Case Study of critical pedagogy

The initiative aims at empowering and reaching out to diverse children concerning cultures and disabilities thus requiring assistive forms of technologies. This paper, therefore, examines the impact of ACCESS to UDL both to the instructor and the student with the ultimate goal of creating a flexible instructional environment that is conducive to all the students. The ACCESS Initiative Implementation of Critical Pedagogy in the ACCESS Initiative Program occurred through a successful application of the UDL principles as well as strategies to create classroom instructions that are all-inclusive as well as course materials easily accessible to the students. Furthermore, integration of UDL principles with Self-Advocacy sets forth a platform that enhances education quality to the learners with diverse forms of disabilities. The ACCESS project at Colorado state university has defined its primary mission using based on the three-part UDL framework.

There are over 1,600 students who were enrolled in the introduction to psychology nine sections offered under ACCESS. Consistent with the findings of previous researchers, 8 percent of the students who got enrolled in this course were reported as being disabled in a way. Of the disabled students, approximately 20 percent of the students had contacted the disability office for their special accommodation and services. Previous researchers showed almost the same trend as nearly 60 percent of the students who had disabilities reported to the office. From the study, nearly 80 percent of the students with disabilities chose not to disclose their disabilities to the university or the concerned authorities (Schelly, Davies & Spooner, 2011). The number of tutored students has also significantly grown from 300 in 2013 to 530 in 2014.

Additionally, the number of volunteers also increased from the 319 volunteers to approximately 548 volunteers in 2014. Finally, the average hours per student also increased from 11 in 2013 to 15 in 2014 (Schelly, Davies & Spooner, 2011). From the statistics, it is clear that ACCESS has gradually developed over the years. The project was created professionally through the infusion of various elements such as the UDL philosophies, learning content together with proper instruction into professional development faculty occurring at the post-secondary level of learning. (McClaren & Farahmandpur, 2006). ACCESS project scaffolds learning. The scaffolds put in place maximizes the learning capacity of the students. Teacher have been using scaffolding over the years to train and equip learners in their younger ages. The scaffolding is however removed gradually as the learners start becoming independent.

In the alignment of ACCESS project with the Critical Pedagogy, extremely important to realize that the programs used in learning are enlightened by synthesized philosophies. In this case, Critical Pedagogy implementation in the ACCESS program has thus emerged from integrating the Critical theory's philosophical frameworks together with the application of the Universal Design for Learning (Giroux, 2010). UDL is the model of teaching that has provided a framework for developing learning materials that are considerate of the different types of learners such as those with disabilities. The ACCESS program has been founded on dialogue to allow the students to use a familiar language to aid in the understanding of the entire learning process. The learners are therefore in a good position of surrounding themselves with topics that are realistic and familiar to them rather than those the oppressors have developed.

Bridging the oppressed learner To reach out to all learners and especially the marginalized ones, the teachers or the instructors ought to develop a good rapport with the learners through a variety of ways. Implementation of Critical Pedagogy in the ACCESS program aims at providing a learning environment where the learners can liberate themselves through critical thinking (Boyd, 2012). The teachers should utilize an approach that is problem-posing thus encouraging a collectively owned form of education rather than one which the teacher is the solemn owner. Rapport can be created by the teacher identifying challenges that are relevant to the marginalized learners and encourage them to converse and think critically. As Freire asserts this will aid in enabling the learner to develop an extensive comprehension of their situation and gain the ability to take action of liberating themselves (Giroux, 2010).