Accessibility in Teaching

Accessibility in Teaching

This teaching resource provides an introduction into accessibility in teaching and learning, along with strategies for ensuring instructional materials and classroom experiences are accessible to all students. Developing an accessible learning environment is a critical aspect of inclusive teaching. It is not just best practice—it’s mandated by federal law. 

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What is Accessibility in Teaching

Learner variability is the standard, not the exception, in the post-secondary classroom. William & Mary students come with diverse needs, abilities, and backgrounds. This range of diverse learners makes learning more engaging, rich, and dynamic. 

For students with disabilities, accessing course content often comes with unique challenges. Successful instructors recognize the complexity and variability of their students and make a clear path past barriers through accessible teaching. Accessible teaching ensures students have equitable access to educational materials, teaching methods, learning experiences, assessments, and communications with their instructors. 

Why Accessibility in Teaching Matters

Across the US, 21% of undergraduate students and 11% of graduate students identify as having a cognitive, mobility, auditory, or visual disability. Even with the increasing emphasis on inclusive teaching in higher education, most universities need to do more for accessibility, accommodations, and inclusion. Students with disabilities often have a lower sense of belonging, feel less valued on their campus, and encounter higher rates of discrimination and bias compared to nondisabled students. Students with disabilities report encountering barriers with receiving accommodations (e.g., lack of awareness, challenges to accommodations); navigating the classroom or campus environment (e.g., physical barriers); accessing campus procedures and services; and integrating into the campus community (e.g., stigma surrounding their disability).

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) require reasonable accommodations be provided for students with disabilities and prohibit universities from discriminating. These laws require public universities to provide accessible facilities; necessary aids and services (e.g. sign language interpreters); and academic policy adjustment (e.g., extended time). The goal of these laws is to provide college students with disabilities equitable opportunities to participate in all aspects of college life. 

As instructors, it is critical to cultivate inclusive teaching practices to create a campus climate that is welcoming and comfortable for all students. Making teaching and learning accessible to all students ensures compliance with the law and empowers students to be successful.

Universal Design for Learning as a Framework for Accessible Teaching

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that places learner variability at the forefront. Only 37% of students with a disability inform their school or instructor of their disability, so it’s likely instructors have more reason to make their courses accessible than they might be aware of. STLI recommends instructors take a proactive approach, designing courses and content with the assumption of learner variability. UDL promotes more equitable and sustainable learning pathways  than individual accommodations, with less need for reactive individualized solutions. 

Apply Accessible Teaching Practices 

Accessible Instructional Materials 
  1. Create instructional materials with accessible design. 
    1. For text documents, use clear fonts like Arial or Courier New size 12
    2. Use built-in headings from the style menu in your word processor to communicate document structures instead of bold/italic words (this helps learners using screen readers to navigate) 
    3. Use graphic indicators like arrows to distinguish important information rather than color alone. 
  2. Consider using open educational resource (OER) material when selecting content to reduce cost as a barrier. Many OERs have the added advantage of being digitally available, making them compatible with screen readers. Visit W&M’s guide to OER for more information. 
  3. For lecture slides and class presentations, follow best practices for accessible presentations. Check accessibility in your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations. 
  4. Use a microphone, especially in larger classes or lecture halls–even if you think your voice is loud enough. 
  5. Get to know your students. Use an anonymous survey like Who’s In the Room to learn your students’ needs and help identify barriers to their learning and cultivate a climate where students feel supported. 
  6. Design in-class learning experiences aligned with UDL that deliver content through multiple means (e.g., audio, text, video) and provide multiple options for students to demonstrate their learning when possible. 
Accessible Blackboard Course Sites
  1. Use Blackboard Ultra’s Ally to make content with Blackboard accessible to all learners. Ally’s Accessibility Report provides feedback on the accessibility of your course site and content and allows learners to download course content in alternative formats. Review the suggestions and the general guidelines from Blackboard Ultra to make your course site inclusive. 
  2. Design your online course with accessibility in mind, including: consistent layouts and organizational schemes, meaningful link text for embedded hyperlinks with descriptive words indicating the link’s purpose or destination, alt text, and the headings and paragraph style feature. Refer to Blackboard Ultra’s Inclusive Learning Experiences for more information. 
  3. Provide accessible documents by tagging all PDF files. Use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for scanned documents so that text can be selected and read by screen readers.
  4. This primarily applies to documents you created by scanning a print resource on an older scanner or copy machine. PDFs you downloaded from a library database or scanned in using one of the self-service KIC scanners at Swem are probably OCR compatible already.
Accessible Media Practices
  1. Provide accurate captions for all video content. Review and correct automatic captions. 
  2. Provide transcripts for all audio (e.g, podcasts or recorded lectures) and video content (e.g., the captions of a Panopto video) for students to review content without an audio/visual medium. For videos with essential visual content, provide audio descriptions that narrate the elements. 
  3. Use accessible file types. In general, use .pdf (text), .jpeg (image), .mp3 (audio), and .mp4 (video). For courses using specialized software (e.g., SPSS or ArcGIS), you might need to contact the software’s manufacturer for support with making files accessible. All university supported software is vetted for accessibility before being approved.
  4. Provide descriptive alt text for all images, charts, and graphs. Alt text should convey essential information and the purpose of the image. 
  5. Use Panopto to host your video lectures if it includes both slides and a video of you speaking. Learners can choose how they view content. 

Accomodations

  1. Communicate with students and Student Accessibility Services early to understand students’ needs and any accommodations they require. 
  2. Maintain confidentiality of students’ disability information.
  3. Be proactive and flexible in course design through UDL and accessible instructional materials. 
  4. Support students by providing campus resources before they have to ask.

Resources 

Extend Your Learning 

References

Campanile, J., Cerilli, C., Varadaraj, V., Sweeney, F. Smith, J. Zhu, J., Yenokyan, G., & Swenor, B. (2022). Accessibility and disability inclusion among top-funded U.S. Undergraduate Institutions. PLoS ONE 17(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277249 

CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning guidelines (Version 2.2). https://udlguidelines.cast.org 

Gurin, P., Dey, E., Hurtado, S. & Gurin, G. (2002). Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes. Harvard Educational Review, 72 (3), 330-367. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.72.3.01151786u134n051

National Center for Education Statistics. (2023, TBA). Table 311.10. Number and percentage distribution of students enrolled in postsecondary institutions, by level, disability status, and selected student characteristics: Academic year 2019–20 [Data table]. Digest of education statistics. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_311.10.asp

National Center for Educational Statistics. (26, April 2022). A majority of college students with disabilities do not inform school, new NCES data show [Press Release]. https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/4_26_2022.asp 

Scott, S. “Access and Participation in Higher Education: Perspectives of College Students with Disabilities.” NCCSD Research Brief, 2, 2 (2019). Huntersville, NC: National Center for College Students with Disabilities, Association on Higher Education and Disability. http://www.nccsdonline.org/uploads/7/6/7/7/7677280/na_focus_groups_research_brief_final_pdf

Soria, K. “Supporting Undergraduate Students with Disabilities: A Focus on Campus Climate and Sense of Belonging.” NCCSD Research Brief, 1, 2 (2021).  Huntersville, NC: National Center for College Students with Disabilities, Association on Higher Education and Disability. https://ici-s.umn.edu/files/dFiDERA9Dh/supporting_undergraduate_students_with_disabilities 

State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Accessibility & disabilities. https://www.schev.edu/students/resources/accessibility-disabilities AND Greenberg, D. Technical report: Overview of disability law for higher education. NCCSD Technical Report, (2017). https://ici-s.umn.edu/files/T-tqTMHHjy/nccsd_technical_report_-_disability_law_for_higher_education

Cite This Resource

Studio for Teaching & Learning Innovation. (2024, July). Accessibility in Teaching [Teaching resource]. https://stli.wm.edu/accessibility

Updated 7/2024