Before Teaching

You are asked to rate your programme on the following three statements:

• Staff make arrangements to deliver teaching and learning which is accessible and inclusive.
• Academic staff work with central services to facilitate individualised support mechanisms.
• Teaching, learning and assessment is designed in such a way as to allow for multiple means of delivery and engagement.

The ILTAF webpages are currently under development, we will be updating and improving the available information soon.

Accessible and inclusive teaching and learning

It is important that you consider how you can be proactive in delivering inclusive teaching, learning and assessment.

For instance, if you are going to use multi-media (such as YouTube) during your teaching, you should consider how you would sub-title these videos in order to give access to deaf or hearing impaired students. You should avoid trying to bolt-on these arrangements after you have designed your teaching sessions.

Whilst these arrangements may take extra time and resources, if they are left to chance during your teaching, they could present barriers to access for disabled students.

ILTAF statement: Staff make arrangements to deliver teaching and learning which is accessible and inclusive.

Individualised support arrangements

At York St John University we write a Learning Support Plan (LSP) in partnership with the student in order to outline what support arrangements we might put in place and how we might address barriers to access for disabled students. Each plan is sent to programme administrators and disseminated through subject directors to individual academic staff. If you have a query about where these plans can be found please contact the School Administrative Team. If you have a query about a recommendation within the plan please contact our Disability Advice Team: disabilityadvice@yorksj.ac.uk or ring us on ext: 6540

ILTAF statement: Academic staff work with central services to facilitate individualised support mechanisms.

Design for multiple means of delivery

In line with the principles of universal design for learning we recommend that teaching, learning and assessment is designed so that multiple means of delivery are explored. Delivery through multiple means allows for engagement by a range of student groups.

For example, it is generally accepted that powerful and engaging presentations utilise principles of multi-sensory delivery incorporating graphics, charts, images, videos and text. Rather than an endless list of bulleted points on dozens of PowerPoint slides. A good discussion of this is available at this website: the author compares Bill Gates’ presentation style with Steve Jobs.

Examples of powerful presenting:

• Hans Rosling
• Walter Lewin (although he breaks one of the principles of deaf awareness – not facing the audience when he speaks!)

ILTAF statement: Teaching, learning and assessment is designed in such a way as to allow for multiple means of delivery and engagement.