This week, we urge you to consider accessibility in your classroom, which is helpful to all students (and us as faculty as well). New accessibility requirements for online materials provided by state and local governments will be effective April 2026. However, accessibility is also vital to keep in mind for non-online materials.
- If you are in a room with microphones, please use the microphones. Hearing challenges and auditory processing issues are often invisible and even when a person is using hearing aids or other assistive devices, you often cannot see them (especially in a sea of students in a large room.) Even if someone doesn’t have hearing challenges, hearing in a large lecture hall with bad acoustics can be very difficult. Using amplification feels awkward the first few times you’re using the microphone. This blog post offers a personal perspective, saying “When I use a microphone, it feels artificial. It feels too formal. I feel like a … a TED Talk speaker (not in a good way) lecturing at my students.” But with practice, it will become as natural as your “teacher voice” and everyone in the room will thank you.
- Whether you’re online, face to face, or a little bit of both – how do your class materials appear to someone with colorblindness? Texas Christian University has tips for colorblind friendly presentations, as does the Student Disability Resource Center at the University of California, Riverside.
- Deliver important information in multiple modalities. For example, if you make a verbal announcement about a change in test dates, also put up a slide and send out an announcement on Canvas. This ensures that everyone has a chance at the information – even students who may have been sick that day or folks in the corners of large rooms.
Accessibility is good for all of our students, and us too. We have extensive online resources about making online resources more accessible, and are more than happy to consult or build a workshop about how to enhance accessibility in your physical classroom as well.