Reducing Barriers to Learning

Originally published May 22, 2026

Reducing Barriers to Learning at Laurier to Build an Inclusive Future

The last Sunday in May each year starts National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) in Canada and this year’s theme is “Building a Strong, Accessible Canada.” This week honours the achievements of people with disabilities and focuses on efforts to reduce barriers to disability inclusion in all places in society. Laurier can join the wider community of educators that are finding opportunities to develop inclusive teaching strategies and meaningful partnerships to challenge disability myths and create pathways for more equitable access to academic success.   

In this week’s bulletin, we invite you to take time during the upcoming NAAW to share your strategies with colleagues and students in the Laurier community (in hallways, classrooms, social media) and discover more ways that you can deepen or expand your teaching practices to reduce barriers to learning and advance access and inclusion in your courses.

• Familiarize yourself with Accessible Learning’s supports and services for faculty and students, including Accommodations Explained, a key resource that supports understanding what academic accommodations may be commonly approved to reduce barriers to learning at Laurier. 

• Consider Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles that multiply the pathways to learning success for students in your course. This includes, for example, adopting one more way to represent course content (e.g. watching, reading, listening), express learning (e.g. oral, written, visual), and motivating students (e.g., considering relevance, flexibility, and choice). Instructors can implement one new strategy with TEI’s Quick start to UDL resource. 

• Expand your own knowledge of ableism, disability inclusion, agency, and justice with resources at Laurier and beyond.

• Incorporate course materials that highlight experiences of people with disabilities, dispel disability myths, analyze impacts of different models of disability, or include research and contributions to your field made by scholars with disabilities. 

Interested faculty can also follow along from May 31st to June 6th on Connect, Laurier’s social media accounts, and Accessibility at Laurier for Laurier’s NAAW activities and accessibility tips developed in collaboration with professionals from post-secondary institutions across Canada that are involved in the Canadian Higher Education UDL Collective.

To talk more about these and other ideas, please reach out to a familiar educational developer or get connected in with our team.

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