To accelerate the creation and delivery of accessibility-infused college curricula, Teach Access provides monetary awards to higher education faculty to develop curriculum enhancements that introduce the fundamental concepts and skills of accessibility into their existing courses.
5/20/21: Please read our blog post about our latest round of faculty grantees!
Reminder: These awards are intended for the introduction and promotion of accessibility knowledge in course content (also known as “teaching accessibility”) and not for the accessibility retrofit or remediation of existing instructional materials or content (also known as “teaching accessibly”).
Please also check out our frequently asked questions. Please pay special attention to the first section of our FAQs page which includes examples of eligible and ineligible submission topics.
Technology industry representatives, academic partners, and leaders of major disability advocacy organizations have joined together to implement meaningful mechanisms for achieving our mission (view Teach Access members and contributors). Together, we believe that a more technologically accessible future depends on the creation of an accessibility-aware workforce, starting with post-secondary learning opportunities.
To accelerate the creation and delivery of accessibility-infused college curricula, Teach Access will be providing direct awards to full-time, part-time, adjunct faculty, or instructional staff at US-based institutions of higher education (community colleges, two-year colleges/universities, and four-year universities). Awards of $5,000 each will be given to faculty to develop modules, presentations, exercises or curriculum enhancements or changes that introduce the fundamental concepts and skills of accessible design and development into their existing courses.
The awards are intended to foster innovative ways of incorporating the teaching of accessible technology into existing courses, rather than triggering development of completely new courses. To expand the impact of the awards, award recipients will be required to present their work at appropriate venues within their institutions as well as publicly on the Teach Access website. Awardees are also encouraged to present their innovative work at conferences, symposia, and workshops.
The Teach Access Faculty Grants program has resulted in the creation of hundreds of new course materials by our grantees, as well as several research papers. The database of course materials is linked below, followed by research papers written by past grantees.
Upon completion of their courses, faculty awardees will provide summary reports on their curriculum development, student outcomes, institutional response, and the perceived effectiveness of their presentations as well as an evaluation of the Curriculum Development project and its effectiveness. Based on periodic outreach and these final reports, these evaluations will determine whether and how the Curriculum Development awards will be expanded in subsequent years.
Pre- and post-testing of students’ knowledge about the subject matter will be required of award recipients, with Teach Access providing a small, basic set of key questions.
Teach Access maintains a database of awardees’ newly enhanced curricula which will include detailed information on the development and presentation of the material. The project will track the use of the database by other faculty at other institutions and will request reporting of curriculum material use by visitors to the site.
Students who have been exposed to inclusive design and development concepts through this project will be invited to join an online community with Teach Access industry members for future job opportunities, for networking among the students themselves, and for determining whether and how the students’ exposure to inclusive curricula is being carried into their professional and post-graduate work lives.
Ultimately, the project’s success will be measured by the level of accessibility of technology introduced into the market in the coming years and decades.
For all questions related to this competition, please email facultygrants@teachaccess.org. Teach Access will maintain a public list of questions and answers during the application period, for any questions not already answered in this document.
Please also check out our frequently asked questions. Please pay special attention to the first section of our FAQs page which includes examples of eligible and ineligible submission topics.
Submissions will be judged on impact, outreach, sustainability, and evaluation plans. Faculty who have not taught accessibility topics in their courses before are particularly encouraged to apply.
Faculty members (full-time, part-time, or adjunct) or instructional staff who meet following criteria:
During Round 1 of our Curriculum Development Awards Program (for courses taught in Fall 2018-Spring 2020), Teach Access awarded 19 grants of $5,000 each to the following faculty:
During Round 2 of our Curriculum Development Awards Program (for courses taught in Fall 2020-Spring 2021), Teach Access awarded 10 grants of $5,000 each to the following faculty:
During Round 3 of our Curriculum Development Awards Program (for courses taught in Fall 2021-Spring 2022), Teach Access awarded 10 grants of $5,000 each to the following faculty:
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