Spring 2025 

Description 

Join A&S colleagues to actively explore strategies to address the growing number of accommodation requests and learning needs of students with disabilities. You and your colleagues will evaluate and select strategies to fit your disciplinary teaching context and your students’ needs. This faculty learning community is structured to provide you with an array of accommodations tips, strategies for digital accessibility, exposure to actual student perspectives, and rich dialogue with your peers to define the pathway that will work for you and your students.

Intended Outcomes 

Through participation in this community, you will engage with colleagues to: 

• Discover practical disability insights: Engage with colleagues to explore disability, accessibility, and inclusive frameworks with real-world applications. 

• Clarify disability approaches: Differentiate between accessibility and accommodations to better understand their direct impact on student learning. 

• Apply targeted design choices: Identify and implement specific design decisions to enhance accessibility in your unique instructional context, making your teaching more efficient. 

• Assess and improve course materials: Evaluate the digital accessibility of your learning materials, activities, tools, and spaces to streamline your preparation process. 

• Integrate disability perspectives: Incorporate perspectives and experiences from people living with disabilities into your design process, enriching your materials with authentic insights. 

• Establish a collegial network: Identify and leverage collegial and university resources to support your commitment to inclusive teaching. 

Meeting Details 

The community will meet five times during the Spring semester, on Wednesday afternoons from 12:00-1:15pm. All meetings are in person and lunch will be provided.

Meeting Schedule and Topics 

Participants interested in working on a project focused on accessibility in some area of their teaching are encouraged to apply for a 2025-2026 A&S Learning Technology Incubator Grant. Grant application deadline is early March.

Expectations 

Prior to each meeting, we will explore readings related to accessibility, and during our meetings we will engage in discussion and hands-on work leading to concrete take-aways for our teaching. Participants should expect to attend at least four of the five sessions and to commit up to 1 hour completing readings before each session to be able to engage fully in discussion.

Eligibility 

Participants will be any A&S faculty interested in accessibility, including full-time and part-time faculty (tenured/tenure-track, AGFM), and postdocs. The community will be limited to 12 participants. No prior experience with accessible design is required. 

Sponsors 

This program is organized with generous support from A&S Learning Design & Technology and A&S Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

Application 

Please submit your application by Wednesday, January 22. Applicants will be contacted soon thereafter.

Accessibility Faculty Learning Community Application

Any questions? Please contact Lori Hostetler (lhl5c@virginia.edu) or Emily Scida (ees2n@virginia.edu)