'Lectures... provide a cost-effective means of teaching large groups of students.' (Horgan, op.cit.) In some institutions, several hundred students may constitute such a 'large group'. This inevitably raises the question of how to plan effectively to meet the varied needs of large classes in which some often unknown percentage of students may have disclosed to the institution that they are disabled, but where the relevant information has not been passed to teaching staff. In such circumstances, it is perhaps difficult to address adequately a variety of student needs, in a reactive way, on the day(s) the lectures are given.
Helpful questions to aid preparation might be, 'What do you expect students
to be able to do in your lecture?' and 'What can you do to anticipate the
possibility that some students will be unable to do that, or these things?'
While a list is likely to depend on the perception of what the purpose of
lectures is, it might include the expectations that students will be able:
to attend the lecture
to make use of overheads, Powerpoint, demonstrations, videos or interactive technology
to make use of handouts or other written materials
to receive and make a record of orally delivered information and ideas
to be enthused, perhaps inspired, about the subject of the lecture
to leave with a record of the lecture which promotes further study
to benefit from directions towards further sources of reading or other materials.
This section on planning considers points 1 - 3. If the accessibility of the venue and accessibility of materials have not been considered in advance, then it may be that little can be done to retrieve the situation at the point of lecture delivery, which is the subject of the next section, Delivering lectures, covering points 4 and 5. The final section, Following on from lectures, discusses points 6 and 7 above, looking at expectations about the use students make of lectures after the event.
The preparation of any particular series of lectures is likely to take place against a background in which the course specification has already determined the role of lectures in the course, and where larger matters of policy, such as attendance requirements, have already been established. It is to be expected however, that such policy will have made reference to the scenario in which some students may be unable to attend from time to time. Some disabled students, although perhaps few, may know in advance that attendance could sometimes be impossible. This highlights the necessity to ensure that applicants and new students are aware of any non-negotiable attendance requirements, and what alternatives may be available where attendance is not possible.
"In the current session there has been some initial experimental work done on the video recording of some lectures which could provide useful additional support for some students and alleviate difficulties caused by unexpected absences."
It is trivially true to say that students who do not know where or when the lecture is to be held are unlikely to be able to attend. For some disabled students, accessibility of information about the location or timing of lectures will be key to attendance. For example, students who use wheelchairs will need access to notice boards, in accessible locations, at accessible heights. Students with some visual impairments will be unable to read some printed notices or department handbooks or timetables, or web-based information which has not been constructed in accordance with web accessibility guidelines. (See http://www.w3.org/WAI/ for further information on web accessibility.) Students who are deaf or hard of hearing can miss verbal announcements about the re-location of lectures.
"You get lectures moved quite considerably and they put things like that on the department computer screen. Because it flicks, I can't read the whole screen before it flicks to the next one."
"It appears that notice-boards are one of the main methods of communication, especially when they incorporate notices in tiny print. Having discovered this, I could either (a) stand on tiptoes and press my nose right up against the cork, while squinting away and looking a wee bit bizarre to the average onlooker; or (b) ask for an individual copy in large print." (Sara's diary. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/lifefiles/student)
E-mailing all students about class changes is likely to be a generally effective means of communicating information about lecture times and locations.
The accessibility of the lecture venue is also key to attendance. And some disabled students may be able to attend under some circumstances but not others. A student (or lecturer) who uses a wheelchair requires an appropriately accessible venue for the lecture. But an overcrowded lecture theatre might be equally inaccessible to a student who experiences panic or anxiety in crowded spaces.
"We are ill prepared for a student experiencing difficulty in a crowded studio or in a lecture theatre with more than a hundred students."
'Physical accessibility of lecture theatres', then, means different things for different disabled students, and may well be about issues other than that of whether a route or entrance has ramps or lifts. Thought also needs to be given to the furnishings and facilities available. Many lecture theatres allow people in wheelchairs little or no choice about which area of the theatre they can use. In some lecture theatres, access for people in wheelchairs is only at the back, and this is really unhelpful for people who have an additional impairment of hearing or vision, for example, or who simply want to sit alongside friends.
In an assessment of accessibility of a lecture theatre in general, questions to consider include:
Individual lecturers are often unable to choose lecture theatres, but where it is established that a particular venue is unsuitable for some students, it will be important to inform those who do have the relevant responsibility, and to request the relocation of the class where possible, or to make other kinds of adjustments where this is not possible. Examples might include additional or one-to-one tutorials.
Just as the physical location and facilities of a lecture theatre may make it accessible or inaccessible in a variety of ways, the prepared materials for the lecture, such as overheads, Powerpoint slides, demonstrations, videos or interactive technology also need to be planned with accessibility in mind. Colour, contrast, volume of text, font size and other styles all play a part in legibility of overheads and Powerpoint slides. As a rule, Arial or Verdana at minimum font size 30, with sharp contrast between text and background colour, mixed case rather than all upper case, bold rather than underlining or italics, left-hand justified text, are features which maximize accessibility. Sharp contrast is also needed for diagrammatic material, and although it may be necessary to use colour, it is helpful if colour alone is not relied upon to convey information or meaning. (See See it Right, Royal National Institute for the Blind, for guidance on accessible printed information.)
In some cases, it may be possible that a few disabled students may still be, with all clear print guidelines followed, unable to access overheads or Powerpoint presentations. The strategy of making the material available in advance, in digital format, will enable access via appropriate hardware and software, such as magnification or screen reading software. This would seem to be a particularly safe strategy where you may not know, in advance, the details of student needs, particularly in a large class.
"Within the Department, we have adopted a range of solutions for provision of lecture notes. Some notes are posted on the web. Some lecturers are fiercely resistant to this. Other methods include giving photocopies of OHPs, but only to students who request them at lectures; giving copies of OHPs to the whole class; arranging for photocopying of the notes of another (selected) student at the expense of the Department. Our impression is that a lot of onus is placed on the student, who is expected to find out each lecturer's personal idiosyncrasies with regard to notes and we think that we should try to reach a more inclusive approach."
If it is possible that some students may need to lip-read (and you may or may not know this in advance) then providing an outline and context of the lecture beforehand will be critical to enable effective lip-reading. Perhaps it is more likely that lecturers would know in advance if a student required to use a sign language interpreter. In this case, it is necessary for the interpreter and student to have devised and agreed signs for language which is perhaps technical and unfamiliar to both. The strategy of making lecture outlines and copies of overheads and Powerpoint presentations available digitally in advance serves as effective anticipation of the needs of a great many disabled students.
A video may be used in a lecture as an interesting aside or as a critical component of the course. How or whether a video can be made accessible depends on the purpose and context of its use. Subtitling a video may be extremely useful and appropriate for a lecture in Politics. In a particular Modern Language class, however, the purpose of its use may be to help the development of students' skills in aural comprehension, and therefore subtitles, or provision of a transcript, may defeat that educational purpose. Students who are deaf or hard of hearing may be excluded from the benefits of a video which is unsupported by subtitling or transcript. Students who are blind or partially sighted may be excluded from the benefits of a video which does not carry audio description of key visual information. Clearly, the preparation of accessibility features for videos takes time and must be planned well in advance.
Increasingly, the development of technological innovations to support changes in lecturing techniques means that classrooms may be provided with equipment such as key-pads which allow students to record their answer to a problem set by a lecturer. While it is to be hoped that such developments are made with awareness of the possible needs of disabled students, lecturing staff planning teaching around such technology require to consider how, for example, students with sensory impairments or with impaired manual dexterity will derive equal benefit from what the innovations have to offer.
Handouts and other written materials, such as feedback or evaluation sheets, are ideally made available prior to the lecture so that there is time for any reformatting required, into accessible font, font size, paper colour and so on. An alternative strategy where there is less opportunity for planning, perhaps, would be to offer, at the lecture, a few copies in larger font size, or written materials on disk. A disadvantage of this strategy is that its efficacy might rest on students 'disclosing' to the class that they have this requirement, and some disabled students prefer that their needs are met discreetly and as a matter of routine provision. A further possible disadvantage is where there is an intention that the materials should be referred to or worked with during the lecture. A disk version of notes to be used later may be appropriate for a student who uses Braille, but without the appropriate access technology, a disk version is not usable during the lecture. And while a student who uses Braille may be able to read a Brailled evaluation form, for example, thought has to be given to how it is intended that the student should complete it.
Copyright: The University of Strathclyde 2000 - 2008
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