From Accessibility to Capability: AI for Students With Diverse Visual Abilities

For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Erin Crutcher, a USC graduate student in the Healthcare Decision Analysis program at USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, highlights the transformative potential of AI for students with low vision, demonstrating how these tools significantly improved her own access to course materials and academic workflows, creating a more equitable experience in the program and allowing her to learn at the pace of her peers. She also shares how using Tabular by Reliant to structure unorganized research data enabled her to accelerate a study on patient voice in drug development and move more quickly toward publication.

Sources: USC Community | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Accessible AI, Authentic Learning: Centering the Learning Process in the AI Era

In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Kendra Walther, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, argues for centering the learning process rather than polished AI-generated outputs. Drawing on examples from active learning and computer science, she shows how instructors can redesign assessments to reveal student thinking through reflection, explanation, and low-stakes checkpoints that support accessibility and accountability.

Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

AI From Day One: Supporting Accessibility and Student Self-Regulation

For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Helena Seli, USC Rossier School of Education, and Julie Loppacher, Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity, explore how faculty can embed AI from day one to support accessibility and student self-regulation through evidence-based strategies focused on goal setting, organizing learning, and time management. They show how AI can help students create SMART goals, turn dense course material into visual study aids, clarify assignment instructions, and build weekly calendars that highlight busy periods and reduce procrastination.

Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Accesso-Bot: Scaling Accessible Course Materials Across USC Marshall with AI-Assisted Remediation

In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, David Melone, USC Marshall School of Business, demonstrates how “Accesso-Bot,” a custom GPT, helps rapidly remediate course materials into accessible formats for students, including transcripts, readable documents, and detailed image descriptions. He shows how the tool cuts turnaround time from days to hours while preserving instructional intent and supporting students who rely on screen readers and other assistive technologies.

Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Community Building Activities

This resource provides guidance for incorporating community building activities into a course to foster belonging, increase engagement, and build collaboration and communication skills. It includes strategies and considerations for using community building activities as well as sample activities categorized by purpose. Keywords: community building, icebreakers, belonging, inclusion, collaboration, group work.

Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Community Agreements

This resource provides an overview of creating and using community agreements in a course to support respectful and productive student engagement. It includes options for how to create agreements, tips for implementation, and example agreements.

Keywords: community agreements, discussion norms, discussion guidelines, community guidelines, challenging discussions, academic discussions, dialogue, student engagement.

Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Strategies for Discussing Current Events

This resource provides strategies for integrating current event topics into your course.

Keywords: current events, discussion, challenging discussions, academic dialogue, facilitation, controversial topics, active learning.

Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines, Arts, Clinical, Humanities, Social Science, STEM

Communication strategies for instructors

This resource provides suggestions for effective communication with students to advance your teaching goals and to help maintain work-life balance and wellbeing for both instructors and students. It lists an array of options for communicating with students and identifies campus resources available to faculty when communications require intervention.

Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty | Disciplines: All Disciplines

Mindfulness in courses

A brief introduction to mindfulness including examples of contemplative pedagogical practices that can be incorporated into courses to support student learning and wellbeing. Created in collaboration with Mindful USC.

Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines

USC resources for faculty supporting students

A panel discussion on strategies to engage students with appropriate support services at USC. Hear from Patrick Prince, Associate Vice Provost for Threat Assessment and Management, Lynette Merriman, Associate Vice Provost for Campus Support and Intervention, and Naddia Palacios, Senior Associate Vice Provost for Student Life, about how their resources and programs support USC faculty and students.

Sources: CET | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines