So one of my biggest points I want to make today is that we have two
models that some of you have been familiar with, we have Universal Design (UD)
which talks about optimizing usability for everyone and we have an
accommodation model where we are looking at one student in a classroom
or one individual who has a disability. Often instructors feel they have a
student in their class and they are asked to give accommodation, the
accommodation is supplied and then it's like, (sigh) responsibility job finished,
and I think you can see that as you experienced in the classroom, just because
the accommodation is there, doesn't mean it guarantees accessibility.I would like
to say that captioning is great. It's UD, but it really only gives partial access if there's
not inclusive instruction along with this. Inclusive instruction needs to be used in
the accommodation model but inclusive instruction -- benefits all students.
So inclusive instruction is UD for all students but inclusive instruction is what
a professor has to do when you are focusing on the instruction accommodating
one student. So accommodations in an environment without other UD,
inclusive instruction methods really is worthless. And that's my biggest
message I want to say to you that accommodations are great but they have
to fit a larger context of UD.
