and incorporating tactile and visual aids. The HAPS committee plans to regularly update the handbook as new strategies and technologies emerge.

0:00:00 | Introduction
0:00:48 | How It Started
0:19:33 | Blue Sky’s From Now On *
0:20:38 | You Don’t Know You Need It Until You Do
0:32:57 | Brain Break *
0:35:36 | Opportunities for Learning
0:47:33 | Show Business *
0:51:03 | Exploring the Handbook
1:02:44 | Staying Connected

* Breaks

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Episode | Transcript

The A&P Professor podcast (TAPP radio) episodes are made for listening, not reading. This transcript is provided for your convenience, but hey, it’s just not possible to capture the emphasis and dramatic delivery of the audio version. Or the cool theme music.  Or laughs and snorts. And because it’s generated by a combo of AI robot and human transcription, it may not be exactly right. So I strongly recommend listening by clicking the audio player provided or the captioned audiogram.

Introduction

Kevin Patton (00:00:00):
Diversity Officer Rachel Olivero once stated, “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists. It is making a new space a better space for everyone.”

Aileen Park (00:00:17):
Welcome to The A&P Professor, a few minutes to focus on teaching human anatomy and physiology with a veteran educator and teaching mentor, your host, Kevin Patton.

Kevin Patton (00:00:32):
In episode 151, we chat with some of the folks behind the new Accommodations Handbook from HAPS.

How It Started

Kevin Patton (00:00:48):
Well, I’m really excited about having this conversation today with my three guests who I’ll introduce to you in just a moment because this is regarding a topic that is really dear to me. Over the course of my teaching career, I’ve run into issues with accommodations for students and I didn’t really find a lot of good resources to use, but HAPS, The Human Anatomy & Physiology Society has just released a new resource. It’s the Anatomy & Physiology Student Accommodations Handbook. If you want to kind of follow along during this conversation, it is out there and available on the HAPS website. Just go to hapsweb.org, that’s H-A-P-S-W-E-B.org, and look around for the resources, especially the member resources.

(00:01:44):
Now, you’re going to have to log in at that website before you’re going to be able to download and browse through this resource. But if that’s handy to you right now while you’re listening, that may not be a bad idea. You can always go back and refer to it anytime you want though. Just go to the HAPS website, log in, and it should be easy to find. HAPS is in the process of updating the website, so I hesitate to give you any specific directions, but it’s easy. Believe me, it’s easy to get to it.

(00:02:18):
Okay, so let’s meet our guest for this chat. First we have Jennifer Ann Stokes, PhD who’s an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She’s been a HAPS member since 2020 and she is chair of the Accommodations Subcommittee and that’s within the Curriculum & Instruction Committee. By the way, the Curriculum & Instruction Committee, those of us in the know always call it the C&I Committee. So when we start talking about C&I, you’ll know what that is, Curriculum & Instruction. And she’s also the Interim Chair of the HAPS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, DEI Committee. So Jennifer, welcome to our podcast.

Jennifer Stokes (00:03:06):
Hello. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin Patton (00:03:07):
And along with Jennifer, we have Rachel Hopp, PhD. She’s Associate Professor in Biology at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, and she’s been a HAPS member since 2006. She’s also on the HAPS board, and not only is she on the board, but she’s the upcoming president. She’s the president-elect. As of July 1st of this year, she is the president-elect, so she’ll be stepping into the hot seat sooner than she realizes. And then besides that, she has quite a background on the board. She’s been the Southern Regional Director of the HAPS board two different times, once in 2015 to 17, and another time, well actually continuing on to 2019. She’s also been the chair. She’s the recently stepping down chair of the HAPS Curriculum & Instruction Committee, the C&I Committee. So Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Rachel Hopp (00:04:08):
Hey, Kevin. Thank you for having us.

Kevin Patton (00:04:11):
And then we have Abbey Breckling, MS. She’s a lecturer in anatomy and cell biology at the College of Medicine, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and she’s been a HAPS member since 2018. And she is currently the chair of the C&I Committee and she’s also chair of the Lab Resource Subcommittee within the Anatomical Donor Stewardship Committee. Welcome to you Abbey.

Abbey Breckling (00:04:40):
Hi, Kevin. Thanks for having us today.

Kevin Patton (00:04:42):
Okay. So like I say, I’m really looking forward to this. I already said what we’re going to talk about and that’s this Student Accommodations Handbook. The name kind of says what we need to know, but it’s long, and so there’s more than just, well, what about accommodations? And so what is the purpose of this project and this handbook? Jennifer, you want to start us off with that?

Jennifer Stokes (00:05:09):
Absolutely Kevin, thank you. So like you said, yes, the handbook is a bit long, but there is a lot of really good information in it, and the overall goal of this handbook is to assist instructors in meeting student accommodation really by identifying meaningful alternatives to existing protocols. So things we kind of standard do in the lab for anatomy and physiology. So all of these suggestions come from HAPS members, professionals that are actively involved in providing accommodations to students and really focused on best practices supported by current research and the concepts of universal design. The goal and kind of our intention with this handbook and all these suggestions that are here is to make anatomy and physiology laboratories really as inclusive and accessible as possible, allowing all learners, really all of our students to achieve their desired level of success.

Kevin Patton (00:06:02):
Something that I picked up on in what you said in my browsing through the handbook is, and just to clarify for everybody, well actually just to clarify for me, that’s what’s important here, and that is this is mainly aiming at lab accommodations as opposed to what you would do in lecture. Am I seeing that correctly?

Jennifer Stokes (00:06:25):
Yeah, I think that’s correct, Kevin. Although a lot of what we talk about in the handbook, particularly around the concept of universal design could be extrapolated or also brought into potentially the lecture class or if maybe you use a pretty active learning environment in your lecture class, you might find some of these tools and suggestions helpful. But we do focus also a lot on a laboratory-specific activity such as dissection or things that are really only going to happen in the lab, maybe the use of microscopes, stuff like that. But depending on the type of classroom that you run, you might also find these suggestions really helpful and not even just your A&P lab course, but maybe the lecture class or other courses that you teach as well.

Kevin Patton (00:07:08):
I’m glad you explained that because I was kind of thinking to myself that maybe the de-emphasis of the lecture courses because there already are a lot of resources out there these days, much more so than when I first ran into accommodations issues. There’s a lot of resources out there for a traditional lecture-type situation, but you make the point that depending on how you teach your lecture, there could be some stuff you’re doing, activities. We do more and more active learning these days it seems. And so there could be different kinds of things that are really kind of like a lab-oriented sort of thing, but we’re doing it in the lecture course, so we could find some help for those things in this handbook too.

Rachel Hopp (00:08:00):
And I’ll just add in there, Kevin, if you don’t mind, that the only thing that was out there that was kind of close to the scope of what we were looking to achieve was the American Chemical Society had a handbook similar to what we’ve generated, and it was very chemistry-oriented, and we had a very different lab setting, and so that was part of the impetus for the project.

Kevin Patton (00:08:24):
Yeah, I really appreciate, well, I think that’s true of all of the HAPS resources, and that is one of the really cool things about them all is that they really hit me where I’m at in my teaching. So if I’m teaching A&P, or A or P, then I know that these resources are going to have things in it that I don’t have to adapt somehow and figure out how am I going to do this. That was a great idea to jump off of that platform in chemistry and say, well, here’s how we can do things in A&P. Thanks for that clarification, Rachel. Jennifer, was there anything else you wanted to say about the purpose of this before we move on to another topic?

Jennifer Stokes (00:09:10):
I do also want to highlight that really with the concepts of universal design and the different things that we talk about in the handbook, one of the goals as well is to produce an equitable environment for all learners to help with these different accommodation requests. So faculty are often familiar with accommodation requests, but in terms of how to meet those in an equitable way and to really support student learning and success, maybe there’s some suggestions here that people will find helpful.

Kevin Patton (00:09:38):
Yeah. Just to throw in a little example of my long and as yet incomplete journey in trying to be more inclusive for my students. Early in my career in my A&P course, I had a student who was pretty good in my class and he always sat right in front and seemed very enthusiastic and asked good questions and so on. At the end of A&P two, we had our final exam and he was the last person to turn in his exam, so it was just me and him in the classroom. And he came up and he thanked me for a course that I already knew that he found interesting, and he says, “I am probably going to end up with a B.” He said, “But I think I could have easily gotten an A if I could have heard everything you said.” And I said, what? And he said, “Yeah, I’m hard of hearing and you don’t realize it but probably, but you turn around and face the whiteboard and the screen a lot when you’re talking.”

(00:10:40):
And he said, “Even when you’re walking around in the classroom, you’ll face in one direction, but you’re not facing where I’m sitting all the time.” And I just, oh, my heart sank because I thought this is somebody who was not always included yet was an enthusiastic and hardworking student who could have done better, although B is pretty good. He could have done a little bit better had I paid more attention to being inclusive. And so having a resource like this that’s going to kind of wake me up to some of those ideas. Now that one I’m already awakened to, but to wake us up to some things that we can be doing to include all our students. This is a wonderful thing. Let’s move over to Rachel, who having been chair of the C&I Committee for so long, and that has a good overview of the history of this. You kind of gave us a hint there with the chemistry stuff.

Rachel Hopp (00:11:42):
Yeah.

Kevin Patton (00:11:42):
How did this get started and how did it develop?

Rachel Hopp (00:11:46):
Well, like most things in HAPS, it happens because of conversations between HAPS members. And so I was on the board my second term, and Elizabeth Hodgson-Shearer was another board member, and we were just having these side conversations about what we were seeing on the HAPS Listserv, that people were getting accommodation requests and they didn’t quite know what to do or what was reasonable or what suggestions, what they should do. And so we were seeing this and we’re like, wow, we don’t really know how to answer all of this. And then there would be, of course, in the HAPS Listserv, there are people that chime in with great responses.

(00:12:29):
And I can remember that Barbara Heard was one of them, and she wrote some really interesting remarks to somebody. I think she said something to somebody. I’ll just read it. This is back in 2017. “There need to be standards regarding the accommodations that are provided to students with disabilities in the science laboratory, instructors and DSS,” which is one of the many abbreviations for disability or accommodations type office personnel. “They need evidence-based research in order to make informed decisions regarding the accommodations that are provided to students with disabilities.”

(00:13:05):
And then she goes on to talk about how the accommodation services personnel, sometimes they don’t know the best way to work in our spaces in anatomy and physiology. Sometimes the instructors don’t know. And so there’s just kind of this need to have resources. And so anyway, that’s where we were in 2017. And in 2019 when I stepped off the board, I had some passion for C&I and they asked me to be the C&I chair at that time. And I said, “Okay.” And I thought I was going to get a break, but I decided, yes, I am pretty passionate about the C&I, the curriculum and instruction topic. And so I agreed to chair that committee and I had three subcommittees in mind to get some things accomplished, and one of them was accommodations.

(00:14:00):
And Abbey who I could see was really passionate about the topic too. And I said, “Do you want to be the subcommittee chair?” And she agreed and she might comment later on about that, but we just started talking and this was 2019 and we had other people that were interested. We got Barbara Heard from the Listserv, and I’d like to put her website in the show notes for you because I think she’s got a lot of resources there as well in addition to the handbook that we have. And so she was on the subcommittee and there were a bunch of other people that, I’m not going to name all of them, but they were just willing to meet in 2019. And we were just thinking about different ideas and we’re like, well, maybe we should do a survey because we don’t know every accommodation request that’s out there and maybe we need to hear more from HAPS members.

(00:14:57):
And so we started creating this survey and it was gargantuan big and it had too many questions and it was just going to be difficult to use all that information. And so we kind of stepped back and we decided, well, maybe that’s not the way it’s going to go. And then of course, the shutdown happened in 2020 and most labs were not meeting in person. And so we thought really the direction of the handbook, which was going to be lab oriented all the time, we’ll just take a pause. And so we didn’t work on the topic for a year. And then in late 2021, as labs were going hybrid, we decided, well, we really need to reinvigorate this. People still get these accommodation letters. There’s still quite a need. And so we started thinking that our webinars in HAPS, which we call town halls, were really bringing in pretty big audiences of interested HAPS members.

(00:15:58):
And so we decided we would do a town hall series in January of 2022, and we picked that time period because we wanted instructors to have that information at the beginning of their semester because that’s when they usually get those letters of accommodation. And so that meant the committee was doing a lot of work at the end of 2021, which is instructors doing their final exams and holiday times and break and all this. And I couldn’t believe how excited our committee members were and how dedicated they were to have these meetings in their December where they could have really probably taken a break. And so they put together this town hall series and it was awesome, and it was a way for us to share what we had learned, but really get a lot of feedback from members in HAPS and questions and so forth. And so those town halls are still on the HAPS website if you want to go back and look at that information.

(00:17:04):
And so we gleaned a lot of information from the town hall and through the next couple of years doing some posters and workshops, gathered more information and really decided we wanted a written document to have all of this together so that an instructor that gets a letter of accommodation can then see that there are multiple suggestions for how they might be able to meet that accommodation. And so it was like we never intended to have a one size fits all scenario. Your letter says this and you’re supposed to do that. It was never supposed to be like that because we knew that there’s a lot of nuanced issues with institutions having different resources and different laws in different states and so on. And so we wanted this handbook to really have a lot of various suggestions for our instructors. So anyway, I’m very proud of the work that Abbey and that Jennifer and the whole committee have put into this document. And I was looking at it this morning and just kind of breezing through the sections. It’s like 62 pages long and just thinking, wow, this is amazing.

Kevin Patton (00:18:23):
It sounds amazing. It makes me tired hearing all the work that went into this. That’s, congratulations to everybody who is involved because that’s work that helps support all the rest of us. That’s work that we as individual members of HAPS don’t need to do ourselves because you guys did that. So kudos to all of you for doing that. And I was aware of this project going on and understood when it came out. At the recent HAPS conference we had in St. Louis, I got to learn a little bit more about it and I knew there was some work involved. I mean, there always is in these sorts of things, but I appreciate Rachel, you kind of laying out that there were many different aspects of how this developed and how the resources were envisioned and then put together. So that’s super. I’ll be back with Jennifer Stokes, Abbey Breckling, and Rachel Hopp in just a minute.

BlueSky’s From Now On

Kevin Patton (00:19:33):
I’ve been hearing more and more from people in the anatomy and physiology teaching community that they’re leaving the X platform, formerly known as Twitter for a variety of reasons. That’s not too surprising given the several controversies related to X. but it’s also not surprising because well change. Yeah, change happens all the time. And in the world of social media and internet communication, the pace of change feels like it’s accelerating. If you’re one of those who have taken flight from X or currently in the process of flying the coop, then you may be checking out the BlueSky social platform. Did you know that The A&P Professor is active in BlueSky? Why not follow us there by searching for The A&P Professor? There’s a link in the show notes for this episode too.

You Don’t Know You Need It Until You Do

Abbey Breckling (00:20:38):
I’d like to just kind of toot Rachel’s horn, that she really got all of this started and we wouldn’t have been able to even publish onto the HAPS web without her and her really great initiatives. But in any case, our committee was phenomenal in getting all of this written down and reviewed. But one thing that I do want to highlight is that we really took the time to get outside reviewers, not just in the town halls and the posters. That was a really crucial moment, but we even had a posting on the Listserv and we basically said, hey, if you’re an expert in any one of these areas, we’d really love for you to come and review these sections. And so I think that that’s a really crucial part to highlight because it wasn’t just our committee members who put together these suggestions. These really came from multiple HAPS members and even outside institutions.

(00:21:42):
I know I sent the handbook when it was in its review process even to my own disability office at my own institution, and they also gave another set of eyes and reviewed that as well. So it really is this huge compilation of, I would say probably 40 to 50 people who have looked at this document and reviewed it and has given it into its final stages now. So I’m also very proud of everyone who’s worked on this, and I don’t think I can say thank you enough for everyone who’s put in the time and effort to kind of get this to this final stage here of publication on the HAPS web.

Rachel Hopp (00:22:19):
I would like to add to that Abbey and toot Abbey’s horn because she’s been great on this. And I also want to say a big thank you to Jennifer Stokes for leading the tremendous work of doing the final editing, reviewing, revising, and formatting of the handbook. We appreciate her leadership in coordinating not only the subcommittee of writers, but also all the necessary interactions with our external reviewers during that process. There were so many people involved, as we’ve kind of alluded to. The full list of contributing subcommittee members will be in the show notes and we definitely want to acknowledge their work for the handbook.

(00:23:02):
Yes, cross-pollination with the diversity equity and inclusion committee on this and really worked on those inclusivity issues, but also from this committee we’re able to advise even the conference committee because there have been issues at one of the HAPS conferences with people with being able to hear the speaker or visually the room one time had a lot of ambient light, and so it kind of made it hard to see the screen if there wasn’t a lot of contrast. And so even out of this committee, we made recommendations to the HAPS conference committee about some things, and that was really with Abbey’s help.

Abbey Breckling (00:23:46):
Kevin, that kind of goes back to your student interaction, right, about talking or looking at the whiteboard when talking. It’s just a simple quick fix. Walk around with a portable mic, but sometimes we don’t even know that that’s an option or you don’t know that you actually need another suggestion or other suggestions to kind of help you in those situations.

Kevin Patton (00:24:08):
Well, yeah, that’s a great point because part of the solution to that I guess was for me to really start to be more conscious of where I’m facing. The more conscious we get of those sorts of things, the more we can take actual steps. And back then, I mean that’s all I thought I could do is just pay more attention to where I’m facing because not everyone, I know that, and maybe we can get into this a little bit later, there are different rules and requirements and so on for people who have a documented need for accommodation. But I think that a lot of people, maybe everyone has some little thing somewhere that they struggle with in a classroom and they’re not going to say anything because they don’t want to cause trouble. They don’t want to be annoying, they don’t want to be a burden on anyone.

(00:25:03):
And yet I think we as instructors are becoming more and more aware of such issues and hopefully are becoming, maybe developing their empathy in cases like that, in taking some extra steps to make sure everything is accessible. And we need the resources, we need advice on how to do that. So I guess Abbey turning to you. Here’s this big book. It’s not, okay. I was going to say it’s not something you want to just sit down and read through, but I kind of did. I didn’t really read, read it, I just kind of skimmed through it. So it’s not really probably meant for that. How do I, as an A&P instructor, what are some ways that I can use this thing for my own little individual world?

Abbey Breckling (00:26:02):
Yeah, thanks for that question. I think when we look or download this document and see the 62-page length, it’s extremely intimidating to look at a document that large. So I first want to say that we were very intentional about the way that this handbook was organized. And so we actually had a lot of back and forth conversation about what titles do we use for each section, how do we go about the planning and then the writing within each section. And so what it really came down to was that this handbook was going to be for instructors who received letters of accommodation. And so how this handbook is then organized is that we sort of, I guess if you will, polled common letters of accommodation occurrences that you would actually get on a letter, that an instructor would get.

(00:27:01):
So for instance, extended time or distraction reduced environments, or specifically receiving a leave of absence. So those are some things or some instances or topics I guess, that you would see on a letter of accommodation. And that’s how we went about organizing this. And so if you receive a letter that says you need to have extended time for a specific student, this document’s really easy because one, well, we have this really nicely organized table of contents, but everyone knows how to use Ctrl F. And so if you do that and type in a leave of absence or extended time or whatever is pertinent on that letter, there’s then a full list of suggestions there that can be utilized within labs and how to approach these certain situations. And Jennifer alluded to this earlier, most of these have the intention as well of having this sort of universal design or universal approach to these suggestions as well. So that’s kind of first and foremost, is that the organization and how you can use this was really intentional within our membership and with the final publication in writing.

(00:28:24):
Rachel earlier gave a quote I think in the middle of probably making this handbook and it was, “You don’t know that you need this resource until you actually need it.” And I think that that is a really, a strong take home message because a lot of instructors, they don’t know that they need more suggestions or they don’t know if they need additional help until they get a letter of accommodation and it has a specific instance on there and you’re saying, how the heck am I supposed to do this in an anatomy lab where I have donors, or where they have to move around very frequently, or they’re looking at microscopes, or there’s many, many unique scenarios within the A&P labs. So the idea there is that instructors, once you’re given that letter, you can go to this document, you can search for the specific accommodation, and then you have, I’m not going to say an exhaustive list, but they’re really, really great suggestions and for how to then approach that accommodation so that students can be successful within whatever learning activity or whatever learning environment you’re providing.

(00:29:30):
In the grand scheme of things, I think we want to consider that this is going to be an ongoing or if you will, living document. And so what the committee also decided was that these suggestions or these suggestive lists are also going to be ever evolving. And so we’ve decided that at approximately every five years, we’re going to take the time to analyze and review these documents or this long document and these sections to then have this substantial revision process. And so that’s really what Jennifer has already started. We’ve compiled even a document already for revisions that we want to include in the future because of some new legislation or some new also suggestions that have came out even recently. So I think this work that we’ve done is very impactful and very useful for now instructors within A&P, but it can also be transferable to other classrooms.

(00:30:35):
But the kind of stamp on this is that we’re doing this to create a better opportunity for learning for our students, and I think that’s kind of the take home message and the mission between all of us working in this committee too, is that we’re in these really unique opportunity or these unique classroom opportunities to how can we best focus our attention and our time so that students can learn effectively and that’s everyone in the classroom, not just students who can see adequately or hear adequately. We want to capture everyone. If you’re hearing this in the show notes, we also provided an email so that if you have suggestions while listening to this podcast, feel free to email your suggestions and we’re happy to include that within our revision process in the future as well.

Jennifer Stokes (00:31:31):
If you don’t mind, I kind of want to jump in a little bit as well in terms of not just how to use the handbook for accommodations, like the official letters that we get, but I feel like also the handbook. And I take this from my own experience mostly because I learned so much just by helping produce this, working with so many people with so much knowledge on these topics that through that process I made notes like, oh, well I can make this small change in my class and that’ll benefit everyone, particularly those students that may not think to speak up or necessarily want to because maybe they don’t have that official letter. And so I think the handbook can also be used that way.

(00:32:14):
If you just maybe are interested in making some small changes to your classes to increase the accessibility and inclusivity, maybe look through the handbook. And you might find a suggestion here or there that you could just implement to increase that aspect of your course that wouldn’t necessarily take you a lot of time, but may have a pretty large impact in the course. So just a thought as well.

Rachel Hopp (00:32:40):
The universal design aspect is huge. It has changed the way that I teach A&P, just getting things ready from the get-go and just all the things I’ve learned from the committee members.

Kevin Patton (00:32:52):
Let’s take a breather.

Brain Break

Kevin Patton (00:32:57):
When I listen to podcasts or when I consume any kind of presentation or media, I used to get annoyed at those intrusive breaks for advertising or announcements like this one, but then I started running into anecdotes and actual research that confirmed that such breaks can actually help us get more out of a podcast episode or other presentation. Now that I know that such breaks are slightly less annoying. Research findings are a little fuzzy on the exact best timing of the span between breaks and the best length of a break, but a break of about a minute or two or three in between segments of 15 to 20 minutes falls well within what’s found to work best. Fine-tuning that is probably fuzzy because there’s such diversity in how our brains work best. A question that comes to mind is how do breaks help?

(00:34:12):
Here are some possible answers that have emerged. One is that breaks help us avoid cognitive overload and that helps us process information. Another one is that breaks provide mental rest that helps prevent fatigue. Another one is that breaks divert our attention to something else for a bit so that we can return to the content with fresh attention and re-engagement. Yet another one is breaks help our brain compress and consolidate memories of what we just learned. And yet another is because people learn best in 15 to 20 minute chunks, breaks provide a convenient format to chunk the content of a long episode. I have some links in the show notes for this episode if you’re thinking about why and how to incorporate breaks into your presentations. Now, regular listeners may have noticed that I started following this segment—break—segment pattern for quite a while. It’s to help you get more out of each episode. You’re welcome.

(00:35:30):
Hey, break’s over. Let’s get back to it.

Opportunities For Learning

Kevin Patton (00:35:36):
At several points in this conversation, a little question or reflection would pop into my head, and then you guys addressed it directly and that’s awesome. You can tell that in working together, you folks have developed a real feel for what the needs of people like me are. That is for the ordinary in the trenches A&P instructor. What are some of the issues? Going back to something Abbey said about when you get one of those letters, oh boy, as soon as you mentioned that I could, feels a little shift in my cardiac activity because I’ve had a few cases where I’ve gotten one of those letters and either didn’t understand what they were asking of me or didn’t have a clue as to how I was going to do that in the way that my course was set up.

(00:36:29):
So knowing that there’s something like that I think gives us all a reassurance that when we face that and we will face something new, maybe we think we’ve seen it all, but there’ll be something that we haven’t seen and now what are we going to do? I really appreciate having that resource available. And Jennifer and Rachel, when you brought up the universal design aspect, I was kind of thinking along those lines just as you were saying it, and that is something else that I’ve learned along the way and I see that you’ve incorporated into this document, is a lot of times I’ve found that when I’m doing something to accommodate or support a particular population or potential population of students in my courses or whatever, I find out that it helps a bunch of other people. An example is not in my regular classroom teaching, but in this podcast. I have from the beginning really worked hard to provide transcripts and now some podcast players, including Apple Podcast has captions that are available.

(00:37:39):
All along I provided captions by way of YouTube videos because in the early days of this podcast, that was really the only option to provide captions and I was thinking of people like me who are hard of hearing. A lot of us, we may be able to hear some or maybe even most of what is being said in a podcast or in a video or whatever, but there are some things we don’t hear and it sometimes can affect the meaning we take from it, especially in something like anatomy and physiology where the terminology is so complex and a lot of terms are actually very similar to one another. And so if we mistake it for something other than what was really spoken, then we could be in some trouble. And if it’s happening a lot in something we’re trying to learn from, then it becomes an even bigger issue.

(00:38:33):
So in that experience of providing transcripts and captions, I’ve had a lot of feedback from people who do not consider themselves to be hard of hearing, but they still use captions and they still use transcripts for a variety of things. Sometimes it’s to fill in things they don’t quite hear. Maybe it’s because my audio’s bad, and we were kind of joking around a little bit before we started recording about how I have this habit of turning away from the microphone and my voice drops out. And so that could be filled in with a caption where, hey, you didn’t hear that phrase, but here it is in the captions. So that gets back to that universal design idea of the more we can do to provide support for every kind of learner, I think we’re all going to be surprised. I continue to be surprised at how many other people we’re helping when we do that for reasons that just never occurred to us when we were first providing those supports.

Abbey Breckling (00:39:34):
One other aspect that I would also like to touch on is that this handbook is also a really great opportunity for instructors to create a conversation with their own disability office. This is yes, specific to A&P, but sometimes and from my own experiences, disability offices or accessibility offices, whatever the term is at your own institution, they sometimes don’t know how to approach specific accommodations in specific labs or specific classes. And so I think also one of the goals of this guidebook is that it can start conversations around how do we best support our students in our classroom? And if that’s specific to A&P, that’s fantastic, but if it’s for other courses, that’s even more exponential to our initial goal.

Kevin Patton (00:40:31):
An aspect of what you just said that really touched me is develop those team-like relationships. I think that all of us work better that way, so it’s a very good point. I appreciate you bringing that up. Sort of related to that, something that you’ve all mentioned in this conversation that I want to make sure I get to, and that is that you’ve learned a lot along the way. I mean, how could you not learn new things in working on this? So if each of you could share just one thing that you learned from this process that you think would be helpful to anyone listening, that would be great. Jennifer, let’s start with you because you’re first on my list here, so.

Jennifer Stokes (00:41:18):
Oh man. Calling me out. All right.

Kevin Patton (00:41:19):
Yeah. I told you I was going to do that.

Jennifer Stokes (00:41:22):
I know, I know. And I wasn’t prepared. No, I would say one of the biggest things that came from working with so many people was just so I’m in a small institution, we’re a small liberal arts institution, and so when it comes to both the number of official accommodations that I get as well as kind of the range of them, I would say in my experience, pretty limited based on what I hear other faculty members are and having to accommodate in their labs. And so that has allowed me to really kind of reflect on my teaching and then also kind of preemptively prepare for some things that will eventually probably come my way that I will be asked to accommodate in class. So it’s allowed me to think ahead, right, which kind of going back to what Rachel and Abbey have said, you don’t know that you need this until you need it. Right.

(00:42:16):
And so it kind of allowed me to prepare kind of in advance. Okay. So if I do have a student that comes in that’s going to be working in my A&P class in a wheelchair with some physical accommodations, what can I do now to go ahead and start to prepare for that? Then in the end, it’s also going to benefit everyone else as well. Also, I’ve learned a lot about some of these other accommodations or maybe even temporary conditions, different things that again, just never thought about, but it’s helped kind of open my eyes and my mind to different things that I can potentially accommodate in the lab to help everyone.

Kevin Patton (00:42:50):
So Abbey, what about you? What’s something that you learned in this whole process?

Abbey Breckling (00:42:56):
Oh, gosh. I’ve learned so much. It’s hard to pick one. I think what I’ve sort of taken away, I’m not going to give you one example because I don’t think I can actually pick one, but I think I’ve learned to just sort of pay attention also to my surroundings. I have a good family friend who is actually a pastry chef and she was doing these classes and she wanted to make sure that when she was standing at the front of the classroom, that everyone else in the audience could see, and so she had this really thin mirrored plastic that was angled so that they could see what was in the bowl and what she was working with. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I can totally use this in a classroom. I mean, you’d have to involve a little bit of maintenance individuals probably to hang this object, but what a great thing to utilize in a lab classroom or over a donor table so that everyone can see maybe how I’m dissecting and so that other students could see it.

(00:43:59):
I have yet to implement this. But I think it’s just being aware of your surroundings and how, not just in a classroom, but how are other people approaching this topic and how can we bring that into our classrooms as well? So little nuances like that I think have really opened up my eyes.

Kevin Patton (00:44:20):
I’m going to use one of those. That sounds pretty cool. And I know what you’re talking about. I think I’ve seen at least something similar. That would be awesome for a lab. We’re going to start seeing a lot more of those now that you’ve mentioned that on this podcast.

Abbey Breckling (00:44:35):
I think they’re pretty common in cooking classes, but.

Rachel Hopp (00:44:38):
The Julia Child method from her TV show.

Abbey Breckling (00:44:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Patton (00:44:44):
All right. Well, she was a great teacher, right? I mean, look at how many people have learned to cook from her.

Rachel Hopp (00:44:49):
Well, they had that show about her show and yeah, she developed that idea.

Kevin Patton (00:44:54):
Oh, she did? I didn’t realize that she use, oh wow. Now I’m even more impressed with her than I was before. So cool. Well, Rachel, what about you? What are some things that you’ve…

Rachel Hopp (00:45:06):
A lot of the things that have already been said. We are fortunate enough to be going through a lab redesign, so that really having the information from the handbook helped me think about the space for students that might be in wheelchairs and so forth, like all those things. But I think one of the things that was a real aha moment, and I haven’t gotten to use this particular one yet, but I thought that is so cool when I heard it within the committee was if you had something sharp or hot on the lab bench and you had a student that was visually impaired and they might not see it, you can put sandpaper on the bench right near that object, so whether it’s a Bunsen burner or anything else, that they can feel that change in texture and have a warning sign. And I thought that’s genius. I never would’ve thought to do something like that.

Kevin Patton (00:46:00):
That’s a cool tip. That kind of reminds me of those little bumps that are on the crosswalks on roads and that kind of give a tactual warning. That’s a neat idea.

Rachel Hopp (00:46:12):
And I guess one more on the tactile was like it would take time, but you have some instructors or artistic or their students might be artistic, but you can have them use puffy paints to draw things in two dimensions that can be felt because of their texture change, like the shape of a cell and all of its organelles could be done in puffy paints and things like that, which can be tactile. Things I had never thought about doing and I haven’t used them, but I have them tucked away now that when that occasion arises, I’m ready for it.

Kevin Patton (00:46:46):
That might be one that would be just fun to do anyway, for everybody to make a puffy cell.

Jennifer Stokes (00:46:53):
That actually put into one of our revision topic that we have on our list for when we start to go through the handbook and update it for the next iteration, is we’ve actually connected with people at the last HAPS annual meeting that work on 3D printed models of cells or other things that allow for visually impaired individuals to learn in more of the tactile fashion. And 3D printing is relatively cheap compared to a lot of different things that are out there. So yeah, that actually is something that will be looked at for future ideas.

Kevin Patton (00:47:29):
Let’s take a quick break.

Show Business

Kevin Patton (00:47:34):
Break time again. Hey, in every episode of this podcast at some point I mention that I have links available in the show notes. Now you may already have a clear idea of what I mean by show notes, but maybe not. I’m referring to a set of information and resources that relate to a specific episode. The show notes start with a quick take, which is a brief summary of the episode, just a few sentences along with a time stamped list of each segment and break. In audio media lingo, these are called chapters, and you can skip directly to any of the chapters by using the time stamps and or using the skip feature in the app where you’re listening. Not all apps have that skip -chapter button, but they all let you go to a specific time.

(00:48:35):
Next in the show notes is an embedded audio player set to play that specific episode. And just under that, is the main body of notes starting with the quotation that you always hear at the beginning of each episode. And then it lists a subtitle and length for each segment along with a short summary for that segment. And then there’s a list of links to references and resources that relate to the content of the episode. And then after that is a link to the digital credential for professional development that you can claim for listening to the episode. And that’s followed by a video player that plays the captioned audiogram of the episode. And below that is a full transcript of the episode and that’s a searchable transcript.

(00:49:26):
So if you can’t remember which episode it was that you heard five or six years ago about a particular topic, just search within the website and you’ll find it. Actually just searching within Google will often get you there pretty easily. At the very bottom of each set of show notes is a pre-formatted citation that you can use if you refer to the episode in any of your own work. And that’s it. That’s enough, isn’t it?

(00:49:56):
That’s a lot of stuff there. Well, if it’s not enough for you, then let me know what’s missing and I’ll see about putting it in there. We’ll try to work that out. By the way, all of these elements are present in the show notes at the episode page at the website. That is theAPprofessor.org. The show notes are also usually available in the blog, The A&P Professor podcast app and other podcasts or music apps or wherever you listen to audio. However, there’s always some elements that are missing just because of the way each particular platform is formatted and the kind of data or element that it can handle. If it’s not missing, it might be truncated, but there’ll always be a link to the episode page at The A&P Professor website where all of those elements are there in their full glory. So hey, you know what? Let’s get back to our main program.

Exploring the Handbook

Kevin Patton (00:50:59):
Okay. Well there’s obviously a lot of people involved in this and they did. Oh my gosh, looking at what came out of this and understanding in these projects how much work has to go on in the background to produce something of this size and quality. Man, that’s really something. I mean, that’s really an accomplishment. And I’m so grateful as an educator myself to have something like this that I can always refer back to. It’s pretty huge. I mean, there are a lot of different things in there that I’m sure that I’m not going to be needing to refer to all of them all at once, but knowing that they’re there is helpful so that when I do need this part or that part or the other part, that there’s a place I can go and at least start there and if not end there as well as far as any help I would need in order to serve my students for their accommodations, whatever it is they need to be successful.

(00:52:06):
So as I’m just kind of scanning over the table of contents of the handbook, well one thing that pops out here that is somewhat unexpected, but it does make sense, but I wasn’t thinking along these lines and that is considerations for temporary conditions. So what’s that about? What are some examples of temporary conditions and how is that useful to me as an instructor? Abbey, you want to handle that?

Abbey Breckling (00:52:38):
Personally, think that this section of the handbook was probably one of the more organic sections. As you’ve heard throughout our session today, that we had a lot of people working on this handbook and a lot of these accommodations were coming from past experiences that our subcommittee members had dealt with over the years. And we started to get this list of, oh, well, I had a student come in with a broken bone and they needed an accommodation for one or two exams, or I had a student who was pregnant and I had to make some alterations in my class or my lab for that student to continue. So this section is or was super organic in the construction of it and it was truly gathered really, or the initial stages from just past experiences. So this section for temporary condition is thought to be certain accommodations that are not on a continuum, meaning that a student’s going to come in and maybe they only have this accommodation for a semester or half a semester or maybe a few exams in that case.

(00:53:51):
So we wanted to provide a list or suggestions for how to approach these accommodations when maybe you’re not thinking of these all the time, but there are these one-offs sort of situations. So for instance, if someone has an allergic reaction, we’ve provided some examples. What about conjunctivitis or pink eye or like I mentioned before, pregnancy or even after labor and delivery, right, thinking about students who maybe are nursing as well. So we provided these long lists of, all right, if we’re not dealing with these on this long-term basis, we can still as instructors on a short-term basis, how do we create an equitable learning environment for anyone who potentially may have need? This section is long, but I think we spent a lot of time on one of our sections with physical accommodation. Jennifer, I know that you spent a lot of time on this. Maybe you want to comment on some of the physical accommodations.

Jennifer Stokes (00:54:57):
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you Abbey. And I actually feel that this section, the physical accommodation section goes hand in hand with some of the temporary conditions as well. So as an instructor within the kinesiology department, I have a number of student athletes in my courses, and so it is not uncommon that any given week I will have a student come in either having concussion issues or maybe they broke a bone in a recent match or something. And so we are constantly accommodating or having to come up with creative solutions to still help protect their health and wellness while allowing them to succeed in the class. And some of those can be found within the physical accommodation section and in working on this section collaboratively with other individuals on the subcommittee, definitely learned a lot about other options that I can provide in the lab to help my students.

(00:55:44):
For example, you can pick up beakers like lab beakers that use to measure different liquids, but they have a handle on them, making them easier to carry because it’s a smaller grip versus a larger grip, different strength involved there. And so that’s definitely something that might be worth considering just having around in case you might need it on the fly because you have a temporary accommodation. Other examples include sinks with lever handles, making them easier to turn or spring-loaded garden scissors instead of dissection shears that are easier to use if you have dexterity issues, which could be due to a long-term condition or maybe a temporary condition because you strained your wrist or something in practice.

(00:56:24):
One of the things I think is really important that we have in our handbook as well is pictures of all of these. So if you’re like, what are spring-loaded scissors or what does a beaker with a handle look like? You can check out the handbook and we have pictures in there to show you what this new piece of equipment might look like. And yeah, I’ve definitely moved to having in my lab some of these just available in case students might need them or to have them on hand for when another accommodation comes in. So definitely something to consider. And another accommodation section that I think deserves a good mention is the visual accommodation section. Rachel, do you have thoughts on that?

Rachel Hopp (00:57:00):
I do want to speak on the visual accommodation section. A lot of times we are getting a letter of accommodation request that says a student’s going to need to use a screen reader or have access to material in large or specific font or something like that. And so we might anticipate that our student’s going to need some visually specific materials that are going to have to be accommodated for working in an A&P lab, it comes to mind right away are models and using a microscope. And so models can actually be labeled with braille or different kinds of bump dots that are physically able to be touched, but there’s also these really cool audible labels. And so you attach these labels and then you use a pen-like device and it actually reads whatever is on the label. And so these are actually not that expensive. You can get them on Amazon and places like that because people use them in their homes to be able to read labels on things like canned food or items in their medicine cabinet.

(00:58:11):
And so one of the cool things working on this subcommittee is finding these dual-purpose uses of equipment that’s already out there and also two-dimensional pictures can be enhanced with some type of embossing or even puffy paints for microscopes. You can have microscope images that are enlarged or even color corrected on a computer, or you may use printed photos instead. I recently had a class where I gave a lab practical where I use both microscopes and printed pictures for every slide for the whole class. So all students had the same kinds of accessibility for that. And you can have specific 3D printed models that can provide some customized solutions. For safety, screen readers or braille compatible devices might be necessary in the lab if you have any safety instructions that are posted around the lab that other people are reading the visual print. So you might need to have some accessible writing on those.

(00:59:26):
And then as far as universal design tips, of course most of us already know about alt-text labels, so those are descriptions that you put whenever you’re using an image and something so that a screen reader can read it. We also found out in another C&I subcommittee that tables of text can create problems for screen readers. And so trying to avoid using tables and then of course using large fonts and optimizing your contrast is important for visuals and trying to avoid things like use of red and green or blue and yellow as color pairings. Don’t put a green arrow on top of a red structure or something like that. And so those are things you can be doing whenever you’re building new materials so that in the future if you need this accommodation, it’s already kind of baked in how you’ve made your materials. And so all of those were really cool things that I learned in the process of being on this subcommittee and have been trying to keep implementing those as I develop new materials.

Kevin Patton (01:00:43):
Well, the more you three talk about this and the more I scan through what I see here, the more I realize I really want to dive into this. And man, I wish I would’ve had a beaker with a handle when I was doing labs as an undergraduate student just because I’m clumsy. I don’t know if I could have gotten an official accommodation for that, but it sure would’ve helped me. But that kind of gets to what has been mentioned a few times already and that is this whole idea of universal design, that the more of these things we build in for maybe thinking of a specific case, or a specific student, or just knowledge of the fact that this might come up in the future, it’s going to help all students or at least potentially can help all students. So this is an awesome project.

(01:01:30):
Well, I’m glad to hear that HAPS and its committees and this committee are going to continue to work on these things and keep them updated and as things change because they will and add to it with new ideas. And I’m thinking now we need to get you folks together again for another episode sometime where we can go through all these tips that you’ve run across because I think that’d be a fabulous episode that would really get people thinking about ways they can incorporate some of this stuff in their teaching. Thanks so much for all of you making the time to get together and coordinating with each other so we could find a good time. Thanks not only for your discussion today helping us understand this new Anatomy & Physiology Student Accommodations Handbook, but thank you also for all the hard work you and everyone that you’ve mentioned has done to bring this to fruition and launch this into the world. So I wish you luck as this all continues, and I appreciate your being here.

Jennifer Stokes (01:02:41):
Thank you, Kevin for having us.

Abbey Breckling (01:02:44):
Thanks, Kevin.

Rachel Hopp (01:02:44):
Thank you, Kevin.

Staying Connected

Kevin Patton (01:02:45):
I can’t tell you how much I’ve needed this. For decades I’ve needed a source to go to, a starting place for accommodations that is particularly geared to teaching anatomy and physiology. I’ve needed this many times and I wish it was there and I’m glad it’s here now. I’m so grateful to this group within the Human Anatomy & Physiology Society for putting their shoulders to it and doing the hard work of getting together all of this advice and all of these resources so that we have a starting point. And it’s within the umbrella of HAPS, which means that not only do we have a starting point, we have a built-in network of colleagues that we can lean on, and get advice from, and share ideas with, and figure things out. I’ve had a lot of fun just going through the manual and seeing the different kinds of things that are there.

(01:03:48):
I really recommend that you do take a few minutes to go through and at least skim through what kinds of things are there and have it handy, have a link to it handy or a printout of it handy so that when the time comes when you’re going to need this part or that part, you’ll know exactly where to start. I have some links in the show notes, and if you don’t see the links in your podcast player, go to the show notes at the episode page at theAPprofessor.org/151 where you can explore any of the ideas mentioned in this podcast. And while you’re there, you can claim your digital credential for listening to this episode. And you’re always encouraged to call in with your questions, comments, and ideas at the podcast hotline. That’s 1-833-LION-DEN, or 1-833-546-6336. Or send a recording message to podcast@theAPprofessor.org. I’ll see you down the road.

Aileen Park (01:04:59):
The A&P Professor is hosted by Dr. Kevin Patton, an award-winning professor and textbook author in human anatomy and physiology.

Kevin Patton (01:05:14):
Caution. Do not use this episode near fire, flame, or sparks.