Accessible Learning & Teaching

Guidance and support

‘Accessibility means more than putting things online. It means making your content and design clear and simple enough so that most people can use it without needing to adapt it, while supporting those who do need to adapt things’. (Government Digital Service, 2019 Links to an external site.)

Tips:

- Synchronous/Asynchronous: Recordings/asynchronous activities (e.g. discussion forums) allow students to access and re-access materials at times convenient to them - try to ensure that anything you include which happens at a specific time is available afterwards.

- Create a social space (eg. using Microsoft Teams or Canvas) for your students to chat, share experience, and support each other - this may reduce anxiety and loneliness.
- Be mindful of difference (e.g. neurodiversity) - consider cognitive load - slow down, offer bite-sized chunks of information, use a clear structure.
- Be mindful of privilege: be clear with students about UK HE expectations/your expectations, and support all students to have a voice in your classroom - e.g. via polling tools.
- Online learning can be isolating - build in additional learning support (scaffolding), and ensure students can always ask for help.
- An FAQ discussion forum where students support each other and share tips can be a great addition to your course.

Further information and support:

Create an inclusive curriculum:

Inclusive Curriculum Spotlight Guide (including digital), by Dr Kate Evans, CIE.

Try to incorporate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into your teaching:

Three minute video about UDL from AHEAD Links to an external site.
Creating an inclusive classroom - blog post Links to an external site.
Guidance on setting up online exams and quizzes: Includes information on inclusivity, and highlights considerations when transferring from on-site to online exams.

Web-conferencing:

A comparison of institutionally-supported web-conferencing tools - includes a section on inclusivity
Creating accessible documents and using accessibility IT features for Disabled people contains external links to accessibility information about Zoom and Teams.

Live captions:

The 'Present Live' feature in PowerPoint for the web (not the desktop app) has much better live captions than Teams meetings. There are also options for live emoji reactions and immediate feedback at the end of the presentation. (Log in at office.com, choose PowerPoint, and stay in that web version).