Teaching Accessibility Standards to Generation Y Students

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 mandated that facilities and programs are accessible, so people with disabilities can be included in all aspects of community life including recreation (Dattilo, 2002). Understanding accessibility standards is not an easy task. Educators are faced with the challenge of teaching technical content, like legislation and accessibility, to Generation Y students. The widely accepted experiential learning theory outlined by Kolb (1984) supports the premise of active learning as an effective method for teaching adult learners, and seems to correlate well with the characteristics of Generation Y students. This paper will describe an accessibility assignment that is geared for Generation Y students, based on experiential learning theory, and designed to teach students how to locate and utilize current accessibility standards. (Contains 1 figure.)