Welcome to the Palomar Faculty Accessibility and Universal Design Training

Faculty accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Training.

A Note Before You Begin

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." — Maya Angelou

That quote captures the spirit of this course. Accessible design is a journey, not a destination. You do not need to be an expert before you start. You simply need to be willing to learn, reflect, and take the next step.

Welcome

Welcome to Palomar College's Accessibility and Universal Design Training for Faculty. This course is designed for all Palomar faculty, regardless of the modality or subject you teach. Whether you teach face-to-face, online, or hybrid, accessible design is a fundamental part of your professional practice.

This course will help you understand why accessibility matters, build practical accessible design skills, and develop habits that you can apply in Canvas, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, email, and any other tool you use to create content for your students.

You can work through this course in order or go directly to a topic you want to explore. It is designed to be a resource you return to over time.

What You Will Learn

By completing this course, you will be able to:

Recognize the accessibility needs of diverse learners.
Identify basic accessibility considerations across multiple forms of media and tools.
Apply accessible design practices in Canvas, Word, PowerPoint, and other content creation tools.
Understand the guiding principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Use Pope Tech and other accessibility checking tools to identify and fix accessibility issues in your Canvas courses.
Build accessible design habits that support all of your students, in every course you teach.

How This Course Is Organized

This course is divided into four modules:

Module 1: Understanding Accessibility — Explore why accessibility matters, who it affects, and the legal and human context for accessible design.
Module 2: Universal Design for Learning (UDL) — Learn how UDL expands accessible design to support all learners, not just those with identified disabilities.
Module 3: Accessible Design Skills — Build practical skills for creating accessible content in Canvas, Word, PowerPoint, and other tools. Learn how to use Pope Tech and other accessibility checkers.
Module 4: Course Completion and Continued Learning — Reflect on your learning and explore opportunities to continue growing as an accessible designer.

Each module that includes required learning ends with a short quiz. Scoring 80% or better on each quiz means you have successfully completed that module.

About This Course

This is a self-directed, self-paced course. You can complete it on your own schedule.
Voluntary discussions are included throughout the course. These are optional and ungraded. They are opportunities to reflect and share with colleagues.
Each module with required content ends with a quiz. Quizzes have no time limit.
You can return to this course at any time as a reference and resource.

Questions and Support

If you have questions about this course or about accessibility at Palomar College, the following people and offices are here to help:

Distance Education Coordinator — For questions about online course design, accessibility requirements, and distance education support. Visit the Distance Education Committee website for contact information.
Instructional Designer — For help with course design, Canvas, accessible content development, and instructional technology. Visit the Instructional Design website for contact information and support options.

You can also visit the EDGE: Employee Development and Growth Exchange in H-114 on the San Marcos campus (Monday through Thursday, 8am to 5pm) for in-person support with instructional design, professional development, and academic technology.

Creative Commons Attribution

Portions of this course were adapted from Introduction to Designing for Accessibility by CVC-OEI, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Development of the original course was funded by a grant from the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office.