Accommodating is not enough.......

With online learning is gaining traction in higher education, there are continuous concerns of its accessibility, particularly for participants with disabilities. It is the individual’s choice to disclose a disability. In the online learning environment, it is difficult for the instructor to identify if any students have disabilities. Most institutions have a disabilities or accessibility services department, but the student must take the initiative to activate services, which then are approved and professors are notified of needs pertaining to individual students. Reaching out to professors on the student’s behalf does not help lessen potential barriers within online course unless the student takes the initiative to introduce and identify themselves as a students within the class needing accommodations. Even then there is no guarantee that he or she will be successful in the course. The success of students with disabilities in an online environment centers on whether or not the student has accommodated access to course materials (Massengale & Vasquez, 2016, p.69).

When institutions of higher education grant accommodations to a student with a documented disability, the focus is on compliance with legal mandates.  The main problem with this approach is that the burden is placed on individual students, who have to self-identify as having a disability in order to receive services from the institution. For students who have come directly from a K–12 environment, most educational and other decisions were made for them by parents or teachers and other professionals, the transition to a system that emphasizes self-advocacy can present a significant challenge. Furthermore, about half of higher education students with disabilities report having one of the "hidden disabilities" such as a specific learning disability or ADD/ADHD (Perez, 2016, p.60). These students may avoid disclosing their disability for fear of being stigmatized or labeled.  Consequently, higher education institutions may be underestimating the number of students who need support (Perez, 2016).

Accessibility differs from accomodation as the focus shifts from addressing the needs of a single student to creating a learning environment that works for all learners. One way to propel an institution into the mndset of accessibility is to make sure that instructional design incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. UDL is a framework for inclusive education that places the burden for accessibility on the curriculum rather than on students (Schwanke, Smith, & Edyburn, 2001).  UDL is based on the idea that learners show a great deal of variability in what engages them in learning, in how they perceive and process information, and in how they are able to interact with the learning environment and demonstrate their learning (Bates, 2015). As a result, the curriculum has to be designed with flexibility in mind: flexibility in how students engage with the content, in how information is presented, and in how students navigate and respond in the environment.

I had a recent conversation with our Director of Academic Technology regarding accessibility.  She was sharing with me the experience of one of our students. This particular student is visually impaired, and due to transportation and financial issues, elects to take online courses.  While she has been granted accommodations for her disability and uses JAWS screen reader technology, she repeatedly has accessibility issues. In other words, we as an institution have failed in providing this student with the same learning experience that oher learners have access to.  This struck a particular nerve with me, as I did not have a comprehensive understanding of how the JAWS screen reader works, nor the issues that could arise if the learning environment was not designed in such a way to be accessible to all. This particular instance has motivated me to work closes with our director of academic technology to ensure that all of my online courses are accessible to ALL students, regardless if their disability is permanent or temporary, short-term or long-term, or even diagnosable.  Online learning environments should be accessible to all students at all times.

References

Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning

for a  digital age.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Hendo/Downloads/Teaching-in-a-Digital- Age.pdf

Massengale, L.R. & Vasquez, E. (2016).  Assessing Accessibility: How Accessible are Online Courses for Students with Disabilities? Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(1), p. 69-79.  

Perez, L. (2015).  From Accommodations to Accessibility: Creating Learning Environments That Work for All. EDUCAUSE Review, 50(3), p 60-61.

Schwanke, T.D., Smith, R. O, & Edyburn, D.L. (2001). A3 model diagram developed as accessibility   and universal design instructional tool. Proceedings of the RESNA 2001 Annual Conference, 205-207.