FAQ: Facilitating Teaching Accommodations in Your Course

Exam accommodations are adjustments to the ways or conditions in which tests or exams are being written, such as extension of exam duration, use of assistive technology, or writing in a different testing environment.

Teaching accommodations are additional support services and resources that allow students with disabilities to equally participate and benefit from instructional activities in the classroom. Examples include ASL interpreters, captioning, computerized note-takers, lecture notes provided peer volunteer note-takers, etc.

The Paul Menton Centre (PMC) works collaboratively with course instructors to support students who Dead and Hard of Hearing through the provision of Hearing Services that include ASL interpreters, computerized note-takers, and captioning for both in-person and online courses. The contact person for Hearing Services at the PMC is Hunter Calder at HunterCalder@cunet.carleton.ca.

Hundreds of peer note-takers volunteer with the Paul Menton Centre (PMC) every term. Course instructors play an important part in helping us to recruit volunteers from their classes. For this purpose, we have created a sample volunteer note-taker announcement that can be adjusted.  

Students with disabilities are expected to meet deadlines like all students. However, there may be unavoidable or extenuating circumstances where a student’s disability may impact their ability to complete an assignment by the due date. In these instances, we advise students to discuss this need with their professors early in the term and agree on a process for requesting an extension if it is needed.

As a general practice, Paul Menton Centre (PMC) does not include assignment extensions on a Letter of Accommodation. However, we will support an extension on an assignment-by-assignment basis. A student’s PMC Coordinator can be contacted to verify this is a disability-related request and supported by documentation in their file. Please visit our Extended Time for Assignments webpage for more information on how students are advised to handle assignment extension requests.

You may request that the student completes a “Student Agreement – Classroom Audio/Video Recording Use Privacy Agreement” whereby a student would agree to using the audio/video recordings and transcript only for their own learning needs. They are also required to acknowledge that this content cannot be shared with another individual or posted on public forums.

Not all classrooms have accessible seating for students with disabilities. In these cases, ergonomic furniture (e.g. accessible table, padded or ergonomic chair) may be requested to accommodate a student with accessibility needs in your classroom. Paul Menton Centre (PMC) can request accessible furniture from Facilities Management and Planning (FMP) to be installed in the classroom for your student. Alternatively, a request for accessible furniture to FMP can be made through your departmental administrator. This furniture is usually labelled with signage that it is reserved for use for accessibility purposes.