Online Teaching

Online teaching and learning starts with planning, followed by building. How will you reach most and/or all of your students, each having different educational needs and experiences? This section provides information on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which provides a framework for you to start planning a varied experience for your students. We then shift focus on building that design. Making all of your content accessible and how to complete that, using Lehman’s learning management platform, as well as some built in tools (ALLY) to help you on your journey to making your course accessible.

Plan

Moving beyond the technology universal design for learning (UDL) is the framework used to provide all students the equal opportunities to learn. This is completed by providing flexible, inclusive, varied, and accessible materials to reach all students regardless of their learning needs and preferences. 

SUNY’s standards for planning, building, and delivering quality online courses. The Office of Online Education uses these standards when running the Course Design Institute. However, feel free to use these standards as a means to check your own online course.

Build

Digital accessibility is crucial when adding any information on the internet. Thinking how to make all content accessible can feel overwhelming, especially if you are updating pre-existing content. To that end, CUNY has put together a self-paced training course through Blackboard to help guide you through making the most common forms of content accessible and the questions you should be asking yourself before including it in your course. 

The following resources provide useful information for faculty on the different accessibility options, provided by the Blackboard platform. We would encourage you to think about Self-Enrolling in CUNY’s “Blackboard Accessibility Course” as a way to start.