Accommodating Mental Health by Design

The information in this section was developed to help faculty members generate ideas about how they can proactively help students with disabilities in order to reduce the need for academic accommodation.  This can help to avoid awkward situations, relieve some of the pressure faculty members sometime experience, and protects the dignity of student.

While these ideas were developed specifically with mental health disabilities in mind, many of the strategies discussed here are meaningful for all students with all disability types and can even help non-disabled students to learn more effectively, and more accurate demonstrate their abilities on assessments.

Please consider this information to be a work in progress.  Your feedback, suggestions and ideas can help to make it better - please contact Barry Praamsma-Townshend if you would like to explore them further.

1. Course Outline
2. Assignments
3. Tests & Exams
4. Group Work
5. Presentations
6. Class Discussion
7. Attendance
8. Sensitive Topics
9. Classroom Setup
10. Accessible Written Content
11. Interacting with the Student
12. Dealing with Emotions