Students have a lot to say about pedagogy.

One of the most striking aspects of conversations with students about UDL is that their feedback should be prioritized if we want to understand what is working and what is not in our course design and teaching decisions. When we start asking questions, we unearth the stories around UDL. We begin to see how crucial it is to design for continual feedback, investment, and collaboration in the true spirit of learning as an unfolding and iterative human experience.

“Exploring the meanings of access is, fundamentally, the exploration of the meaning of our lives together – who is together with whom, how, where, when, and why?” (Titchkosky, 2011, p. 6).

If you were to take a survey of educators interested in UDL they would likely say something about accessibility. After all, the UDL framework was developed as a means of including children with disabilities in mainstream education (Meyer et al., 2014).

What do we mean by accessible teaching?

Accessible teaching can mean a number of things. It can mean embracing individual differences in skill level, interest, and background knowledge. It can mean embracing preferences for pacing learning. Accessible teaching can mean that there are multiple pathways to showing our knowledge. It can also mean embracing disability and having open discussions about barriers. For some, accessible teaching means that concepts are modeled and scaffolded. For others, accessible teaching means that they are offered the choice of working alone.

For Julia, in the spirit of the founders of CAST (Centre for Applied and Special Technology), accessible teaching certainly starts with honouring the diversity of learners and supports for students with disabilities so that learners do not have to work for access.

I think my most supportive and inclusive instructor would be considered such because she actually did the things that she was supposed to do regarding students with disabilities. She read every letter of accommodation and distributed them to TAs who also read them. She implemented accommodations without needing to be asked, and had a form built into the assignment folder to ask for extensions if needed so that TAs would know when to expect assignments. In her class, it did not require extra work to be disabled and there was no self-advocacy required in order to get access to the learning environment.

According to students, the bottom line is that an accessible classroom means something bigger than meeting disability-related barriers. An accessible classroom provides alternatives and a willingness to meet learners in ways that recognizes their learning contexts. It means structure and warmth, reciprocity and care for the subject matter, flexibility and openness to alternative pathways.

For instance, Ash described a broad number of accessible measures in some classrooms:

But other really accessible ones have had it was like, “Okay, open deadlines, open lectures, feel free to ask me questions, we’re going to bring the material to you in a way that is engaging”, where it’s like okay like actually interact with the things being taught, rather than being lectured at for 75 minutes.

Likewise, Angel listed a number of accessible measures that considered sickness, struggle with material, and simply having content backup in terms of lecture recordings.

They gave accommodations when I got sick, was very proactive in letting students know that they’re open to talk about your struggles or questions, and they also have a wide range of materials that they use to educate students. For example, I enjoy classes where there are lecture recordings. There were times when I felt sick in class due to my medication so even if I was personally there, I did not absorb anything that was said. By having that lecture recording, I can go back and see what was said or what I missed.

An interesting aspect of student feedback was the means by which learners gauged accessibility in the classroom ahead of time, implicitly measuring the probability that their barriers could be met through good curriculum design. For Wesam, for instance, the syllabus could reveal what students could expect in terms of accessibility:

I think one of the initial points where you can tell if someone values accessibility and inclusivity is based on the course outline. Where some ensure that they are reachable for requests of accommodations and accessibility, others completely disregard that disabled students exist in their classrooms.

In keeping with the UDL themes, learners broadly characterized accessibility as acknowledging that there can be a number of ways of reaching learning goals and welcoming ways of doing so against the larger backdrop of instructor skill and enjoyment in teaching the material. More specifically, learners commented on modality, flexibility, and pacing.