Students working with DRS are instructed to contact their professors at the beginning of the quarter to discuss their accommodations. Students fail to do this with some regularity. While you should expect some degree of collaboration with every student about their specific accommodations, we recommend communicating some standard policies for your course as a starting point and then adjusting for individuals as necessary.
The following is some language that you can edit and use in email or in your Canvas course, adding and deleting specific accommodations as appropriate. (Credit to Andy Loveless for the bulk of this.)
Dear (student name),
I am your instructor for Math XXX this quarter. Your TA will be (TA’s name) (cc’ed on this email).
I received notification of your accommodations from Disability Resources for Students and I wanted to touch base with you as the quarter begins and answer some common questions. If you have any questions at any time about your accommodations, don’t hesitate to ask.
Please read this email and do the following:
- Schedule your remaining exams. Good to do this now and get it over with!
- Reply to this email me to let me know you have read this and ask any questions you may have.
- If needed, we can also meet in office hours this week.
- At any point this term, if you have accommodation questions, please reply to this message with your question (as that will help remind me about your accommodations).
Your accommodations this quarter include:
- Extra time on Exams
- Your accommodations give 1.5x time on exams in a reduced distraction environment.
- In these situations, we have students take their exams at the DRS testing center.
- I have already filled out the testing agreement.
- You must now schedule your own exams with the testing center to fit with our course schedule.
- The agreement says you can start up to 45 minutes before or after your normal quiz section time. If this is not enough flexibility for your schedule, let me know.
- Disability Related Absences
- I have attached a copy of my standard version of the Disability Related Absences Agreement (DRA).
- Please read the DRA carefully and reply to this email to let me know whether or not you want to meet to discuss it or suggest changes.
- If I don’t hear from you by the end of this week, then I will assume it meets your needs and submit it as is.
- Access to class materials
- The Canvas page will have all course materials posted (as I make them).
- Class recordings
- The class will be automatically recorded by Panopto, but you are also welcome to record anything you want.
Please do not hesitate to reach out throughout the term. You will get a quicker response by replying to this email so that I don't have to search for your specific accommodations. (I have a lot of students with accommodations this quarter.)
Looking forward to working with you this quarter.