Katherine Hamilton presented at the CAST UDL symposium: “UDL Needs New Learning Skills for True Equity.” Hamilton is the head of the brand at Glean. Glean is one of the sponsors, and I didn’t know much about it before this symposium. Hamilton’s session was about the dropout cycle and UDL. At Glean, they coined the dropout cycle. Hamilton cited statistics about how students want more support. They also cited statistics: 40% of students in 4-year colleges don’t graduate, and more than 55% of students with disabilities don’t finish! Hamilton explained that since the pandemic, there is an appetite for learning in “non-traditional” settings. However, there is a 10% or less completion rate. Hamilton polled the audience about reasons for students dropping out. The research that Hamilton cited was that students drop out because of academic stress/burnout or poor academics. They also explained that the pandemic “exacerbated the skills gap.” Hamilton spoke about how students struggle without a diagnosis. Some academic obstacles that were mentioned were classified into three categories: attention and concentration, information processing and cognitive overload, and organization and executive functioning. Hamilton asked: “what learning barrier is the most common with the students you support? That’s a tough question. I am not sure I could even guess. The poll results indicated most selected information processing and cognitive overload. Hamilton shared a neat quote: “learning is a process and not an event” and cited research on encoding information.
Glean is a web and mobile app with filters to organize information. Hamilton spoke about Glean’s CORI process: capture, organize, refine, and integrate to help students learn and get the most from content. It also, according to Hamilton, use multiple means of engagement and representation. Their learning loops are going through the CORI process. Glean did a study and reported results with 95% of students mentioning they felt they understood how to learn with the process of Glean. Hamilton explained that Glean is makes classrooms more inclusive and shared. a quote from Emory University Director of ADA. Participants noted that it. is important to have a system and use it. This was similar to the takeaway from the quote from Emory University since Glean is now being offered to all students and not just those with accommodations. Glean offers transcription and tools to engage in multiple modalities. Hamilton shared a link to: glean.co/udl-highered with resources and more information. I am interested in Glean now and learning more. I wonder how different it is from PowerNotes or other note/information collection systems.
