Promoting Accessibility and Equity in the Classroom

Creating an accessible and equitable classroom Angie Brunk January 24, 2024

Housekeeping This is a big topic and I can only give you a few pointers in this space Ask questions I am interruptible! Feel free to contact me.

My perspective Born with a visual impairment Many years as a student and an instructor MAS human factors Research on accessible and inclusive pedagogy Social justice model of disability

How we think about disability Legalistic model What do we need to offer a student in order to satisfy the law? Medical Model How can we fix the student? Social Justice Model How can we make the disabled student s experience as similar as possible to the non-disabled students experience? Disability is part of the human condition Intersectionality Seeing shades of gray and complexity

What exactly is an accommodation? An accommodation is meant to put a student on a level playing field with their non- disabled classmates Assistive tech Braille, Screen Readers etc Live Captions, ASL interpreters More time for assignments or tests Flexibility in attendance

Why can accommodation be problematic? Faculty don t always cooperate Can set the student apart in a way that makes them uncomfortable Tend to be legalistic and formulaic Do not account for realities of different teaching environments and individual variation in needs

Additional Accommodations In a legalistic framework, students should not be offered additional accommodations Nothing is stopping you from offering something to the whole class!

Looking at the whole person Disability add layers of trauma and complexity to our experience Social isolation or worse, being treated like a pet or service project Yes, this applies to the romantic life as well Some families and faith traditions still ostracise disabled people Not having the same cultural experience as everyone else Discrimination in the workplace is real How this intersects with other aspects of privilege can be very complicated

Developing identities Students may discover a new disability during their college years Just as students ae developing their adult and professional identities, they are also doing so in the context of their disabilities Transitions from an environment where others advocate for them to an environment where they must advocate for themselves

Communication Provide as much information as possible early on about technology and activities you plan to use Talk about the why when you can Share that if students have concerns about their ability to participate in any activity etc they can e-mail you or contact you during office hours If you have a disability, consider disclosing it! The more openly you communicate, the more opens students will be about their needs.

Flexibility and tough love-grayest of gray Disabled students need tough love too! Deadlines Why do you have the deadlines you have? How do deadlines usually work in your field? Assignment formats Why are you using a particular format? Can you be flexible? What would you say to a student who fears public speaking/presentations? Usually not a documented disability How I answered it

Meaningful mentoring Good intentions are no substitute for practical knowledge and experience Your super brilliant disabled student will face discrimination Denial will not help your student Please match your disabled student to a disabled person you know in your field. If you don t know one, ask yourself why. Don t deny someone the chance to aquire knowledge! Striking a balance between realism and encouragement is challenging

Teaching equitably Understand that hot new activity or format won t work for everyone! Flipped classroom Active learning Non-standard classroom arrangements Think carefully about ice breakers, cultural references and metaphors Present information in multiple formats when possible It fine to try new things. Just be prepared to pivot if something does not work.

Equitable Materials Keep the pressure on vendors! Yes! Even the non-profit OER ones! Show me the VPATs. Ask vendors what they are doing to make their materials accessible If you have to use something that requires reformatting, give the student access center as much notice as possible. Videos should have closed captioning or ASL

Creating your own materials Color vision defects/color blindness are very, very common Make sure any videos have closed captioning Autocaptions are a great place to start, but you will need to edit Make sure visual information is also conveyed in text or audio

Building equitable assignments and assessments Is the material students need to use for the assignment accessible? Is any required travel accessible and are you providing transport for students who need it? Do we really need to do closed book tests? We have a lot of non-traditional students and your ability to do closed book tests decreases with age COVID brain fog Taking stats in my mid forties

Angie Brunk abrunk@ksu.edu