Let’s start with the big picture. On average (at least at my current university), 10% of students have an academic disability and need accommodations. And that is surely not all the students who would benefit from them; in my first year of teaching full-time, I had discussions with four separate students who, for various reasons, were not being given the accommodations they needed. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there were more.
First off – and most importantly – it’s not your place to make judgments about the appropriateness of a student’s accommodations. What you see of a student – their appearance, their behavior, their attitude in class – has very little (if anything) to do with their need for academic accommodations, and is surely not the whole picture. At the end of the day, you have no clue what is going on inside of that student’s head or what they’re dealing with when they’re not in your class. If the professionals employed by the university have determined that a student qualifies for accommodations, then they qualify for accommodations.
Secondly, accommodations are not an ‘unfair advantage’ that you need to monitor to keep a level playing field for all your students. Quite the contrary, in fact. They guarantee that all your students are on a level playing field. Nobody is harmed when a student takes advantage of their accommodations, and nobody should be made to feel guilty about receiving the help they need to succeed.
As the instructor, your only job is to implement the accommodations which have been prescribed by the people who are qualified to make that decision. This is not only your job, it is a legal requirement. If (after you’ve reminded yourself that this is not your field and you are not the expert) you have a problem with an accommodation, in no way should you bring this concern to the student. Contact the office which determined the accommodation in the first place. Until you have come to a resolution, you are legally required to continue providing the accommodation to the student.
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So, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the implementation of accommodations. These generally fall into two groups: classroom accommodations and testing accommodations.
Testing accommodations, realistically, are often best served by offering a makeup exam. It is not your place to let the rest of your students know about somebody’s accommodations, so implementing the most common accommodations (extra time, use of technology) can become tricky.
Many universities have a space set aside specifically for students with accommodations to take exams. These spaces will, by design, meet all of a student’s accommodations. If your student can schedule a time to take their exam in such a space, it will be the easiest option for you both. Otherwise, find a time that works with your schedules to meet your student in a quiet space (your office, a departmental library, etc.) so they can take their exam in the way best suited to their needs. For online assessments, most learning platforms allow you to provide extra time to individual students with very little effort.
Classroom accommodations can be a bit more varied. They can range from permission to use technology during class and flexible attendance, which are quite simple to implement, to something more complicated like providing access to missed materials, including lectures. The trick for implementing classroom accommodations is to start implementing accommodating behaviors before it’s necessary. Record your lectures. Make detailed lecture notes. Turn on closed captioning. Use dyslexia-friendly fonts in your written materials. This small bit of extra preparation on your end harms nobody, and can make all the difference in the world for those who need it. As a conclusion, I ask you to always keep this in mind: however inconvenient you might find it to add a bit of extra detail to your lecture notes or to set up closed captions on your presentation, it pales in comparison to what these students have had to endure by simply existing in a world which was not made for them.
Classics Teaching 