The K12 Innovation Accelerator Program

Closed Captioning in the Curriculum

Chris Webb
Montreal, Lester B. Pearson SB
Feb. 2023

Accessibility across the curriculum is highly lacking in the educational space in Quebec (and I suspect the rest of Canada). By allowing all of our students to be included no matter their learning needs, we would increase student achievement and engagement. One such simple factor is the use of captions in the classroom, and the reduction of background noise throughout the school environment. The reduction of background noise has been shown to improve behaviour and increase achievement in all students, and is especially beneficial to our students with hearing loss. In addition, the use of captions, while essential for our students in the classroom with hearing loss, is beneficial for all students, including those who are second language learners or have auditory processing disorders. Live captioning performances such as our school plays, assemblies, classes and more would allow our students to all be included. The further promotion of the use of captioning in classes across the curriculum to impact all learners through the development of more robust and simpler ways to caption, along with the development of teacher PD around captioning as well as the strategies used to include Deaf students (which are also beneficial for all) would allow for student attainment to increase.

I propose to develop a captioning tool which could be used both in a classroom setting and in a whole school auditorium setting to allow students to fully access the speaker and multimedia being used in the space. In addition, the use of the microphone on the device to detect the background noise and encourage its mitigation to further allow students to be focused in class. The development of training materials and guidance to implement these tools in any school to make it a more inclusive place would also be provided.