Remove Barriers, Not Complexity: Designing Accessible Humanities Learning

What happens when the text, image, or primary source that makes a humanities course intellectually rich also creates barriers for students trying to access and interpret it?

Humanities courses ask students to engage deeply with texts, historical documents, images, archives, media, and one another's ideas. Yet scanned readings, complex document layouts, unfamiliar primary sources, dense texts, multimedia, and discussion formats can introduce barriers that have little to do with the intellectual challenge we actually want students to encounter.

In this hands-on workshop, faculty will explore ways to make humanities learning materials and activities more accessible while preserving the complexity, ambiguity, and interpretation at the heart of disciplinary learning. Using principles informed by Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accessible course design, participants will examine readings, primary sources, images, multimedia, and discussion activities and consider how structure, context, multiple representations, accessible formats, and flexible opportunities for engagement can help more students participate meaningfully.

Session Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify accessibility barriers in humanities materials and activities and distinguish them from the productive intellectual challenge students are expected to encounter.

2. Evaluate strategies for providing accessible formats, context, structure, and multiple ways to engage with complex humanities materials.

3. Apply accessibility and UDL-informed design principles to reading, interpretation, and technology-supported participation without reducing intellectual rigor.

4. Redesign one humanities learning material or activity to improve access while preserving its intended learning goal.

NOTE: This session focuses on the accessibility and learning design of humanities materials and technology-supported activities. It addresses how formats, structure, context, media, and course technologies can support access to reading, interpretation, and participation. Broader questions involving inclusive classroom climate, identity, belonging, culturally responsive teaching, or facilitation of difficult dialogue may be better addressed through the Faculty Development Center.

Who should attend? Faculty teaching history, literature, languages, philosophy, religious studies, cultural studies, or related humanities disciplines who want practical strategies for reducing barriers to reading, interpretation, and participation.

Come prepared to work on your course. Bring one reading, primary source, image, multimedia resource, discussion activity, assignment, or other learning material from a course you currently teach or plan to teach. You'll have an opportunity to identify potential barriers and begin redesigning it during the session. No prior accessibility experience is required.

This session will be facilitated by Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director of Instructional Technology, and Dr. Peter Ariev, Instructional Design Specialist. Open to all faculty and instructional staff.

This collaborative workshop is part of CoRE Learning Design, an extension of the Course Roadmap to Equity initiative. Insights from the session will help shape future discipline-specific examples, resources, and support.