An interactive resource for exploring diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for presenters
Regardless of the type of professional development or training you are leading, presenting within that context is a skill. We at the Online Learning Consortium view presenters as facilitators and, importantly, educators. Thus, just as is the case in other learning environments, we need to be intentional about our practices in order to ensure we are facilitating with our audience in mind. We’ve been working to collate the effective practices and strategies presenters across our various OLC professional development spaces leverage to this end. So without further ado, here are the 12 tips we see presenters utilize to create more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible presentation environments:
- Provide multiple formats for receiving information
- Prepare for multiple forms and levels of engagement
- Upload presentation files and resources before your presentation
- Provide an accessible introduction
- Use inclusive design principles within your slides and any handouts
- Verbally describe any important visuals or information on your slides
- Use inclusive and non-jargony language
- Use common language
- Share norms and expectations at the outset
- Respect attendee names, pronunciations, and pronouns
- Be your authentic self
- Slow down and breathe
We’ve developed an interactive resource that explains the importance and reasoning behind each recommendation and includes strategies for implementation. Explore these tips in more depth through our ThingLink experience:
We acknowledge that this is only a starting point and that each person’s journey through implementing practices based in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility varies. We all have to start somewhere and set realistic expectations for where we are in our unique journey. So if you are new to these practices know that even taking any one of them up in your practice is a good first step. What we do now will plant the seeds of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in our presentations for the long run.
These are our top 12…not necessarily an exhaustive top 12, so we now invite you to share your own strategies! What other tips do you practice that help to make your presentations more accessible and inclusive? Please post them to the embedded Padlet to share them with the community.
In modeling alternative ways to explore, we’ve prepared a full transcript version of this content.
Finally, we’ve intentionally licensed this under an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons (CC BY-NC) license. This means that we invite you to use this, remix it, adapt the content, and build upon what we’ve shared for noncommercial purposes. With this invitation is the expectation that you acknowledge the OLC as original creators. So download or print this resource out. Incorporate it into your trainings or professional development content. Share it on social media or through email. Add your own tips or custom strategies. And help us extend and amplify diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as core expectations for any presentation environment.
- Shareable ThingLink: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1637149172471693314
- Downloadable PDF: https://olc-wordpress-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2022/10/Presenter-Services-DEIA-Infographic.pdf
References
Garrett, K., Schuster, K. F., Shellgren, M. (2022). Top Recommendations to Increase the Accessibility & Inclusiveness of Your Presentation. OLC Insights. Online Learning Consortium.