Supporting First Year Students: Accessibility
Our students exhibit a wide range of disabilities, including physical, emotional and learning disabilities. Many do not self-report because of a lack of required paperwork or formal diagnoses and/or the stigma of self-identifying as having a disability. Assume that you have students in your classes who do not have accommodations, but would benefit from accessible practices and added support.
The best approach to supporting students who may need accommodations is to ask all students to write to you how you can help them learn.
Accessibility is about removing barriers and creating a learning environment that enables all students to engage and learn. Accommodations are tools and procedures that provide students with disabilities equitable opportunity to demonstrate their learning and skill development and participate fully in class.
What might accommodations entail?
- Extended time on exams and assignments
- Assistance obtaining class notes (from instructor or classmate)
- ASL Interpreters or Speech-To-Text services
- Assistive Technology
- Course materials and books in alternate format
- and more
Students already face stigma around disability and accommodations, so it’s important to dispel a few myths. Accommodations are not:
- an excuse for why your students aren’t doing their work
- a reason to lower expectations
- a sign that a student is “lazy” or “irresponsible” or seeking preferential treatment
Why accessibility matters even if your students haven’t requested accommodations:
- The accommodations process is not actually all that accessible! Some students have undiagnosed learning disabilities or are unable to receive the necessary legal or medical documentation.
- Some students have disabilities they don’t want to report OR are unaware of (very common with ADHD, for example). A student may fear being pathologized or being defined by their disability.
- The accommodation might not sufficiently address the student’s needs. For example, a d/Deaf student may have an ASL interpreter. Having access to the lecture notes in advance will enable the student to engage with the material if the interpreter is unexpectedly unavailable.
- Being intentional about making our classrooms accessible helps ensure students don’t need to jump through administrative and bureaucratic hoops in order to get support that should already be provided to them.
Small practices. The more you ask “Who is being left out as a result of this approach?” and design your course with accessibility in mind, the less likely you’ll be to unintentionally exclude students. To ensure your learning environment is accessible:
- When you use video, use captions.
- When you use images, also write descriptions of them.
- When you use images in a presentation or lecture, describe them.
- Keep text to short, digestible chunks.
- Include section headings.
- Intersperse text with images and icons.
- Be mindful of font and type size: clean, sans serif fonts are more readable and students should be able to resize text.
- Be mindful of use of color: use a neutral background; avoid neon or bright hues; use high contrast; and remember that not everyone sees red and green the same way.
- Link your syllabus Student Disabilities Services and make students aware of the university’s policy of providing equal access for students with disabilities.
- Include on your syllabus and verbally in class that you invite students who need academic accommodations to reach out to discuss any special learning needs, and refer them to Student Disabilities Services.
- Provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression to support all students in learning and engaging.
Accessibility resources
- See the Student Disabilities Services’ Faculty Resource Guide.
- Track how accessible your course is to students with this UDL Checklist.
- Canvas also has accessibility tools. View them and check for accessibility issues or errors when adding content to Canvas.