Claire Shanks, James Browne and Penn Snowden, Disability Services

Abstract  | Presentation: Session B

Report
Claire Shanks and James Browne shed some light in this workshop on what the changes to the Disabled Student Allowance will mean for Higher Education Institutions. We all have a responsibility to make reasonable adjustment to ensure the educational provision that we provide doesn’t put a disabled student at a substantial disadvantage. The workshop explored how making the classroom more inclusive doesn’t have to incur massive costs; its more about being aware of the needs of students and adopting different teaching and assessment methods to enable all students to reach their full potential.

The workshop went on to consider how making the curriculum accessible is not about changing the learning outcomes of a programme to accommodate disabled students needs, it is about enabling students to participate by supporting them through the assessments and making adjustments where appropriate. If we can be more varied in the type of teaching and assessment methods that we adopt then we can make programmes accessible to all. Through making these adjustments we don’t just make the curriculum more accessible to disabled students but all the students on the course.

Here are some of the ideas that the participants came up with in response to “What is the one thing we should do differently to make the curriculum accessible to disabled students?” |

Susan Halfpenny, Teaching and Learning Librarian, Information, University of York