Curriculum Accessibility — How Does Your Program Stack Up?
R1 Learning’s mission is to provide the best interactive curriculum for the communities we serve. How we meet people where they are at is intentional. R1’s curriculum engages learners of every learning style and is available in both hands-on and digital formats. We prioritize structure because it reduces the learning curve for learners, practitioners, and organizations and keeps everyone focused on the topic at hand. Our approach focuses on simplicity and accessibility to ensure inclusivity across diverse populations and settings.
The purpose of today’s post is to give you some ideas regarding accessibility and help you see how your program stacks up. As you read below, note the strengths and gaps for your curriculum and then answer the Questions to Explore.
What is Digital Accessibility?
As we’ve created R1 Discover, the digital version of the discovery cards, we’ve placed high value on accessibility. When we talk about making R1 Discover accessible, it’s important to first define what we mean by accessibility.
Basic Definition: Digital Accessibility refers to the practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with digital tools for those with disabilities.
Our journey into this space has taught us that accessibility extends well beyond this basic definition. As we serve diverse populations and practitioners with varied educational backgrounds, technological proficiency, communication skills, and individual wellness challenges, accessibility is key to our collecting success. R1’s goal is to provide tools that are inclusive for all users within the communities we serve.
R1 Discover – Digital Accessibility
The R1 Discover digital curriculum mirrors our hands-on tools to ensure consistent engagement and comprehension across platforms. As adoption of R1 Discover grows, we’re learning how important it is that R1 Discover is accessible in the broader sense of the definition. No matter how good the curriculum, the efficacy diminishes if it’s not readily accessible for all individuals of the community.
We are on a path to becoming fully accessible in both the traditional and broader sense of the word, and today I’m excited to highlight some recent R1 Discover enhancements improving accessibility for the broader community.
1. Text to Speech (TTS)
Recognizing literacy challenges within the communities we serve; we have used the Discovery Cards because they provide one word or short statements that engage individuals with vocabulary building activities. With R1 Discover we’ve taken another step to make our content more accessible and user-friendly with text-to-speech capabilities. With our latest update, users can now choose to have any card read out loud while taking any activity. This new capability not only empowers individual learners, but also becomes a valuable tool for facilitators. During group sessions, this feature ensures that everyone, regardless of their reading proficiency, can fully engage with the content. This feature brings us one step closer to the ideal of a fully inclusive learning experience.
2. Digital Resource Library – The New My Topics Page
As a curriculum company, we're continuously expanding our content. The greatest challenge in this is how we make it all accessible without overwhelming users. Our improved 'My Topics' page on R1 Discover serves as a comprehensive resource library, providing:
Access to all topics and activities, completion statuses, and sharing options (such as links and QR codes)
Facilitator resources including model images, worksheets, and soon, the facilitator guides.
Links to the blogs for deeper content exploration and direct access to the topic collections in the store
Everything is consistent and structured across topics, designed beautifully with the R1 color palette, ensuring users can quickly navigate and access the desired content.
3. Activity Worksheets – The Power of Editable PDFs:
Enabling individuals and programs to disseminate, use, and leverage learnings from curriculum activities is one of the barriers we’ve seen in settings we support. Countless programs still rely on traditional printed worksheets. Why not digitize and simplify? Our editable PDFs can be effortlessly downloaded, filled in on any device, and easily shared or stored. This digital transformation not only streamlines the immediate learning phase but also simplifies post-session treatment and recovery planning. Accessibility is not only making the tools readily accessible, but also making the information accessible and actionable post the initial learning experience.
4. Languages – The Road Ahead
Keeping the content simple has always been a priority for us at R1. This simplicity lays the groundwork for the next item in our accessibility roadmap, offering our content in multiple languages. We firmly believe that languages should not be a barrier to accessing valuable information. If individuals can’t read the information in their native language, then the information is not accessible to them. We’ve both seen and heard that this is a major barrier across the communities we serve. In the coming months, both the hands-on and digital curriculum will begin to be available in additional languages, starting with Spanish.
Questions to Explore
Answer these questions for yourself, at a staff meeting with your team, or as a special project for your leadership:
When considering diverse populations and settings, what steps have you taken to ensure the curriculum remains accessible and user-friendly for everyone?
How do you measure the accessibility of your digital curriculum, ensuring it meets both the traditional and broader definitions of the term "accessible"?
How are you leveraging technology, like text-to-speech, to address literacy issues, augment the learning experience, and ensure content remains accessible?
How do you ensure that an expanding content library remains organized, user-friendly, and easily navigable for all users?
What tools or features have you incorporated to provide facilitators with quick access to essential resources, aiding them in their teaching process?
How are you transitioning traditional learning tools, like printed worksheets, to digital formats to enhance accessibility? How do you ensure that digital transformation of traditional learning tools remains user-friendly and doesn’t introduce new barriers to learning?
Beyond just translation, how are you adapting the curriculum's content and approach to be culturally relevant for diverse audiences?
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Engage, Educate, and Equip Your Practitioners
The R1 Learning System and the Discovery Cards Group Kits enable programs to implement workforce training programs strategically. Contact us to learn more about how to best implement the R1 Affirmations topic in your program, train your team, and engage clients in service. Visit the R1 Store to learn more about our training, tools, and technology resources. The Discovery Cards are an amazing tool for exploring these topics with individuals or groups.
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Here are a few ideas to help you learn more about R1 and engage others on this topic:
Share this blog post with others. (Thank you!)
Start a conversation with your team. Bring this information to your next team meeting or share it with your supervisor. Change starts in conversations. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
Visit R1LEARNING.com to learn more about R1, the Discovery Cards, and how we’re creating engaging learning experiences through self-discovery.