Instructors’ Accommodation Discourse on the First Day of Class

The literature review supports research findings that academic accommodations support learning outcomes.

a national longitudinal study of factors that influenced first- to second-year performance for SWD, Mamiseishvili and Koch (2011) showed that various types of accommodations (e.g. readers, classroom notetakers,course substitution, and extended time) were associated with improved student performance.

Sessional instructors and graduate students are teaching a higher and higher % of courses.

These precariously employed educators are not provided with training (or paid time for professional development) about teaching and learning with students with disabilities, or about accessibility and accommodations. This paper found that the majority of educators in their study were graduate students and posits:

in the current sample, over half of the instructors were graduate students, which may have accounted for the lack of attention to disability accommodation talk in the results. It is likely that graduate students have less training about disability accommodations and less experience in facilitating accommodations, which may have contributed to their lack of talking about them.

Educator bias against learners who request accommodations:

faculty, administrators, and staff were sometimes hesitant and had questions about working with students who needed accommodations, and some faculty explicitly questioned whether SWD could handle college work or should even be in college (Collins and Mowbray 2005)

The refrain “if they can’t hack it they don’t belong here” is still sadly all too common nearly 20 years since Collins and Mowbray’s study. The inherent ableism in this thinking often goes unchallenged because the assertion is mistaken for fact. The sentiment can be particularly pervasive in faculties that pride themselves on doing things the way things have always been done (the ways that benefit /enable the dominant culture of the faculty.)

it is plausible that instructors play an important role in shaping students’decisions to disclose their accommodation eligibility (Hartman-Hall and Haaga 2002; Hindes and Mather2007; Leyser et al.1998).

Themes in the discourse

Most educators did not discuss accommodations on the first day, themes from those who did:

• instructors demonstrated a willingness to accommodate learners who were eligible for academic accommodations
• discourse focused on the task goal – e.g. get your paperwork in. “If you need extra time, I will individually set your time for exams, but I need your paperwork.”
• some discourse was disrespectful, using language that is outdated e.g., “special needs”
• some sounded authoritative while providing incorrect information “You cannot file for disabilities in the middle of the semester; you need to do it now or never. I had this situation before. It is on you to do this.”

Only one “high-quality” example from 30 video-recorded mentions of accommodation from 17 educators.

One instructor’s disability policy discussion stood out as particularly high-quality basedon the acknowledgement of all three of the goal-types posited in multiple goals theories ( Clark and Delia1979). This instructor spent roughly 4 min talking about accommo-dations, compared with less than 65 seconds for every other instructor [emphasis added]. There are other reasons you may need to miss class.

“If you are a student with a disability, please let me know. Disability and accommodations come in all shapes and sizes. Let me give you an example. I had a student that was deaf in one ear and went the entire semester without telling me. Well, let me just tell you, when I lecture, I am animated, and I move all over the place. So oftentimes I would stand behind him. On the last day, he said, “You know I can’t hear you when you stand behind me, I am deaf in my left ear.” I was like,“Why didn’t you tell me, that is such an easy thing to accommodate? I just needed to stand in front of you! I can do that.” Now, I realize it can be intimating to come ask me about accommodations. I don’t want to be intimidating. I will meet with you before class, after class, in office hours if you want. Tell me what you need. I am happy to do that, especially if I see you working hard. I want to do whatever I can to see you be successful. If you do have DRC [Disability Resource Center] accommodations, we do have contracts and policies that we have to file, but let’s have that conversation. OK?”