In-Person Teaching

Actions You Can Take Today

Build in Breaks

Incorporating breaks into your lesson plans has several benefits for learners. Especially for longer classes and/or those with dense lectures, all of your learners will likely appreciate a break to refresh and refocus. This also supports the processing and retention of what they have learned.

Additionally, some learners require breaks for a variety of reasons, such as having chronic pain, the need to take frequent bathroom breaks, the need to take medication at certain times, and being prone to migraines. Having breaks built into the lesson allows them to take care of their personal needs without drawing the attention of the whole class.

Encourage Relocation When Needed

Let your students know they can change seats or move around the classroom during these planned breaks if a specific spot in the classroom is distracting them from learning. 

Being at a cramped desk surrounded by many other students is not an ideal learning environment for many, especially for those sensitive to sensory stimuli and/or prone to distraction. Moving to a new seat may be needed to help them focus.

However, if you have activities that involve moving around or if learners are required to come to the front of a large lecture hall, be aware this could be challenging for some learners; for example, those on crutches or in a wheelchair. Be sure to modify the activities so that all can participate. 

While Lecturing

As you are lecturing, there are changes you can make to your teaching style that will make a difference to your learners: 

• Take a moment to frame the day’s work. Briefly mention what you are going to talk about at the beginning of the lecture, and then summarize key concepts at the end of the lecture.
• Speak clearly, loudly, and at an even pace. Use a microphone if available to you in the classroom.
• Ensure your slides are fully accessible; review Accessible Slides.
• Describe images as they appear in your slides.
  • Note that how descriptive you are will depend on the purpose of the slide, its images, and whether learners will have to use that information for an assignment or exam. 
  • If the image is just decorative, a brief description is fine, but for complex graphics that are important to the lesson, take care to explain them in more detail. This is especially helpful for learners with visual accommodations.
  • Also, with complex images especially, remember to pause and give students a few additional seconds to review the image before moving on.
• Break up the lecture with breaks, activities, and discussions.
  • Try to avoid cold-calling on learners. If learners are quiet during a discussion, consider strategies such as Think, Pair, Share or polls to increase engagement.  
  • If you have poll questions or activity instructions typed in your slides, make sure to recite them out loud as well.
  • When asking questions, don’t be afraid to wait for a while longer than you may feel comfortable with to give learners a chance to answer. Learners may need time to process your question and formulate a response and thus might not raise their hand immediately.

Actions to Incorporate Tomorrow

Lecture Design

Use storytelling, videos, graphics, and other elements to maintain student engagement and interest, and to help students learn the material.

Avoid including too much information in one lecture. Budget time for pauses and breaks in between topics. One strategy is to design your syllabus based on specific goals and assessment measures to help determine what material is the most important to include for this specific class, and what information is not as relevant and can be explored at other points in the students’ education.

Multiple Ways to Participate

If you grade participation in your class, allow multiple forms of interaction to count toward that participation grade. Raising a hand and speaking to a large group of people on the spot is challenging for many; for example, many neurodivergent learners struggle with this approach. 

Some other ways for students to show participation are:

• In-class polls using tools such as Poll Everywhere
• Short in-class Reflection Assignments and One-Minute Papers
• Small group discussions
• Online discussions via Canvas or Ed Discussion
• One-on-one activities with the instructor or a TA

Convey Information in Different Formats

If you give instructions verbally, always make them available in text on Canvas or somewhere else learners can access them. Verbal instructions alone will not suffice for many learners, and if students are anxious about writing down everything you are saying, they may not be focusing on the class, and may be missing important points of the day’s lesson that will be important for future assignments and/or exams.

The above also applies to verbal lecture material. If all the day’s information is provided only through a verbal lecture, many learners may struggle. Some ways you can help learners are:

• Share your slides with learners in Canvas; review How to Upload a File to a Module
• Provide recordings (with captions and a transcript) of your lectures, or select important clips of your lectures to share with the class; review Comparison of Different Recording Tools in Canvas
• Provide study guides or questions for learners to follow along with during class
• Share lecture-relevant information via Canvas Pages and articles that learners can review outside of class

Note that these materials should also be shared in an accessible format. For options on how to do this, see Accessible Slides, Accessible Media, Accessible Documents

Actions for the Future

Flexible Policies

As an instructor, you know the importance of attending class. However, please note that highly motivated learners may still miss class on occasion for reasons out of their control. 

For example:

• Some buildings and classrooms on campus can be difficult to get to for those with mobility disabilities and transportation challenges. 
• Learners with chronic pain or migraines may have to miss class on occasion. 
• In-person classes have many distractions and can be overwhelming. This especially applies to large courses. Many neurodivergent³ learners are sensitive to sensory stimuli and/or easily distracted. They may struggle with coming to class for these reasons – not because they don’t want to learn.

As an instructor, you cannot change these things, but you can enact flexible policies, within reason, for days when learners may be struggling and cannot attend class. There are many possible ways to do this, depending on your course design. Some ways instructors have done this are:

• If there are 10 in-class labs, consider requiring that learners only need to complete 8 or 9 of those 10 to get full credit
• Create flexible assignments (e.g., learners can choose to give a presentation in class, take a test online, or complete a project and submit it virtually)
• Schedule frequent office hours, especially during hours when learners are less busy with other things (e.g., avoid the lunch hour and peak class times if possible)
• Consider incorporating flexible due dates. For example, consider how one instructor incorporated flexible due dates and whether this or a similar approach may be appropriate for your class.

These are just a few recommendations. SDS addresses some of these points and more at Creating an Accessible Classroom, and we encourage you to review the page for additional ideas for how to make your course more accessible for your learners.