Accessibility in teaching refers to designing learning experiences for students that support their learning irrespective of their backgrounds or cognitive, sensory, physical, or other disabilities. The CTL is committed to helping faculty learn about how accessibility can be a foundational element of their teaching. 

Visit the UVM Office of Accessibility Services

“Accessibility is about recognizing that access is a complex, relational configuration as people move and share space together. Accessible teaching requires us to be in conversation with and responsive to our students.” 

– Stephanie Kerschbaum, University of Washington professor and disability studies scholar

Sometimes, our teaching practices can present barriers to students who experience temporary or lifelong disabilities including short or long-term illness, vision or hearing impairment, mobility challenges, mental health conditions, and learning difficulties e.g., dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and language or auditory processing disorder.

Some disabilities are not recognizable unless the student discloses them, but unfortunately some students fear being stigmatized and may not disclose their disability. All students, whether or not they have a disability (disclosed or undisclosed) deserve our efforts to support them and give them equal opportunities to learn, without barriers. 

Begin to adopt practices of Universal Design for Learning

Informed by the field of neuroscience, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching that addresses the diverse learning needs of all students.

UDL recognizes that some individuals may learn best by engaging  in activities such as listening, reading, writing, drawing, experimenting, building, discussing, designing, or observing. The goal of a UDL-based curriculum is to provide students with a variety of options, so they can each choose to learn in the way that's most effective for them. 

See our UDL page 

We recommend taking small steps, making incremental changes to your course or teaching style at a pace that works for you.

For instance, you might:

• Deliver varied instruction, switching between lecture, discussion, iClicker student response systems, group work, in-class writing, and hands-on activities.
• Design your assessments so students can choose how they show what they’ve learned, for example with essays, videos, or other creative projects (e.g. music, mapping, sketching, or skits), and provide flexible options like extended time on assignments.
• Establish a predictable routine for every class, e.g. opening each class with 3-minute mindfulness practice (One resource is UVM mindfulness practices on SoundCloud) or some of the classroom bookend routines described in this Edutopia article.
• Take a few extra steps to create "transparent assignments"—clarifing an assignment's purpose, task, and how it will be evaluated. This has been shown to have a big impact on student learning.
• Invite students to meet with you a few times in the semester to check in and discuss any barriers or needs they may have.
• Communicate, as much as possible, using plain language. (See the CTL Teaching Minute on plain language.)
• Be sensitive to students' worries about revealing their disability out of concern that they may be stigmatized. (Hong, 2015)

Caption videos and transcribe audio resources

Provide captions for all video content and transcripts for audio recordings used in instruction. (The Office of Accessibility has a captioning service to help)

Avoid scanned “image” PDFs whenever possible

Ensure all digital materials have selectable, machine-readable text. The Office of Accessibility can help convert your documents - use this form to make a request.

Structure documents with headings using high-contrast colors. Use heading styles in Word, PDFs, PowerPoint, and in the Brightspace text editor. This organizes your content hierarchically and makes it accessible to students using screen readers. (See Microsoft's guide to making accessible documents)

Use alternative text and descriptions for visual content

Add meaningful alt text to images, charts, and other visual elements within documents and presentations. (See WebAIM page on accessible images and how to write effective alt tags.)

Use the Brightspace's Anthology Ally

Visit our page on Anthology Ally to learn about it's features and how it can help both you and your students.

Use the Brightspace's Accessibility Checker

This Knowledge Base Article shows where to find the checker and what it will do for instructors.

See also:

• Accessible Course Materials article on the UVM Knowledge Base
• UVM Office of Accessibility page on accessible resources.