[MUSIC PLAYING]
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Hello.
I'm Sheryl Burgstahler.
I direct the DO-IT Center at the University
of Washington -- Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking
and Technology.
And part of that program, we have the DO-IT Scholars
program, which is for teenagers later
in high school that are working to transition
to college and on to careers.
SCOTT BELLMAN: My name is Scott Bellman.
I'm the program manager at the DO-IT Center.
Our Scholars program offers a variety
of college preparation activities
throughout the school year.
The most exciting time being during our summer camp, which
we call DO-IT Summer Study.
That's where students visit campus to live in dorms,
and learn how to navigate the campus and eat in cafeterias,
and take college classes as they learn
about how to get ready for school after high school.
NAOMI: My name is Naomi.
I've been a DO-IT Scholar since 2016.
And it's been a really fun journey,
full of great opportunities from DO-IT
and connecting with DO-IT throughout the years.
FINN: My name is Finn.
When we did DO-IT in person, there
was a focus on disability advocacy and also on STEM, STEM
things, like we had daily workshops.
We would go to the facility where
they monitor seismic activity.
That like the STEM element.
And then, we would also have the disability element where
we would learn, OK, here's how to get accommodations
at college.
ALEXIS: My name is Alexis, and I was a DO-IT 2019 Scholar.
While being there physically I was
able to learn the ropes of how a college functions,
traveling all over the campus, eating at the different places,
sitting through several hours of class,
and I also learned to advocate for myself.
A while ago, I had to do a meeting with, well,
I arranged a meeting with the disability services at DigiPen.
I was able to get through it myself.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: So when 2020 hit us all with the pandemic,
we were stunned, like the rest of the world.
But we thought, well, this will last a week or two.
And we'll have our program, because we
were planning a program in 2020 to be on-site,
like the other ones.
But very quickly, we realized this wasn't
going to be over that fast.
We had to convert totally online.
It was clear the students weren't
going to be safe in an on-site program.
And so we got to work.
What I said to my staff is, well,
who better than this team for going online?
We're always about technology.
TAMI TIDWELL: I'm Tami Tidwell, a program coordinator
with DO-IT.
And I've worked with Summer Study for almost two decades.
The decision to move online, like most youth programs,
was something that we knew was not going to be easy.
KAYLA BROWN: My name is Kayla.
And I am a program coordinator at the DO-IT program.
I'm also a past Scholar.
I was a Scholar in 2005.
And right now, I work with students who
are in our Scholars program.
And so we use Zoom as our primary way
of communication and facilitation
of all of our programming.
And students who felt comfortable talking
outloud and answering questions, they could do that.
Students who were more comfortable with text,
they would write in the chat.
And so we were able to accommodate different learning
styles and communication styles.
And in a lot of ways, it made it more inclusive.
And we were able to keep people safe,
which, of course, was our primary concern at the time.
TAMI TIDWELL: We wanted to make sure that students still
had some of those interactive pieces,
like mock interviews or meeting with faculty.
And what we found was those interactions were actually
more focused, because students were
in a breakout room with the faculty
or the mock interviewers and could really
focus on what they were doing.
And they got to be in the spotlight
and really say what they wanted to say.
Whereas, in a normal situation, we
would have an entire room of interviews
happening at the same time, which is very loud
and distracting.
FINN: It was the same deal as the previous two years,
but just online.
So you'd have the different sessions
and instead of going somewhere, you'd just log on,
and your classroom would be the Zoom room.
I think what I enjoyed most about the virtual program
is in the lecture setting and the group discussion setting,
I felt like it was a lot easier for people--
for everyone to be able to get their ideas across.
I felt like it was a lot easier for people
to share ideas in that way.
I felt like it was a lot easier for people to--
if they didn't understand something
or wanted clarification, you could
raise your hand, the virtual hand,
or you could type something in the chat.
I felt like the chat was helpful in terms of,
hey, I didn't understand this, or what does this mean?
Ask for clarification.
NAOMI: You get more participation
in classes and in activities if you
turn on that chat feature, which made the virtual Summer Study
exponentially more engaging.
TAMI TIDWELL: One of the most important things
about Summer Study, whether it's in person or online,
is building community, making sure
that students with disabilities that are headed to college
feel like they belong, feel like they
have other people like them out there.
And that is definitely something we still saw happening online.
We see that students find out more about disability history.
They find out more about their roots.
They find out more about this entire community
around the world of people who have experiences like they do.
MERRITT: Hi.
My name is Merritt.
I'm a 19-year-old autistic student
who is a Scholar at DO-IT.
In the virtual program, we did share videos
about our disabilities and how important it is to us.
It was interesting to hear about how many of my friends
have persevered through their lives with a disability.
SCOTT BELLMAN: We had to get pretty creative.
We included activities, such as game nights, and movie nights,
and opportunities for students to talk about their hobbies
and pets and share a meal, so that we could still
have that sense of community.
ANDREA MANO: My name is Andrea Mano,
and I'm an assistive technologist
with the DO-IT program.
We wanted to build a community, even before Summer Study.
We had the Scholars meet with us in small groups over Zoom
before Summer Study.
The groups were chosen based on the shared assistive technology
and what we thought the Scholars had in common.
Allowing the students to attend virtually
enabled them to experiment with technology in their own homes.
And if the students wanted, they could
have their parents involved too, which is always really helpful
to have another set of eyes when you're learning something new.
TAMI TIDWELL: We also realized that there
was an essential piece of what we do in person that we
couldn't let go of.
And that was making sure we had evening activities and fun
things interspersed throughout.
So during the day, we would take museum tours,
and go online, and visit some museums around the country.
And at night, we made sure we had movie nights and game
nights, where students could really
participate and get to know each other and their senses
of humor.
And what we found was the movie night was actually,
in my opinion, more fun online, because normally,
people are shushing each other if you're
in person watching a movie.
But we watched movies, and they could
talk about the disability-related content
that they may be really-- didn't really
realize was there before, or talk
about their favorite characters, or talk about what they didn't
like about a scene or what they really loved about that movie.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: So on pet night,
you can bring your pet, ideally in costume, by the way,
and perhaps in a matching costume to yours.
That's not something we would have done--
ever do in an on-site program, have their pets come along.
And so that translated really funny, funny, funny, funny
activity.
And as usual, the evening activities were optional.
So some students that were experiencing some Zoom fatigue,
or just needed a break, or weren't interested in pets,
well, they could easily plan their whole evening without us.
SOPHIA: My name is Sophia, and I became a DO-IT Scholar in 2021.
I was able to meet people throughout the community.
But mostly, I felt like I connected with them
more throughout the optional evening
activities, where I had more time
to engage with the community.
I was in the--
I think it was a talent show.
I just showcased my origami.
And that was just pretty fun, because I
got to see people's reaction to my crafts
that I've worked on during the pandemic.
MERRITT: It made us feel like we were
all one class or one family.
It was very nice to see so many new faces.
I think we were able to make plenty of friends,
even though it wasn't in person.
FINN: Well, DO-IT, I think, was able to build
a sense of community just in virtue of how welcoming
and open the program is.
NAOMI: What I enjoyed most about virtual
was probably the fact that it felt like DO-IT.
So even if we're not together, we're still together.
And it was like coming back home, honestly.
I just felt like, I'm back home.
SPEAKER: Lessons learned.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Well, we learned
that you can pull this off.
We've learned some things that we
share with others who are in a similar situation that
are moving an on-site program online or maybe even starting
an online.
One thing that we did the first year and continue to do
is made our program a little bit longer.
And so it's going three weeks rather than two.
Because we wanted to avoid Zoom fatigue,
we hear a lot about that.
We thought it was important that we
keep the screen time a little shorter than maybe we
would want to.
ANDREA MANO: DO-IT staff was very thoughtful about moving
Summer Study online.
And in being thoughtful in that way, they had a lot of staff
in the online sessions.
One staff could monitor the faces on the screen.
One staff could monitor the chat.
One staff could be monitoring email
when a Scholar couldn't get into the session.
I think that's really helpful.
And it seems like that's a lot of people,
but you do need a lot of people in case something
unexpectedly happens.
KAYLA BROWN: Some of the things that
were particularly successful that we hadn't thought
about before was we were able to engage people
from all over the state.
And so it wasn't just the students
that we were engaged with but also their families.
We do involve the parents with the process
of working with the Scholars.
And so we felt like we made a deep connection
with that aspect of the student's life.
So we could know what the support
system looks like and maybe how we could help them.
But we also got to know the students in a different way
as well.
They were in their own environments,
and some of our students felt more comfortable.
TAMI TIDWELL: For other programs thinking
about going to an online program or even a hybrid program,
some of the positives are that you
can get mentors, people who've been through your program
in the past.
They can come from wherever they are.
So if they're away at school or they're not
able to get to campus on a certain day,
they can still be engaged.
It engages a bigger and wider community.
We also had end-of-the-day team meetings, which were essential.
When we were in person, we can't pull all those staff together,
because there are staff working with the students
and supervising.
But online, we were able to stay in touch with each other
every single day.
SPEAKER: Unexpected benefits.
TAMI TIDWELL: What I realize is that the students who've only
participated in DO-IT Summer Study online
have gotten a lot out of the experience.
I see their growth in their IEP or 504
meetings, during reunions and also in the emails
that they send us.
They've gotten a lot.
They've grown a lot.
And the program has still made a really big impact.
SOPHIA: I had a lot of flexibility,
because I was also balancing another summer
program I was doing along with the Summer Study session.
So I met with Tami just to talk over
a meeting about how I can balance those two programs.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: If anyone asks me
for some advice when they're forced
into turning an on-site program into online
or maybe even optionally doing it on-- doing that transition,
the first thing I'd like to say is just
from the get-go embrace and help your staff embrace the problem
to solve, that this is really kind of exciting.
It's stressful too.
But we've shown that it can be done.
And you just need to do things one step at a time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For more resources about supporting students with disabilities,
consult: uw.edu/doit
Copyright 2023 University of Washington
Permission is granted to copy this material for non-commercial purposes
provided the source is acknowledged.