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Disability Wiki

Designing an Accessible Course

Disabled students and disabled scholars have spent decades showing what good teaching looks like — and much of it is just good design that helps everyone. The most accessible courses don’t treat access as a favor granted on request; they build it into the structure, so most students never need to ask. This page is a practical starting point for educators (especially in higher ed and adult learning) who want to do that.

The short version: access is a design choice, not an exception. Decide before the term how students will participate, submit work, and get materials — then publish those choices in the syllabus so the flexibility is there for everyone by default.

This complements the Educators page (which leans K–12 and UDL foundations) and the Higher Education page. For the principle behind it, see Universal Design for Learning.

Access as design, not exception

Section titled “Access as design, not exception”

A course models its values. If access only happens when a student produces a letter and makes a special request, the message is that disabled students are an edge case. If the course is built so multiple ways of participating, several formats, and reasonable flexibility are simply how it works, access becomes ordinary — and the students who can’t or don’t disclose still benefit.

The practical version of this: accommodation letters are a floor, not a ceiling. Students registered with a disability services office should be able to share letters early so you can plan together — but no student should need a letter to use the flexibility you’ve already built in.

Build these into the syllabus

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Multiple ways to participate. Let contribution count in more than one mode — speaking in class, written reflections, asynchronous discussion posts, or one-on-one conversation. Don’t privilege a single mode (e.g. cold-calling or graded verbal participation), which disadvantages many disabled, anxious, and multilingual students at once.

Flexible deadlines, stated up front. A standing short grace window (for example, any written assignment may be submitted a set number of days late without explanation) removes a huge volume of individual negotiation and the need to disclose private medical details. Make longer extensions available on request, ideally before the deadline.

Format flexibility on major assignments. Where the learning goal allows, let a final project be a traditional paper, a policy brief, a multimedia or audio piece, or another negotiated form — provided it meets the same analytic objectives. Define the objectives, not the single artifact.

Accessible materials from the start. Provide readings as screen-reader-compatible text wherever possible (real text, not scanned images), caption video, and describe essential images. Retrofitting access mid-term is slower and excludes students in the meantime.

Content notes. For material dealing with violence, institutionalization, medical abuse, suicide, or similar, a brief note lets students prepare or plan an alternative. This is about agency, not avoidance.

Invite barrier reports as useful information. Tell students plainly: if something in the course is creating a barrier, say so — that’s useful feedback, not an imposition. Then act on it.

A few common pitfalls

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  • Treating “rigor” and “access” as opposites. Flexibility in how and when work is done is not a lowering of standards; the analytic bar stays the same.
  • Making disclosure the price of flexibility. Anything that forces students to explain a diagnosis to get a basic adjustment will be used less and resented more.
  • One-off fixes that don’t change the design. If you grant the same individual exception every term, build it into the syllabus instead.
  • Assuming the accommodations office covers it. Letters are a legal floor; the office can’t anticipate every barrier in your specific course.
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Contribute to This Page

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Disabled students, instructors, and disability-services staff: if a practice here misses the mark, or you’ve built access into a course in a way that worked, please add it — especially approaches for disciplines and class formats not well represented here. See How to Contribute.