Accessible Teaching Materials

Every TA makes teaching materials: slides for a section, a handout, a Canvas announcement, a recorded walkthrough, a worked example with code or math. Small habits decide whether every student can use them: real headings instead of bold text, alt text on images, enough color contrast, captions on video, code as text instead of a screenshot. About one in five undergraduates reports a disability, and many more students read on a phone, use a screen reader or captions, or simply skim. Accessible materials work better for all of them. This page is a practical checklist by type of material, plus where to get help at UMass.

Defaults that work. If you only take four things from this page:

Use real structure: heading styles, lists and table headers, not bold text and spaces.
Share text as text. Code, math and quotes go in as text, never as screenshots.
Caption every video, and check the captions instead of trusting the automatic ones.
Run the checker built into Canvas, Word, PowerPoint or Google before you share.

Why it matters now

Accessible-by-default materials and individual accommodations are two different things. Accommodations come through Disability Services for a particular student. Accessible materials are built in from the start, for everyone, and they mean fewer students need special arrangements at all.

There is also a legal standard. A U.S. Department of Justice rule under Title II of the ADA requires public universities to make web content, including course materials in a learning management system, meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In April 2026 the department extended the compliance dates; for large public entities the date is now April 26, 2027. UMass expects accessible digital materials now, says the standard covers readings, videos and Canvas sites, and says it will stand behind instructors who act in good faith.

Checklist by type of material

Slides

Use the built-in layouts, and give every slide a unique title. Screen reader users navigate by titles.
Add alt text to meaningful images; mark decorative ones as decorative.
Text contrast at least 4.5:1, or 3:1 for large text (18 point, or 14 point bold). Check with a contrast checker.
Don't use color alone: "the red ones are wrong" needs a label, a shape or a mark as well.
Run the PowerPoint or Google Slides accessibility checker before you share.

Documents and PDFs

Use real heading styles (Heading 1, 2, 3), not bold text in a bigger font.
Give tables a header row, and avoid merged cells.
When you need a PDF, export a tagged PDF from the source file. Don't print to PDF, and don't scan.
Where you can, share a Canvas page or the original document instead of a PDF.
Replace scanned readings with accessible versions; your library can often help.

Canvas pages and announcements

Use the editor's heading levels in order, without skipping levels.
Write link text that makes sense on its own: "Lab 3 instructions," not "click here."
Run the Canvas Accessibility Checker (the icon at the bottom of the editor) on every page.
Put content on a page instead of in an attached file when you can.

Video

Caption every video, and have a person check the captions. Automatic captions mangle technical terms and code.
Provide a transcript.
Say out loud what is on the screen: "I'm typing git commit in the terminal." It helps students who can't see the screen and everyone who looks away.
Use the tools your campus supports, which include captioning.

Code

Share code as real text: code blocks, files or a repository link. Never a screenshot.
Use a monospace font at a size that projects, and check that every color in your syntax theme, comments included, meets 4.5:1 against the background.
Don't let highlight color carry the meaning on its own. Point to lines with comments or line numbers too.
If an image of code can't be avoided, put the full code in the alt text or right next to the image.

Math

Write math as LaTeX rendered by MathJax, or with the Canvas equation editor, not as images of equations. MathJax output can be read aloud and explored by screen reader users.
For any equation image you can't avoid, use the LaTeX source as its alt text.
In video, read the key formulas aloud.

Diagrams and charts

Give a short alt text that states the point ("Run time grows linearly with input size"), plus a longer description or the data table nearby.
Label lines and bars directly instead of relying on a color legend.
Lines, bars and arrows need at least 3:1 contrast against the background.
For trees, graphs and state machines, describe the structure in text, for example as a list of nodes and edges.

Universal Design for Learning

Accessibility is one part of a broader idea: design for the range of students you actually have, instead of a typical student and a list of exceptions. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers three principles: several ways to engage students, several ways to present information, and several ways for students to show what they know. For a TA that can be as simple as posting your section slides before section, explaining an idea with both a diagram and code, and letting students answer a question in writing or out loud.

Help at UMass

IDEAS, UMass's instructional design and support team, offers AccessibleU, a self-paced course on digital accessibility for instructors, plus workshops, drop-in office hours and one-on-one consultations.
Pope Tech in Canvas scans a course for accessibility problems and helps you fix them. Ask your instructor if it is turned on for your course.
The Office of Accessibility explains what Title II means for instructors.
Disability Services handles accommodations for individual students; your instructor receives the letters.