WatSEE-aligned Actions
- Articulate the digital technology, learning components, and course format needed to meet the academic and engagement expectations and essential requirements of the course
- Provide details of assessments at the beginning of the course and identify how they connect to essential course requirements
- Incorporate a variety of flexible ways within a term for students to participate, interact with course material, and demonstrate knowledge
- Give all students time to learn and practice digital technologies before they must use them in learning
- Identify opportunities for curriculum co-creation (e.g. provide students opportunities to discuss and refine the content of course activities, assignments and/or grading rubrics)
- Employ trauma-informed pedagogical strategies, such as:
- Understand that students notably vary in their life experiences and that trauma (one-time, ongoing, or generational) impacts their learning and behaviour
- Provide a transparent course outline regarding instructional decision-making
- Promote safety by fostering healthy relationships with students and among students
- Ensure students know what to expect regarding upcoming difficult content and provide on- and off-ramps to potentially disturbing material (e.g., give students voice and choice where possible regarding participation and assessment)
- Discuss how language in historical documents, media, and materials may not reflect how we view and describe ideas now
- Reflect in course design and practices that an academic accommodation is a legal responsibility, not a favour, it removes barriers that exclude students, and it does not reduce rigour or academic integrity
- Use the Postsecondary Course Accessibility Guide to review and improve accessibility in your course pertaining to:
- Course outline: instruction and assessment formats, processes and policies, and essential requirements
- Course organization and navigation: LEARN setup of modules and assessments
- Course materials: instructor-created course content (e.g., lecture slides) and other source content (e.g., textbooks), assessments and learning activities, and educational technologies
- Communication barriers
- Physical learning space barriers
Resources
Centre for Teaching Excellence
Creating Course Outlines
What is Universal Design?
Universal Design: Course Design
Universal Design: Instructional Strategies
Tip Sheets: Inclusive Teaching and Learning
Content Warnings
AssessAbility Services
Faculty and Staff (Faculty Module Log-in & Tips for Creating an Accessible Online Learning Environment)
Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism
Anti-Racism Education Road Map
Accessible Education
Postsecondary Course Accessibility Guide
Equity Accelerator
Supporting Financially Stressed Students
Associate Vice-President, Academic
Framework for Teaching Effectiveness