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From: Prof Norm Coombs
To: ITD-JNL
Subject: EASI FLASH 04/09/97 Calling Teachers and Friends of Teachers
Date: 09 April 1997 07:49

EASI FLASH April 9 1997: Calling Teachers and Friends of Teachers

This is Norman Coombs looking for help in a worthy project for
which I recently volunteered.  The American Association of
Colleges and Universities has asked me to participate in
internet discussions on teaching students with disabilities, and
I am enlarging this to include teaching strategies by professors
with various disabilities.  Below is part of the letter inviting
me to work on this project, and it will describe it better than I
can.  But, I cannot do a decent job all by myself.  This is a cry
for help!

I need to hear from teachers who work or have worked with
students with disabilities and who are willing to share that
experience both problems and successes.  I also very much want to
get some teachers who are disabled to participate in these online
chats about teaching.  Nothing will pursuade teachers that
disabled students are capable as much as being professionally
involved with other teachers who have a disability.

To my knowledge this type of interaction is rare.  I think we
might well develop some materials and insights of value.  Please
contact me as I am in over my head and need help.  If you are a
teacher or can help put me in touch with a teacher who might
help, I need to hear from you.

Write Norman Coombs at [log in to unmask]

The rest of this message is part of the mail I received inviting
me to join this project, and it begins with the web address where
the project is being established.


......................

http://www.inform.umd.edu/diversityweb

If you click into this home page and then go to "The Leader's
Guide" of promising resources and practices -- you will find a
section on curriculum, as well as sections on faculty
development, student experience, etc.  You will also notice that
diversity appears to be all about ethnicity, race, and gender --
not about different abilities.

I am writing for two reasons:

1. Could you help me locate resources about teaching to
differently-abled people AND examples of courses which have "been
transformed" to include course materials about this type of
diversity?

I am looking for syllabi and course descriptions as well as
models for student and faculty workshops.  If you can provide
leads I will follow them up to ask for these materials. (Feel
free to distribute this part of the note on your EASI listserv,
if you have one).
My e-mail is [log in to unmask]

2. I am also writing because we are going to open on-line
discussions soon and I know you have experience with diversity
issues *and*  a sense of adventure when it comes to communication
and  technologies.

I  am inviting you
to be part of a on-line support team
for one of these four topics:

1. Institutional Vision, Leadership and Systemic Change,
2. Student Experience and Development,
3. Curriculum Transformation, or
4. Faculty and Staff Involvement

This commitment holds a range of possibilities.  Working with a
lead facilitator you could help energize the discussions being
posted (via threaded conversations) on the Web site; you could
contribute resources, conferences, and announcements on a regular
basis; you could organize discussion once a month in live "chat"
spaces (this could mean arranging for a guest speaker to join
participants on-line, -- a panel, and interview, a themed
discussion, -- or perhaps a collaborative review of draft
documents or writings, also on-line.)

The idea behind the teams is to create small groups of people who
will share the responsibility of keeping each other creative  and
the participants really engaged, while also keeping the
discussions and content challenging within the Work Rooms.

We are assuming that you will enlist students as needed, whether
it be through your classes or an on-campus group, to keep the
conversations intergenerational.  Graduate students especially
would find this type of  involvement an  invitation to belong to
an active (and productive) academic community.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities and the
University of Maryland are co-creating this project.  In doing so
we are minimizing  the administrative details for Work Room team
members-- we want you  to be able to think about content and
about creating caring, thought provoking environments on-line.



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