Your Guide to Accessible Learning
With the new school year in full swing across the country, many students, teachers, and parents* are both excited and nervous. For those living with disabilities, getting back to school brings with it an added layer of emotion and preparation. Whatever your role, meeting students with disabilities and/or unique learners’ needs is essential to their success and wellbeing throughout their educational journey. To help you and your students be as successful as possible this coming school year, we’ve put together a collection of tips, tools, and strategies for accessible learning.
Accessible Learning Basics
First things first: what is accessible learning?
“Accessible Education [Learning] is the process of designing courses and developing a teaching style to meet the needs of people from a variety of backgrounds, abilities and learning styles.”
Rather than focus on providing accommodations which stem from the idea that “access is a problem for the individual and should be addressed by that person and the disability service program.”, Accessible Education believes that access issues stem from poorly designed environments and should be addressed by the designer(s). Approaching educational design this way shifts the burden of equitable learning from the person with disabilities to those responsible for their education, where it should be.
Based on the principles of Universal Instructional Design (UID) and Universal Design of Learning (UDL), Accessible Education aims to maximize learning opportunities for all students with built in flexibility for individual needs.
Characteristics of Accessible Learning
Although accessible learning is flexible and often looks different in every classroom, there are several defining characteristics that prevail regardless.
Accessible Learning:
Takes into account a variety of student identities, including ethnicity, race, abilities, disabilities, age, gender, language abilities and preferred learning style.
Does not compromise academic rigour.
Is a proactive and inclusive way of teaching and designing courses and curricula.
Removes barriers to learning before they can affect anyone.
Reduces the need for specialized accommodations.
Identifies and clearly expresses the essential course content, while recognizing that students can express understanding of essential course content in multiple ways.
Is consistent with universally recognized principles of good teaching.
Source: https://accessiblecampus.ca/tools-resources/educators-tool-kit/introduction-accessible-education/
Creating Accessible Classrooms
Protections
In order to create accessible classrooms, it’s important to first have some awareness of the legislations and systems that protect and support students with disabilities.
The prevailing legislation for students with disabilities is IDEA or The Individual with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA covers 13 conditions for which students 3 and older often need accommodations. Directed towards students in the public school system - to include charter schools, IDEA places two important responsibilities on states and their public schools. First, they must provide free appropriate public education to students with disabilities. This involves allowing them to learn side-by-side with their peers as much as possible, evaluations free of charge to their families, and providing them services related to their unique needs. Second, schools must give parents* a voice in their child’s* education. This involves ensuring they are consulted before any services are rendered, frequent communication, and choice in the services their student receives.
Once students exit the K-12 public school system, the Americans with Disabilities Act serves as their primary legislative protection in accessible learning. The ADA, as well as section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act require equitable access to postsecondary education for students with disabilities. This includes public universities, vocational programs, community colleges, and private schools.
Plans
For students who qualify, they are evaluated for special education* services and other support at school. In order to meet students’ individual needs, one of 2 plans are put in place.
For those who require special education*, an IEP (or Individual Education Plan) is developed. The IEP (or Individual Education Plan) is the cornerstone of lifting barriers and ensuring proper education and related services to students whose performance is affected by one of the 13 disabilities listed above.
For students with disabilities aside from this list, a 504 plan can be implemented. The 504 is part of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and accepts a much broader definition of disability than IDEA. A 504 plan allows for accommodations within the educational space for a child with any disability.
Learn more about the differences between IEP and 504 Plans.
For postsecondary students, these plans are no longer applicable. While the route somewhat differs from in public school, adult students have the ability to work with their institution to develop and implement an acceptable education and/or accommodation plan. The Disability Services Office, advisors, counselors, and others can help in this process.
What You Can Do
Tips for Parents
As caretakers, the process of ensuring our students receive the best education often feels like a maze. Between understanding a handful of policies and juggling our students’ unique everyday needs to breaking through the noise and feeling heard, it gets overwhelming quickly. But there are a few tips you can employ to make the process a little more manageable.
First, staying up-to-date can help. In the world of accessible education, there’s a lot to keep track of: meetings, events, updates, etc. Using a system that works for you to organize all of the essentials in one place can go a long way toward managing the overwhelm. This might include a binder for documents, master calendar for important and/or landmark events and meetings, and a folder on your computer dedicated to research. It might also include a digital and/or paper log of communication with leaders (especially useful if barriers or conflict arise). Or it might look totally different. No matter the system, staying organized is key.
Be present. This one is a bit self-explanatory. The more involved you are with your child’s school experience, the better equipped you will be to advocate for their needs.
Communicate. In many ways it all boils down to this. Advocating for accessible education requires a great deal of communication from a variety of people and roles. And the more of it you do and the more transparent you are about what’s going on, the easier it will be to meet your student’s learning needs.
For more caregiver tips, check out this list.
Tips for Students
Whether you’re an adult or postsecondary student or if you are still in the K-12 school system, you have the opportunity to advocate for your own educational journey in a number of key ways.
Think about how you think. Here’s what we mean here. Everyone thinks - and learns - differently. You may have heard the term ‘learning styles’ before. That is, whether you learn best by written material, verbal cues, auditory stimuli, etc. And they’re certainly important. But for students with disabilities, it’s also a good idea to think deeper than your learning style. Let’s take dyslexia for example. Dyslexia may affect one person vastly differently than it affects another, both in and out of the classroom. Developing an intimate knowledge of how your disability/ies affect you will help you immensely as you identify barriers to your education and specific accommodations that lift them for you along the way.
Learn the law. Especially as you get older and prepare for adulthood, getting to know the laws and policies that protect you as a person (and student) with disabilities will become increasingly beneficial. There are a number of federal and state laws that ensure you have every opportunity for equitable and safe learning experiences. And while most of them specifically outline the responsibility to adequately inform and consult with caretakers, it’s never too early in our opinion to request personal involvement in these meetings. You know yourself best and are often your own best advocate!
Tips for Teachers and Schools
Teaching a multitude of students, each with unique needs, can be overwhelming at first. But having a few resources and strategies at your disposal can go a long way towards ensuring every student has a positive experience without overwhelm on your part.
Professional development programs are beneficial to develop and preserve teachers' positive attitude of inclusion and accessibility.
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Sources:
https://www.ncld.org/news/updates/self-advocacy-5-tips-from-a-student/
https://www.ncld.org/news/updates/self-advocacy-5-tips-from-a-student/
Community Quotes
“[When I got complications with my disease] during my master’s degree, I really learned that as a student you have to advocate for yourself because your teachers don’t often know what’s going on and if you don’t [communicate] they don’t know how to help.” -Jade Kolbo, (she/her)
“I was diagnosed with neurodiversity in the late 1990’s and… I didn’t need support academically but I did socially. My school wasn’t adequately supporting my needs so my parents made the decision to pull me out of special education classes, move, and enroll me in private school. There, I got to be in the meetings about me [and my needs] and got to actually vocalize what I wanted and needed and be a part of [developing] the services I received. But where the social support stopped was in high school when I got older.”]
“Now, as an educator, the way I see it is: I don’t ask for documentation and I believe you at face value and I think about what I can do to make my classes as accessible to everyone as possible…. And [keep in mind] students of different ages have different accessibility needs from one another.”
-Haley Moss, (she/her)
“I [grew up] in the education system feeling caught in the grey zone of not being disabled enough to identify as disaled but not being able-bodied enough to identify as able-bodied.” -Emily Vilcsak, (she/her)