Assistance Accommodations Guide

Best Practices

For students with assistance accommodations, and all students in-general, please try to follow these best practices when interacting with students.

• Face the student as often as possible when speaking
• Avoid standing with your back to a window or other light source
• Avoid blocking areas of your mouth with hand or objects
• Repeat questions or comments made by other people in the room

Assistive Listening Devices

For students with an accommodation that includes the use of an assistive listening device such as an FM system, please keep the following practices in mind.

• Ensure that the microphone is correctly placed and working any time you are addressing the entire class
• Repeat questions or comments made by other people in the room

Interpreters

For student with accommodations that include a sign language interpreter, please keep the following practices in mind.

Interpreter Preparation

• To interpret accurately, interpreters must prepare for class by reading notes, power points, outlines, chapters, etc. These documents are valuable resources that interpreters use to be prepared to interpret technical terminology and new concepts presented during class.  If possible, please provide the following items to the interpreter:
  • Course Syllabus.
  • Lecture/discussion notes, power points, or outlines a couple of days prior to class, if possible.
  • If you use CANVAS for your course management, please add the interpreter onto CANVAS so they can access course materials. The interpreter will speak with you about this and provide their information on the first day of class.
  • If possible, please provide the interpreter with a copy of the textbook for your class. Professors often have an extra copy of the textbook, and it would be beneficial for class preparation for the interpreter to be able to refer to the course textbook.

Logistics

• The student may require seating at the front of the classroom to provide an unobstructed view of the interpreter.
• The interpreter will sit/stand in a location in the room, optimizing the student’s ability to see the instructor, audio-visual media, and the interpreter in one sight line.
• If you move about the classroom during instruction, please do not stop between the interpreter and student, as this will block the student’s view of the interpreter.
• The student can only attend to one visual stimulus at a time. Therefore, it is important to allow the student time to look at a visual aid before explaining it.  Once an explanation has started, the student must look at the interpreter for the explanation and cannot look at the aid simultaneously.
• Please emphasize important information such as assignments or schedule changes by writing details on the board or providing written handouts.
• Please repeat questions and comments from the class before responding to ensure that the interpreter can hear them.

Audio-Visual Media

• Please use only closed-captioned media. If you are showing a video that is not closed captioned, contact your College/Campus Course Liaison as soon as possible, who can assist you.
• For the student to see the interpreter, some lights may be required. Usually, a few windows or a bank of lights will provide ample lighting.  If necessary, other arrangements can be made for the student to view the material by contacting Student Disability Resources.

Interaction with Student

• Please discuss concerns about the student’s ability to hear privately with the student, not in front of the class.
• Please direct your comments and questions to the student. It is unnecessary to say, “Ask her…” or “Tell him…”.

The interpreter is an excellent resource and may be able to answer questions you have before or after class about the interpreting experience. 

Captioning

Please keep the following practices in mind for students with accommodations that include post-production captioning or Computer Assisted Real-Time Translation (CART).

Real-Time Captioning

SDR will arrange a remote transcriptionist who will provide approved students with a real-time verbatim transcription of course lectures.

Faculty may be asked to:

• Wear or be in close proximity to a small microphone that transmits the lecture to the remote transcriptionist. The student will provide faculty with this microphone as needed.
• Permit students to use a laptop in class to view the real-time lecture transcription.
• Provide the remote transcriptionist with a Zoom link if the class is virtual or has a hybrid/Zoom component.

Post-Production Captioning / Pre-Recorded Materials

Instructors, with the help of their department, Instructional Designer, and other community resources, are responsible for ensuring that all videos used within their course are captioned appropriately.

For students with an accommodation for captioned course materials (e.g., videos, movies, etc.):

• Respond promptly to Student Disability Resources staff who reach out about captioning your course materials.
• Recognize Penn State’s requirement to provide “same time” captions as the material is available to the entire class.
• Remember that any materials added during the course of the semester will also need to be captioned.

For videos or movies that were created by someone else and are not captioned:

1. Determine if a captioned version is available through a different source.
   1. PSU University Libraries Video Resources
   2. Kanopy Streaming – Enter name of institution for access to closed captioned films free to students and faculty
   3. A How-To vide for Google searches – Filter Google search results to find captioned videos
   4. TV News Archive – Resource for captioned news clips
2. If a captioned version is not available, work with University-affiliated resources to caption course materials.
   1. Penn State’s Caption Guidelines and How-To
   2. Official University Captioning Vendors
   3. Consult with appropriate academic department course designers, media specialists, or IT specialist for guidance on video captioning.

For videos that were self-created and are not captioned:

1. Work with University-affiliated resources to caption course materials.
   1. Penn State’s Caption Guidelines and How-To
   2. Official University Captioning Vendors
   3. Consult with appropriate academic department course designers, media specialists, or IT specialists for guidance on video captioning.

For Zoom recordings of class:

1. Enable audio transcription for Zoom cloud recordings that will later be embedded within the recording.
2. Edit the audio transcript file of the class recording for accuracy of course-specific terminology.