A Short (personal) Manifesto on Accessible Education

The following underlines some considerations I have for professors of any specialty. After being in college for 4 years now across 2 campuses, I have some concepts I would like to share for any curious teachers who are open to a read a student's point of view.

The following manifesto was created because I believe in a simple concept: A more accessible education is a better education. While it is important to make your class more accessible for those in the disability community; the benefit of that accessability reaches everyone. Just like the electric toothbrush was invented for those with motor control issues, and closed captioning was invented for the hearing impaired; these accessability features are widely used by the general public, not just those who have a related disability.

Of course, I'm not the professor, you are! I simply hope these ideas as well as my prospective as a student is helpful and informative to give you valuable insight.

This one isn't trivial at times. The majority of popular textbooks out there are paid, and it can be tedious to switch to an entirely different textbook from another; however, the benefit to the student is great. Free books enable students to afford materia in today's tight economy, and making the material easy to access reduces the effort the student needs in order to access class material (each time).

Keeping the Current Reading Material

There are some things we can do even if we don't switch our texts to free alternatives. For example, consider informing your students where to buy the text at the most affordable price by referencing sites like Ebay and Chegg. Students may also find it very useful to rent books from The Internet Archive's Open Library, completely for free.
You may also find it useful to ask the authors for permission to distribute the book as a digital PDF. Digital scarcity does not help advance learning, and authors (and fellow professionals) usually understand that.

Finding Free / Open Source Readings

If you are willing to add or switch to free and open readings, there are many options for you! Each field will have it's own options in this case, often at least in the form of a website and physical release. A fairly universal option for free textbooks is OpenStax.

I'm sure you know by now that ech student has their own ideal way they have adapted to take in and understand information and concepts. Giving students flexibility in how the information is presented enables students to quickly find resources that aid specifically help them, the curious person.

Pre-Recorded Lectures

This is one of the most important topics I want to cover in this manifesto. Video lectures enable students to catch up on material they may have missed, puts less pressure on coming into class when they are not feeling well (physically or mentally), and in-general gives more power to the student in how they intake the classes information. The recording of the lecture can be done in a variety of ways. Of course, you may sit down and record your lectures intentionally at home or in your office, this will likely be the best quality video lecture, but certainly requires the most effort. Most of my experience with recorded lectures are those which are recorded during class time, this is the easiest, least intrusive way to create recorded lectures for your class.

This one is simple: for class communications, you should clearly state what channels you are going to use for important updates. Often times students can miss updates due them not checking a particular platform that you've used for communication. For example, if you are using email for class updates, a student may setup notifications for their email or your specific email address. If you are using a website, a student may want to check it each day before leaving for class. This respects both your time and the student's by reducing confusion (and therefore questions) and reducing the time wasted traveling for a canceled class session. (I in particular have a very long commute!)