Designing for Inclusion: Breaking Down Barriers in Online Behaviour & Mental Health Education:

One of the learning activities in my group’s interactive resource focuses on critiquing platform policies such as TikTok and Instagram, and reflecting on how they balance freedom of speech with user safety. While this critical thinking task is essential, I’ve identified several potential barriers to student success, particularly in terms of accessibility, prior knowledge, and cognitive load.

The first barrier is cognitive overload and context gaps. Analyzing social media policies requires learners to understand complex intersections between platform design, legal responsibilities, and mental health impacts. For students unfamiliar with these platforms or the concept of digital responsibility, this can become overwhelming. In order to reduce this barrier, our group plans to incorporate multiple means of representation, including brief explainer videos, simplified policy summaries, and visual aids such as infographics and comparison charts. These supports help to make the task more manageable and accessible for all learners.

The second barrier is diverse expression preferences. Some learners may find it difficult to express their ideas in traditional written formats, especially when addressing ambiguous issues like online ethics and user safety. To address this, we will offer multiple means of action and expression, allowing students to choose between a written reflection, an audio response, or a short video explanation. This flexibility includes diverse communication strengths and makes the learning experience more inclusive.

The third and final barrier is participation anxiety. Discussion-based assessments such as peer feedback or open reflections can be challenging for learners with social anxiety or those from different cultures which approach online participation differently. To help address this, our group  will look into offering alternative response formats, potentially involving private submissions which will allow learners to participate in a way that best suits their comfort and communication styles.

By designing through a Universal Design for Learning perspective, our group aims to remove barriers before they become obstacles. Our learning resource will look to use multimodal content and choice-driven activities to ensure every student, regardless of learning style, background, or ability, can engage meaningfully and succeed.