Lee Salmon is a lecturer in the Department of Forest Resources Management who, with the technological help of Teaching & Educational Technology Specialist Frederick Qi, delivers a variety of UBC’s Forestry courses. Together, Lee and Frederick participated in the 2023 UDL Fellows Program with the goal of using education to make higher-level Forestry jobs more accessible. Through exploring virtual fieldwork in FRST 239, Lee and Frederick push the limits of how Forestry can be taught. Here’s what they had to say about their experience:
How have you applied UDL to your forestry course?
Lee: We’ve kind of thrown everything that we thought was appropriate at one of our courses, “Tree and Stand-Level Measurements” (FRST 239), and then applied those things to all six of the courses that I teach.
For one, I’ve been giving students more flexibility in how they express themselves. I’ll give you an example: in my grad-level courses, students can now choose whether they do presentations in-person or in a recorded format, as long as they meet the learning objectives. We’ve also incorporated virtual fieldwork into the course with animations and 3D images so students could choose whether they wanted to do the experiments in person or not.
Frederick: For our Teaching and learning Support Team, the objective is to have more instructors integrate UDL and accessibility in their courses by applying these different educational technologies.
In addition to what we did in the course, we also compiled resources to build the Canvas Site for Accessibility Tools to introduce the immersive reader – the accessibility checker that is already available in Canvas that people may not have noticed. We wanted to remind them that they are quick fixes that they can apply to enhance accessibility.
We also created the UDL and inclusive teaching web page for the Faculty of Forestry. We wanted to refresh people’s memories about the principles and build upon them so that they could be easily applied to any course.
What motivated you to participate in the UDL Fellows program and start incorporating UDL principles in your courses?
Frederick: Many Forestry courses are characterized by in-person, hands-on learning activities. Over the years, we realized that some of the students may not be able to fully participate in these activities for different reasons, so we wanted the courses to become more accessible, more inclusive, and more accommodating to these different learning needs. The UDL Fellows program was a good opportunity for us to do that, and we thought we might set an example for other Forestry courses too.
Lee: The current paradigm is that you absolutely must do forestry field work for a couple of years before you can climb the ranks either in government or in private industry, which is reflected in the way forestry courses are taught. For me, that’s not a very good attitude to carry into the classroom.
I think some of that practical stuff is beneficial, but it shouldn’t be that you have no choice but to do these physical things in the field. At the end of the day, I’m there to make sure the students understand the science and fundamentals of what they’re doing and to remove the learning barriers that are especially associated with fieldwork, which is where UDL came in.
In terms of forestry, how does UDL apply in a way that can benefit the industry?
Lee: Well, for one thing, there’s a huge labor shortage in forestry, both on the physical labour side and especially on the knowledge work side.
Of course, some folks really thrive in the field. But from a UDL perspective, some people are going to thrive in an office environment doing remote sensing work and higher-level planning. There should be options for them to get there that highlight their strengths, as opposed to having them do boots-on-the-ground forestry just to get their foot in the door.
We want to retain people in the industry and in academia. Removing those barriers with UDL and ensuring that people have access to all the resources they need in their workplace is critical.
Frederick: I also think that understanding field work is a critical part of the job. Providing people with different options to get engaged with field work, no matter if it’s in- person or virtual, still achieves the desired outcome but drastically improves their experience.
Did you experience any challenges with implementing UDL and how did you overcome them?
Lee: There are definitely challenges with it. Some of the stuff is very easy, like implementing the screen readers, which I think every faculty member should do.
On the other hand, for the 3D images, it took some time to figure out what actually works. I was surprised by how many people did the virtual labs, and at one point, I was thinking, “oh, am I pandering to people that aren’t willing to put in the work?” That was a big mental hurdle for me. I had to remind myself that they’re not getting an easier version of the assignment, they’re just getting a different version of it.
Normally when you’re in the field, you would use a scale called percent scale to do your tree height measurements. What I did to make the virtual students’ experience a little bit more challenging in exchange was give them the data in degrees, which is more difficult than using a percent scale.
It really was a process of considering, “OK, what is the barrier? Is it part of the learning objective that there’s a barrier there?” If not, then I’m not that worried about it.
How have students benefited from the UDL strategies you implemented?
Lee: Based on the student feedback we saw, students really enjoyed the flexibility of the assignments, and I did have a number of them talk to me about the lecture recordings. We even got a comment that said
I could feel that Lee is trying to understand each student’s situation and learning process.
I do care about my students, but realistically, that impression is actually a byproduct of implementing UDL. Providing students with opportunities to engage with the content in different ways really does make them feel seen.
Thank you to Lee and Frederick for sharing their story. For more information about FRST 239 and UDL in forestry, check out their seminar on YouTube.