Group Admins
Description
Session Description
Human development is an interdisciplinary field because it integrates many academic fields, such as biology, psychology, education, and sociology. Eric Neumayer’s research on human development and sustainability supports the idea that “human development is about enabling people to lead long, healthy, educated and fulfilling lives, then sustainable human development is about making sure that future generations can do the same.” (Neumayer, 2010, pg. 1). We propose to present a course overview, demonstrate the sustainable and accessible resources within the course content, and share the design process and learning technologies used to implement the explicit relationship between sustainability and human development.
This course was created using open education resources and universal design as a sustainable resource for early childhood development teachers to improve their knowledge foundation and implementation of effective and positive teaching practices. Second, research has demonstrated that if early childhood educators are given the opportunity to learn and build their knowledge about diverse populations their classroom practices improve (Buysse, Castro, West, & Skinner, 2005; Reyes, Da Silva Iddings, & Feller, 2016). In addition, when early childhood teachers report positive experiences with accessible and sustainable sources, such as program development they are better able to reflect and continually improve on their current teaching practices (Reyes, Da Silva Iddings, & Feller, 2016).
The accessible course units address the physical, cognitive, and emotional development of humans across the lifespan for use in part or in full for both academic and program development purposes for educational stakeholders.
This course will implement different assessment methods to practice applicable and relevant skill sets important for teachers in the classroom. The course including both synchronous and asynchronous assignments using multimedia technology to facilitate discussion about human development using different learning modalities, such as sustainable programs like VoiceThread and Open Education Resource Commons. The hybrid use of synchronous and asynchronous course material and technology allow this material to be used in potential courses both face to face and online courses.
Objectives:
Demonstrate a Sustainable Human Development course by utilizing open educational resources and universal design learning principles in order to help users to learn how to read, understand, and critically evaluate sources (i.e. journals, articles, and other academic sources) as they relate to human development.
The presentation would include a sample of the course in Blackboard (CourseSites) that would be available as a current open educational resource for the purpose of continuing education and educator program development. The presentation agenda would include a review of the course as whole through an accessible syllabus and course outline, short navigation of the course content and open educational resources, and reflection on assignments and activities and their relevance to teacher knowledge and application to the classroom.
To demonstrate the accessibility of the course, we will have a short demonstration of the accessibility of course materials using a screen reader and closed captions.
References
Buysse, V., Castro, D. C., West, T., & Skinner, M. (2005). Addressing the needs of Latino children: A national survey of state administrators of early childhood programs. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2005.04.005
Neumayer, E. (2010). Human Development Research Paper:Human Development and Sustainability. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdrp_2010_05.pdf
Reyes, I., Da Silva Iddings, A. C., & Feller, N. (2016). Building Relationships with diverse students and families: A funds of Knowledge Perspective. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 16(1), 8–33. http://doi.org/10.1177/1468798415584692
