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Foster an inclusive learning environment so all students feel like they belong at UTS. Learn how to facilitate an inclusive class (either online or on-campus) that will be critical for students with accessibility requirements and benefit everyone.
Follow these steps to facilitate an inclusive online or on-campus class for your students. This will be critical for students with accessibility requirements and benefit everyone.
Before class
- Create accessible learning materials. Follow the accessible content practices in your Canvas course, documents and presentations to ensure that all students can access the materials.
- Share workshop content before class. This helps students to be prepared for class, and it also allows students to access materials with their assistive technology where a digital copy is necessary.
- Think about your set-up. Ensure students will be able to see your face. Minimise noise for small group activities using adequate spacing. Ensure there are accessible pathways between furniture and no randomly placed objects in the classroom.
Read more from a student about enabling accessible and comfortable environments to optimise learning. Make sure you check in with students registered with Accessibility Services, while still making them feel like they belong. It’s not about singling students out but providing opportunities for students to give feedback about whether the documents you create are accessible and how you can improve.
During class
- Narrate what’s on the screen. Don’t assume everyone can see what is happening on your screen, so describe essential visual content.
- Always use the microphone to ensure that students can access hearing augmentation systems and other assistive technology.
- Repeat questions/comments before responding. This helps to ensure all speech goes through microphones for those using hearing augmentation and is also helpful to all students to ensure they all hear the question/comment from the audience.
- Speak clearly and steadily. It might take a couple of seconds for someone with hearing loss to register what you are saying. Speaking clearly and with a steady pace with regular pauses can help. This is also helpful if working with Auslan interpreters.
- Allow only one speaker at a time and mute participants. By setting clear housekeeping rules for students about when they should and should not speak, this can reduce background noise and allow students to fully focus on one person at a time.
- Provide trigger warnings for content. This will warn students who might have seizures when faced with flashing content. It is also helpful to warn students about distressing content so they have a chance to implement their strategies accordingly.
- Provide multiple methods of communication. Use verbal and non-verbal methods including native features in Zoom or Teams like the chat if you’re online.
- Provide clear instructions. Give students clear instructions about the tasks they need to undertake and their purpose.
It’s important to be aware of students who might require notetakers or captions in your class.
After class
- Upload your recording via Kaltura to enable captions. This will allow students to review any content they might have missed during the session.
Asynchronous activities
- Create activities with accessibility in mind. Reading through the accessible content practices to assist or provide alternatives for students with accessibility requirements as needed.
- Provide clear instructions. Give students clear instructions about the tasks they need to undertake and their purpose.
- Provide multiple attempts and enough time. To cater for the range of impacts of disabilities.