Course Accessibility: Teaching Students who are Blind

Students will use specialized tools and formats to complete exams (which include quizzes, tests & in-class assignments involving writing). 

Exams are typically completed with CAL so those resources can be provided. Advance communication, planning and coordination is required to provide these. 

Helpful actions you can take:

• Provide the student and the CAL with the scheduled dates of exams as early as possible to facilitiate planning and coordination (e.g., on the course syllabus)
• Provide exams in MS Word format to the CAL exams staff in advance if not a D2L exam
• For D2L exams, double check the student's particular exam settings (start and stop time, additional time quantum, access for screen reading software)
• Review your exam design

does this assessment method or question rely entirely on the visual sense/ does it make sense for this student?

is there another way to represent the question(s)?

is there a different way to assess the student's knowledge?

does this assessment need to be this long or can the same knowledge be assessed with less questions?

consider avoiding matching questions -- student is given multiple choice questions vs matching questions (matching questions are highly visual and not accessible to students without sight).

reduce length of assessment (E.g., Total # of questions on exam is reduced but same level of knowledge is assessed vs traditional exam format). Students who are blind may take 2.5-3x longer to complete an exam. This means a 3 hour final exam can take between 7.5 and 9 hours to complete.

• Be aware that athough you can deliver your exams online using software (i.e. D2L, Pearson MyLab, etc.) you can safely assume that there may be components of those that will not be accessible to a student who is blind. Communicating and working with the CAL exams team will be key in mitigating for this.