Tips to Make Your Course More Accessible (Teaching Tip)

Students work together during Disability Awareness Week

This week, Iowa State University has been observing Disability Awareness Week, a week devoted to educating the Cyclone community about the experience of individuals with disabilities. As an instructor, you have a direct impact on a student’s experience and ability to grow and thrive at ISU. Consider these tips to increase accessibility and improve all student learning experiences.

  • Present information in multiple formats: A disability may impact a student’s ability to access specific forms of communication. Provide course content in a variety of modalities to eliminate this barrier, and allow all students the ability to access materials through the platform most beneficial to their learning. Create captions and transcripts for videos and audio recordings, include audio descriptions of images, diagrams, or maps, or include a simulation or hands-on experience.
  • Consider how students will engage with course materials and each other: Can you identify any barriers to or within the meeting location(s) or learning environment? Have you selected learning technologies accessible to students with disabilities? Support students by being flexible and providing alternative options for engaging with course materials and each other. Allow students to participate in person or virtually. Give them the opportunity to voice questions and comments, type them within a chat, or provide anonymous feedback via Qualtrics. Encourage students to work together using alternative formats including virtual rooms, team chats, discussion boards, or online interactive apps.
  • Use assessment for learning ownership: Identify alternative mechanisms students may utilize to demonstrate acquisition of knowledge and skills indicated in your learning objectives. Provide a variety of options for students to demonstrate their skills that allow for various strengths, preferences, abilities, and student disabilities.

Contact Lori Mickle (ldmickle@iastate.edu, 515-294-5299) for more information about course accessibility or email celt-help@iastate.edu with any questions.

Above photo courtesy of Alexandra Kelly/Iowa State Daily

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: Resources for Success (October 28, 2021 – Constant Contact) page.

Prefer a Print Version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for October 28, 2021 (PDF).

Time to apply for the CELT Miller Faculty Fellowship Program (Teaching Tip)

A yellow lab sits as a service animal.
The Miller Faculty Fellowship, in existence at Iowa State University since 1996, is a competitive grant program that supports faculty members to “enhance their scholarly work in the university’s undergraduate academic programs and develop innovative approaches to enhance student learning.”  
 
CELT is now accepting proposals for 2022-2023 Miller Faculty Fellowships with the deadline of Monday, December 13, 2021. 
 
Funding for 2022-2023 will include three categories of grants: 
  • Requests up to $5000 
  • Requests up to $15,000 
  • Requests up to $25,000. 
 
For 25 years, the Miller Fellowship Program has funded over $3 million dollars worth of projects to over 250 faculty within each university’s colleges. Previous Miller Faculty Fellows note that the funding improved their undergraduate teaching and furthered their professional development with proof of concept seed funding for external grants and opportunities to present and publish their work. 
 
One former Miller Faculty Fellowship recipient shared:
“Since the Miller Funding, I have written three articles and am currently composing a book. I have also written and obtained a grant from an external agency. This work all stemmed from the initial Miller grant funding.” 
 
For full details, please see the Miller Faculty Fellowship Program page.
 
With a joy for teaching,
 
Sara Marcketti
Director, CELT
 
Pictured above: A puppy calmly sits while training to be a service dog during the Miller Faculty Fellowship (2018-19) poster presentation, “Practical experience on service dog behavior and training science” from by Mariana Rossoni Serao, Animal Science (CALS); and Jodi Sterle, Animal Science (CALS).

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: Resources for Success (October 14, 2021 – Constant Contact) page.

Prefer a Print Version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for October 14, 2021 (PDF).

Studying Smarter: An Introduction to the Study Cycle (Teaching Tip)

Students studying in the windows at the library.
Do your students wait until the last minute to study for exams? Do they spend lots of time studying, but end up with less than promising results? Join the Academic Success Center’s (ASC Leif Olson and CELT’s Monica Lamm) for an 80-minute session on “The Study Cycle,” a guide to helping students build effective studying into their everyday lives. Participants will have time to incorporate components of the study cycle into their courses as well as identify ASC resources page.
 
This workshop is open to all instructors and teaching assistants.

With a joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti

Director, CELT

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: Resources for Success (September 16, 2021 – Constant Contact) page.

Prefer a Print Version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for September 16, 2021 (PDF).

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