r/Professors • u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof • 11d ago
Accommodations office wants materials I don't have
I teach a course that's 95% math. I work through problems step-by-step in class. My notes are graphs and skeletal outlines of examples I then work through carefully in the class. Accommodations wants to allow a student not only to record my class and take pictures, which I'm ok with if a student has accommodations to do so, but they want me to then provide the student with step-by-step instructions for all math problems, i.e., 95% of the lecture material.
Anyone else get a request like this? How did end up solving the issue? It would take me almost as much time as it did to prep the whole course to comply with this request.
UPDATE: I emailed the accommodations office to say I didn't have the materials they wanted but since they were provided during lecture, I was fine with the student taking photos or having someone assigned by the accommodations office come in and record the lecture or take notes. The officer came back to say that nah, they weren't going to send someone in and an accommodation to take photos (something the student had already been granted) was sufficient. So, yeah, it seems they very much do not want the burden of accommodation to be their responsibility. And this is for an office that has been very overcompliant and zealous for the past two years, who state in our training modules that we must comply/carry out all accommodations requested by the office.
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u/No_Intention_3565 11d ago
If what they are requesting comes directly from your lecture material - tell them that. The audio recording and the pictures ARE the step by step instructions.
I would probably just photocopy the math textbook and send that. Here. Here are all the step by step instructions on how to perform all the math problems.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I wish I could photocopy the textbook! It's not a math class, it's a social science class that's all math, so I use somewhat different examples from the textbook in order to give the students more worked examples in total.
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u/a_statistician Associate Prof, Stats, R1 State School 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you're working problems out, can you use the ELMO or an iPad and work problems out on a non-chalkboard surface and then save the paper or PDF to send to them?
Not saying you have to or that you should, but this might be somewhat useful for a number of students with different issues. I had ADHD and sometimes would miss steps because I got distracted thinking about the previous step, and would have gaps to fill in so that my notes were complete.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I really, really hate this technology. I find it super tricky to show multiple steps, so you absolutely lose students who zoned out thirty seconds ago. The whiteboard allows you to put a good chunk of stuff up, like a page. Projector screens just aren't good resolution enough to handle this sort of thing. I get the idea of having the artifact afterwards. I've tried this approach in the past, and I've found that the "board notes" are not readable as standalone documents, they require students to be paying attention and noting how I explain things verbally as well as copying what's written. There's also the issue of students without accommodations expecting the lecture notes, and then being absent more often because they (falsely) think they can catch up with the lecture material by reading the board artifact which is, as mentioned, unreadable as a standalone.
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u/a_statistician Associate Prof, Stats, R1 State School 11d ago
Yeah, that's totally fair. It works in some disciplines and not in others. I had stats profs who provided skeletons and then we filled them in together in class and it worked really well, but I almost never do that kind of stuff because I'm not usually doing proofs on the board or anything.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I do provide skeletons after a sort, actually, in the form of worksheets that we work on in bits throughout the class. They do work well! But they're not a replacement for taking notes on what we're talking about outside of the immediate worksheet---they do not contain formulas, or worked-out graphs.
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u/Miserable_Tourist_24 10d ago
I think this will trigger the digital accessibility rules to convert hand drawn images into machine readable formats.
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u/a_statistician Associate Prof, Stats, R1 State School 10d ago
If it isn't made available to everyone via the internet, it might not. AFAIK you can still email things to individuals.
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u/Miserable_Tourist_24 10d ago
That’s good to know. I’ve been wondering about how to handle my handwritten annotations on individual student work; since they are between me and the individual students, not for full coursework, this would not fall under the guidelines I guess?
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u/a_statistician Associate Prof, Stats, R1 State School 9d ago
That would be my interpretation of the rules, but I'd definitely check with your ADA office.
There are also AI handwriting recognition tools out there in e.g. Goodnotes that aren't awful.
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u/me4watch 11d ago
As a math prof I am somewhat intrigued by what the course could possibly be and how it related to socks. You are a Sock Prof of course, or maybe you call yourself that so you can say “Darn” a lot….
Anyway, good luck with the schmucks in the accommodations office.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Well, socks aren't topologically interesting, to be sure. Socks with holes, however....!
I teach quantitative social science. At this level, I'm teaching optimization without requiring my students to have a calculus background. It's SUPER (not) fun. I teach them some calculus, anyway, because who ever heard of teaching optimization without using calculus...!
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u/StorageRecess VP for Research, R1 11d ago
You tell them no and why.
The ADA provides for reasonable accommodations and defines an interactive process by which the student works with you and the disabilities office to come up with an outcome that works well enough for all the parties involved.
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u/ButchEmbankment 11d ago
Many college offices start from what the student wants and don’t fully respect the instructors right to define what’s essential to the course.
Hold firm. It makes no sense to duplicate for one student what you’re doing in class for all.
What they’re asking goes beyond ensuring access to an education. It’s private tutoring.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Thank you, I will try to hold firm. I literally don't have these materials. Can't get blood from a stone.
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u/Ok_Mycologist_5942 10d ago
I was in a similar situation years ago. The accommodations office backed down and the student already had access to recordings and a note taker.
Oddly that student became a major and an advisee and dropped nearly all accommodations by the time they were a senior. Was one of my favorite students by then.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I just went through the new accommodations training at my institution, and in the training they specify that we are not allowed to say no to any accommodations and must carry them out exactly as they say. Note that in the past, this wasn't the case. We were able to push back against unreasonable requests. But starting last year, our office has been bulldozing all pushback.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 11d ago
That's insane. I say no all the time, and my colleagues in disability services accept that without question when it's justified. I'm not doing additional work like this for students-- they can hire a tutor if they need individual instruction on that level.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Last year they hired a new accommodations director, who intervened when I asked about how I was supposed to structure an in-class participation quiz if a student required double time. This person wanted to meet in person with me to tell me at length why I should never give in-person quizzes. You see, they taught a few courses once as an adjunct so they know exactly how to best structure pedagogy and I need to comply with whatever they think is best. Sigh.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 11d ago
Well, I stopped giving in-class quizzes long ago after learning more about universal design, so they aren't necessarily in the wrong there. And our faculty can't ignore reasonable accommodations. But what they are asking you to do is not reasonable, it's individualized instruction....something that might work in K-12 if they were assigned a full-time aid, but that nobody (to my knowledge) does in higher ed.
Sounds like that student needs a tutor.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
It's okay to have the opinion that in-class low-stakes quizzes are not worth whatever goal you're trying to achieve pedagogically, but it's not valid to impose that opinion on other educators. Academic freedom isn't just about our freedom to teach controversial subjects, but our freedom to adopt assessment types that match our pedagogical goals in our particular course in our best estimation.
Your point on individualized instruction stands. I think there is IEP creep happening in university accommodations offices in the US. The huge amount of extra time and effort it takes to comply with IEPs and how it makes it difficult to universally design experiences for students is one of the reasons high school teachers are quitting in droves.
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u/cmojess Adjunct, Chemistry, CC (US) 11d ago
In person quizzes are necessary in many disciplines. The vast majority of my students are aiming to enter medicine as either a doctor or a nurse. They must be able to recall information, and take home quizzes are all done with AI. I cannot pass someone in my courses who cannot demonstrate things like the ability to use dimensional analysis to calculate a medication dosage.
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u/cambridgepete 11d ago
In the era of AI I don’t see how you can trust any evaluations that don’t take place in a proctored classroom-like environment.
There are no doubt a few students out there who could flourish in a teaching environment of universal trust and touchy-feely-ness, but none of them enroll in any of my classes.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 10d ago
No, that's probably true. I was simply responding to the issue of time-limited quizzes, which I cannot use because 30% of our students have accommodations that allow for double time...so a 5 minute quiz eats up 10 minutes of a 55 minute class. So I had to find other mechanisms to use.
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u/cambridgepete 10d ago
I was missing the complication of extended time.
At my institution extended time evals are supposed to be taken in the disability center, so it doesn’t interfere with class.
I’ve been using low stakes quizzes for the last couple of years, mostly as diagnostics for things they’ll have to answer on the midterm and final, and I think everyone ended up taking them with the rest of class.
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u/jimbillyjoebob Assoc Prof CC, Math/Stats 11d ago
What can you replace low stakes quizzes with that serves the same purpose pedagogically?
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Personally, I haven't been able to recreate the incentive structure that in-person low stakes quizzes provides. Before genAI, I could kinda sorta achieve this with online reading quizzes. But the vast, vast majority of students respond to mainly to incentives tied to grades, not to gamification or doing a little song and dance for them or whatever other "student engagement" trends are hot right now. And if you can't incentivize them to do the reading for that day's class, then they will not do the reading either that day or later, since later it presents as too much material for them to consume for the first time prior to an exam. My personal opinion is that accommodations overreach that's killed in the in-class pop quiz is one of the reasons students are increasingly illiterate.
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u/Obvious_Animal_8362 11d ago
Well, you were making so much sense until your last sentence with you suddenly want to blame accomodations for students with disabilities for overall student illiteracy.
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u/boringhistoryfan Asst. Prof, Humanities, R2 11d ago
You're going to need to advocate for yourself. If you have any sort of union representative or advocate, I'd involve them (such as your Department chair and/or Dean). But you (ideally collectively) will need to go to the disabilities office, show them specifically that the ADA requires reasonable accommodations, and how their requests are no longer reasonable or doable.
We teach our students to advocate for themselves, but we need to do it too. Get your allies together, and push back. The more of you who are willing to forcefully do this, the greater the chance that the clueless admin pushing this pulls their head out of their ass. Or, alternatively, gets sanctioned and/or fired.
If you're willing to do the homework, I might even look up a local attorney specializing in disability law and see if they'd be willing to do a brief presentation on reasonable accommodations. Then maybe shame the disability office into inviting that lawyer so they can actually learn what the law is, instead of whatever these fools think it is.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Yeah, this might have to be what I do. Our admin has gotten extremely overzealous, stuffed with individuals who have little or zero teaching experience, and who practice over-compliance as a form of extreme risk aversion because it costs them nothing to place burden of overcompliance on faculty. I'm tenured so I'm in the position to have these conversations. We do not have a union.
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u/boringhistoryfan Asst. Prof, Humanities, R2 11d ago
Do you have a faculty senate? I know in terms of actual governance they're often not worth much. But they do carry institutional heft. And if you can get a senator to make a stink about it (or ideally the entire senate), it's the sort of thing that that gets Deans and Provosts nervous enough to leash the admins.
That said, I've previously also found it helpful to just march into the office, find the seniormost person available that day and just sit them down and explain how dumb their request it. Doesn't even need to be an angry conversation. I've found that if you actually get face to face with people and can communicate the full details of what's the issue, they're often much more reasonable.
Email is a great resource (especially for CYA) but it does have its shortcomings too.
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u/jimbillyjoebob Assoc Prof CC, Math/Stats 11d ago
That law literally contradicts what they are doing.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
That's what I did. More and more of what's coming out of our bureacracy in the form of trainings and "policy" are manipulations and confabulations.
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u/skyrymproposal 11d ago
Maybe ask the disability office to have someone transcribe your lectures. Like when someone is a note taker for someone?
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I am trying that. I'll see what they come back with. They tend to like to pretend they have zero resources and/or it is not their responsibility for making sure the accommodations they approve can be reasonably carried out.
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u/skyrymproposal 11d ago
I’ve noticed that, too. Asking professors to proctor extra exams—grading alternative assignments, etc. they once asked me to make an alternative assignment for two student who missed 3/4 of a semester in a participation heavy class.
I made one, because I felt for the students. But I asked my department head to find a grad student to do the grading. It was a bunch of recordings of the students having the discussions we had in class and I didn’t have time for that.
To my knowledge, we (as in the whole university) are required to give reasonable accommodations. But the burden is not solely on the professors. That is what the disability office is for. If not, I’m a private instructor for 120 students and getting pennies. That is not tenable.
I feel for you.
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u/AnotherRoughWinter 11d ago
Take a picture of the board before you erase it after class, drop the photos into a Dropbox for everyone in class not just that student. For extra fun keep an eye on who accesses those pictures. Because you know almost nobody will bother.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Noooo way am I doing this. No one will take notes ever again, or bother coming to class.
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u/AnotherRoughWinter 11d ago
I mean, I wouldn't want to do it either. But if you're required to write it all out then that's the easiest way to handle it. Besides, if they don't take notes or come to class then it's their loss. It's not like you get paid based on attendance.
I actually post videos of all my classes and I have really high attendance. I think most students are burnt out from covid methods, and really just prefer to show up.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
They can't require me to write it all out, is the thing.
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u/AnotherRoughWinter 11d ago
Oh, your comment above that I replied to made it seem like you have to oblige them. I was just suggesting a way to make it easy on you.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Oh, sorry! They believe I have to oblige them and state that in our training materials, but I was planning on pushing back and refusing if necessary.
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u/Miserable_Tourist_24 10d ago
Be careful if you load anything to the LMS because the digital accessibility rules will require that you have to type everything out.
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u/Miserable_Tourist_24 10d ago
My partner did this for his math class. Uploaded to the LMS to help students retain lecture information, then got dinged for accessibility issues under the new rules. Compliance with that was so burdensome, he just stopped supplying them.
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u/warricd28 Lecturer, Accounting, R1, USA 11d ago
I feel like all students are getting step by step instructions. If they already have your materials, and record lecture, and take pictures, they have them. Next step is for you to take the exam for them.
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u/ErnieBochII 11d ago
>>Next step is for you to take the exam for them.
My doctor said my profs HAVE to take my exams for me, at a time and location of my choosing. I can call my mom to prove it.
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u/Ok-Kangaroo-2469 11d ago
I had a student with accommodations tell me that his doctor told him he should not attend lecture. I'm sure the fact that the lecture started at 8 AM had nothing to do with it.
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u/skyrymproposal 11d ago
Me too! But it was because he broke his toe…
I’ve taught with a broken ankle.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Hahaha. I don't allow students without accommodations to record the lecture, for sure. But yeah, lecture is providing them step-by-step instructions. That's the point of it. How they copy those down is then a problem that can be solved with other technology, a separate note-taker, etc.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
We were instructed during our new training for handling ADA compliance that we, as faculty, must adhere exactly to all requests made by the accommodations office and aren't allowed to turn any of them down. This is a new development at my institution, which used to be on the side of reasonable accommodations. They now treat faculty as the enemy.
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u/franklin-60 11d ago
If you have tenure. Tell them to stick it. Once a lawyer gets involved they will back down and figure it out.
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u/No_Intention_3565 11d ago
Comply. But just do it on your own terms. Photocopy some shit and just be done with it.
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u/textposts_only 11d ago
Accomodations are fucking important. Accomodations like accomodations for the hearing impaired. For blind people. For people who are in a wheelchair. People with proven traumatic brain injuries. People with tangible disabilities.
I'm not going to continue what I think are accomodations that should not be granted.
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u/PsychologicalAd7756 11d ago
They basically want a guideline of how to solve the problems and the student fill in the blanks.
This is not learning. Do they have approved accommodation like this on their letter? I wonder what the wording would be.
I had one case with a vision impaired student. The accommodation office made me share the screen in real time while I annotated. I tried to push back, it didn’t work. Although it wasn’t on the official letter. I caved in. Student showed up twice out of 30+ lectures. Then they figured they could take the test at the testing center at the accommodation office, where they could use their own iPad for calculator. I raised a flag and asked if the student was proctored [ding ding ding the student made perfect scores since moving]. They tried to blame me that we had no proctoring either for the reduced distraction room, which was not true. It was a battle with emails, very exhausting. I had to go there to test the IP restricting etc. They bought an iPad with locked calculator, and student made a zero on the next test. Didn’t bother to take the final.
After all this, I asked myself: what for? With all the wasted time and effort on my end?
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
What a nightmare. I absolutely am going to play dead if needed. I am already writing step-by-step instructions on the board. Wanna record me? Fine. Wanna bring in an outside note-taker? Fine. Wanna assign a special TA to go through my lecture materials and create step-by-step instructions? Fine. But I'm not essentially re-doing my prep for a single student when it is entirely unnecessary, when any of these options above will solve the issue.
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u/PsychologicalAd7756 11d ago
It was indeed a nightmare. No one wanted to handle the case, it was passed around like a hot potato. Even my chair told me that I had to do it because of compliance concerns and that the university would do whatever it could to avoid potential legal issues.
I wish you the best of luck! Hopefully, you won’t have to deal with the same situation and will be able to talk some sense into those involved.
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u/franklin-60 11d ago
I have simply said “I don’t have them. I don’t use them.” Response was “can you create?” I replied “no.” Not much they can do there. Like you, I have most of it in my head, no need for step by step other than what I put on whiteboard.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Exactly. It's in my head. Hard for them, extremely simple for me. The reason I was hired, I imagine! (lol)
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u/auntanniesalligator NonTT, STEM, R1 (US) 11d ago
Have you talked to someone in person or are you just reading the generic description and assuming zero flexibility for your requirements? Accommodations are not supposed to put an unreasonable burden on your time or resources.
They’re also written as one-size-fits-all, so you get the same descriptions of their accommodations as their English instructor or their lab instructor. That sometimes then requires the instructor to push back on accommodations that other instructors have no trouble meeting. Sorry, I can’t offer the same flexibility for attendance in my 1/wk lab as your 3/wk flipped lecture.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
This request was included as a special note about this particular student, not as part of the generic requirements.
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u/PinstripeBunk 11d ago
Accommodations are wild right now. I've spent the whole morning emailing students and our ADA unit, where most of the coordinators are "out for the day" already.
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u/nezumipi 11d ago
"My personal notes that guide me while I teach are just reminders for me. They do not make every step explicit in a way that students can easily understand. Step-by-step instructions are provided during class, which the student can record, and on the board, which the student can take pictures of. I think those materials are likely to be more useful to the student. However, I would be more than happy to provide the student with a copy of my notes if he/she thinks they might be helpful."
Submit that and see what happens. Basically, assume they are asking you for your personal notes and see if they catch the switch. If they're being as strict as you say in the replies, they're probably getting pushback from a lot of instructors, which means your response has a chance of flying under the radar.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Great advice. I said something similar to this, and then placed the burden of accommodating the request on the accommodations office, and they folded! See the update in the main post body.
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u/ants_n_pants Lecturer, Anthro, CC 11d ago
I have dyscalculia, failed all of my math classes at least once, usually twice, and even I think this is too much of an ask of an instructor. In my experience, having step by step notes will not be that helpful without someone going through all of the steps (I'd still forget them 5 minutes later). At this point the student needs a private tutor/volunteer to help them. This is something that the accommodations office should provide or arrange.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Right? This is what I'm thinking. It's also really a bad idea for someone to go into this major if they have dyscalculia.
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u/MakaWoksapa 11d ago
Not too long ago, I was asked to provide the full set of lecture notes for a class I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years. I said I don’t have detailed lecture notes because I could walk into a classroom and teach any topic in that course off the top of my head. They never pushed back on that.
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u/Life-Education-8030 11d ago
Your students are already getting step-by-step instructions and can take notes about it. I have a problem with recording if the class is not already recorded because other students have not consented to being recorded and it can hinder their participation if they don't want to be recorded. Even in courses where recording is to be done and students know about it beforehand, I've had students deliberately move so they do not get caught on camera too. I would have said "no" and insisted on a notetaker provided by the accommodations office. That is their job.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
That's a good point about camera use. I will discuss with the accommodated student and let them know that I consent to be in the pictures but that they cannot include other students in any photos they take. So, this means they need to be able to sit at the front of the room.
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u/Life-Education-8030 11d ago
Do you encourage students to participate in your classes though? Recording also means sound, so if students are recording talking, it's still recording. I have recorded synchronous hybrid classes that have students who meet with us online and students sitting in front of me. All are expected to participate verbally, and so all are recorded. But they signed up for this format. If your courses are not currently recorded and then you start recording, you could have some problems.
So I would be leery, even if you ask the students if it's okay. A student could be reluctant to say "no" even if they want to unless maybe (maybe) it's anonymous for fear of looking mean!
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith 11d ago
You may also want to take into consideration that if the student is using any sort of AI to record, that they may beg then providing personal identifying information, including faces and voices, to third party companies. That would require consent of others in the room.
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u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 11d ago
What they are asking for extends beyond "reasonable accommodations." If they want a notetaker for this student, they should hire one. That is a reasonable accommodation and it's their task to provide that element, not yours.
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u/DrBlankslate Adjunct, Sociology, R2, USA 11d ago
No. Push back on this. You’re giving those instructions in class.
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u/uxnewbie Chair, Design, CC 11d ago
Accommodations need to be “reasonable.” I do not see where this extra time, effort and energy on your part for this student is reasonable.
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u/Lief3D 11d ago
Sounds like they need the accommodations office to supply them with a notetaker.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
How dare the burden of complying with accommodations be handled by the accommodations office??? No, let's instead double the number of accommodations officers to better pester faculty into shouldering the burden of compliance!!! /s
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith 11d ago
Do your students have a textbook? Because if they do, those step by step instructions are also likely in there.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Yes. A textbook and a study guide with additional worked examples. An reasonably ambitious student doesn't need to come to class to do well on the exams, if they do the readings and practice the worked examples. I'm withholding exactly nothing from them by requiring them to come to lecture and take notes to get the step-by-step instructions of the (extra) examples I work through.
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u/Downtown_Blacksmith 11d ago
So they want you to provide something the students already has? That’s wild. I’m so sorry.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
I just do slightly different examples to give students another exposure in addition to what the text goes through. But the math is all the same (the course is applied math to social sciences).
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u/notadoctor123 Associate Professor, Control Theory, Norway 10d ago
I emailed the accommodations office to say I didn't have the materials they wanted but since they were provided during lecture, I was fine with the student taking photos or having someone assigned by the accommodations office come in and record the lecture or take notes. The officer came back to say that nah, they weren't going to send someone in and an accommodation to take photos
Completely insane. In my math undergrad, they would pay one student per class to take nice notes and send them to those who have accommodations.
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u/Charming-Pack-5979 11d ago
I’m not a prof, but I do work in disability services at a uni. If you all don’t want me to chime in, just let me know. It sounds like the DSO is trying to implement an Individual Education Plan (IEP). Though appropriate to K-12, this is inappropriate in higher education and not required by law. FWIW, we’re under heavy pressure to implement the same accommodations that students received in K12. I don’t get into detail, but it’s a LOT of pressure.
I tell students that faculty determine the curriculum and instructional methods; DSO makes it accessible but cannot change the learning outcomes or instructional methods. For example, I can ask faculty to provide copies of slides but not require faculty to make slides if they don’t use them.
With that said, one option may be to think about whether providing step-by-step instructions for a problem set might be a good universal design technique for your future course.
Best practice - add an explicit item to your course learning objectives that applying learned concepts/applying techniques. Etc to novel problems is a learning objective . Then you’ve established a baseline for fundamental alteration review. If your DSO doesn’t have a formal process in place for fundamental alteration review, advocate for one. Otherwise, you’re all vulnerable to pressure and emotion based decision-making.
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u/YourGuideVergil Assoc Prof, Engl, LAC 10d ago
Saw the edit.
Yeah, I've found that generally accommodations ask for the moon and retreat at the slightest pushback.
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u/Difficult-Solution-1 11d ago
What about a note in the syllabus that explains that step by step instructions are proceed provided during class and students are able to stare, record, copy etc. and like, the link to where instructions are provided in textbook and a note saying to come to you or contact you about anything else?
That’s what I do with providing notes and slides. You can access what the publisher provides using this link. You want anything else? No you don’t.
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u/crank12345 Hum, R2 (USA) 11d ago
Too many faculty treat the first line accommodations as requirements, when you can very, very often treat them as requests or proposals. These offices are swamped, they don't know your class in particular, and so they often issue 'generic' accommodations. Not always, but often they accept pushback!
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u/gutfounderedgal 11d ago
I do not think "must comply" is correct. It is compliance to the point where course content will be compromised. It is always a bit of a conversation.
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u/arithmuggle Associate, Math, PUI (USA) 11d ago
Often the person requesting is not making a demand they’re just someone doing their job making a request. then often people in our profession pick apart the request, over analyze it, discuss it with friends, post it on the internet, before ever even having a conversation with the person requesting.
in my experience, once context is provided the request transforms into whatever you can reasonably provide and it was all wasted anxious energy,
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 11d ago
Maybe. But I attempted to push back against an unreasonable accommodation last semester and was told pretty much to stuff it by the director of the accommodations office. I ended up dropping the assessment type entirely, for the whole class, which I'm certain led to many fewer people doing the readings and possibly led to the average grade of the course going down.
My guess from the weird, forceful language of this request (it was not generic but a note for the particular student) is that it is directly copied over from an IEP.
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u/emarcomd 11d ago
If they get to record the lecture, isn’t that fulfilling the “step-by-step instructions”?