Some students registered with our office have their ability to take notes in class impeded due to disability. For those students, once note taking has been approved as an accommodation by their SAS Advisor, it will be indicated on the Letter of Accommodations provided to instructors.
When this accommodation is needed, you are asked to work closely with the students who require note taking, particularly, when a note taker is not readily available. In the instances when that is the case, you may be asked to explore alternatives to note taking with your students.
Alternatives including (but not limited) to:
- Sharing your personal lecture notes
- Approaching individual students known for their diligence in taking notes and inviting them to share with the student
- Encouraging the student to audio record the lecture
- Providing Powerpoint slides in advance of the class containing detailed enough slide notes so as to serve as an alternative to lecture notes
In order to facilitate note taking, instructors are asked to do the following:
- Once a student gives you a letter of accommodations confirming the need for a note taker, make an announcement (feel free and use our sample announcement available here). Please do so as many times as necessary until a volunteer comes forward
- It would also be helpful for you to e-mail the announcement to the class list, post a notice on Blackboard or include it as part of a Power point presentation (*Please note that the identity of the student for whom note taking is required cannot be disclosed in any circumstance).
- For more information please view our Instructor Information Sheet
- Volunteers are asked to e-mail notetaker@uwindsor.ca and indicate the class, or classes, for which they are interested in volunteering
- If you prefer to match a student with a volunteer within your class directly there is no need to involve SAS in the process, however volunteers are still encouraged to identify themselves to SAS
If you have any further questions though, feel free to contact us.