How the six moves connect

Move 1 of 6 · Held by the learner

Listen first

What is the task, and where does it stop them?

What happens

The learner describes the task and where it stops them. What can be shared, with whom and for how long is agreed before anything is written. Documentation is read afterwards, for functional impact in this environment, and requested only to the extent the decision needs. If a need is already clear, an interim arrangement goes in place.

What it changes

For the learner

Is heard before any document is read, and decides what is shared about them.

For the institution

Meets its duty to inquire and its procedural duty from the first contact, and collects only what it is entitled to hold.

For the system of learning

Barriers are recorded from the outset as a mismatch between a task and a setting, which is the form a design question takes.

Record it produces

The learner's account of the task and barrier; the consent note; any interim arrangement.

Leads to

• Move 2 · Establish what is essential — The account of the task is what the program's essential-requirements question is asked about.
• Move 4 · Decide at a gate, with the learner — The constraints agreed here on sharing govern what the decision document may say.

Grounded in

Duty to inquire, procedural duty and interim accommodation (OHRC); shared responsibility of every party to the process (Renaud); purpose-limited collection (FIPPA); function rather than diagnosis (ICF).

Sources

Sources 1, 4, 2, 3, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Accommodation in practice

Move 2 of 6 · Held by the program

Establish what is essential

What must they still demonstrate, and who says so?

What happens

With the people who teach it: what must a learner demonstrate, and which parts of the current method are tradition, timetable or default. The question is put as the law puts it — rationally connected, held in good faith, reasonably necessary — and the answer is written and confirmed by the program. Where none existed, this move produces the program's first statement of essential requirements.

What it changes

For the learner

Is not asked to prove that a requirement is unnecessary; the institution carries that burden.

For the institution

Holds a written, defensible statement of what each course requires, made before any dispute rather than during one.

For the system of learning

The distinction between what an assessment measures and how it is habitually done becomes explicit, course by course.

Record it produces

The program's confirmed statement of essential requirements, with reasons.

Leads to

• Move 3 · Design the options — Options are designed only inside the space the essential requirements leave open.

Depends on

• Move 1 · Listen first — The account of the task is what the program's essential-requirements question is asked about.
• Move 6 · Record the pattern (feedback) — A recurring barrier reopens the program's statement of what is essential.

Grounded in

The three-part test and the burden on the institution (Meiorin); education itself as the service (Moore); bona fide academic requirements (OHRC); construct and modification (AERA/APA/NCME).

Sources

Sources 5, 6, 1, 7, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Rights and obligation

Move 3 of 6 · Held by the practitioner, with the program

Design the options

What could change for everyone, and what for this person?

What happens

From the environment outward: first what could change for everyone, then what this person needs that the environment cannot yet supply. Each option is checked against the construct being assessed so that an accommodation stays an accommodation. More than one route where more than one works; where a real cost arises, it is quantified and external funding is looked for before hardship is raised.

What it changes

For the learner

Receives options that fit the environment they are in, not a standard package.

For the institution

Resolves at the design level what it can, and raises hardship only on evidence, as the law requires.

For the system of learning

Every individual request is first read as a possible design change, which is how the number of requests falls over time.

Record it produces

The options considered, including those set aside and why.

Leads to

• Move 4 · Decide at a gate, with the learner — The options are what the learner chooses among.

Depends on

• Move 2 · Establish what is essential — Options are designed only inside the space the essential requirements leave open.
• Move 6 · Record the pattern (feedback) — A recurring barrier becomes a design change for everyone, not an option for one.

Grounded in

Design for the range before the request (CAST; Burgstahler); accommodation versus modification by construct (Messick; AERA/APA/NCME); hardship on evidence, not impression (Renaud).

Sources

Sources 8, 9, 10, 7, 4, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Designing for variability

Move 4 of 6 · Held by the learner

Decide at a gate, with the learner

Which option, and on what terms?

What happens

The learner sees the options, asks what they need to ask, and chooses. The decision, its reasons, its scope and its limits go into one plain-language document, with the route for asking that it be reviewed and by whom. It does not proceed until the learner has read it.

What it changes

For the learner

Holds the choice, and a document they can carry and read on the day they need it.

For the institution

Has a decision whose reasoning survives the people who made it and can be reviewed.

For the system of learning

Choice is treated as part of the design, because an arrangement the learner did not choose is one they are less likely to use.

Record it produces

The decision document: arrangement, reasons, scope, limits, review route.

Leads to

• Move 5 · Put it in place and check it — The decision assigns the tasks and dates that move 5 carries out.

Depends on

• Move 1 · Listen first — The constraints agreed here on sharing govern what the decision document may say.
• Move 3 · Design the options — The options are what the learner chooses among.
• Move 5 · Put it in place and check it (feedback) — What the check finds can change the decision while the term is still running.

Grounded in

Learners' reasons for leaving accommodations unused (Lyman et al.); autonomy and motivation (Ryan & Deci); the choice belongs to the person (Charlton; Sins Invalid).

Sources

Sources 11, 12, 13, 14, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Grounding

Move 5 of 6 · Held by everyone named in the record

Put it in place and check it

Who does what by when, and when do we look again?

What happens

Each party has a task and a date — registrar, exam centre, teaching assistant, placement coordinator, residence office, supervisor, instructor — and the record names who holds each piece. The check happens at a set point in the term, before the first assessment the decision affects, and what it finds changes the arrangement while the change can still reach the person in the course. The check asks one question about the course as well: has anything built for this learner since been built in for everyone, so that the next learner does not have to ask?

What it changes

For the learner

Can expect the arrangement to be in place on the day, and to be asked whether it was.

For the institution

Knows which office holds each obligation, and finds failures before a grade is in rather than after.

For the system of learning

Implementation is observed, not assumed, which is the evidence base for every later change.

Record it produces

The implementation record and the check note.

Leads to

• Move 4 · Decide at a gate, with the learner (feedback) — What the check finds can change the decision while the term is still running.
• Move 6 · Record the pattern — Each completed, checked decision is one entry in the pattern.

Depends on

• Move 4 · Decide at a gate, with the learner — The decision assigns the tasks and dates that move 5 carries out.

Grounded in

The senate and academic council as the bodies that hold academic standards (University Act); monitoring and adjustment of accommodations (OHRC).

Sources

Sources 15, 1, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Institutions, governance and change

Move 6 of 6 · Held by the practitioner, handed to the institution

Record the pattern

What does this case say about the next one?

What happens

Each decision is a record readable by those who need it and by no one else. Read across cases, with identifying detail removed, the records show which barriers recur. A barrier that recurs across four courses is a design question for the program: a consultation with the department, a proposal to the body that governs curriculum, or a line in the institution's accessibility plan. The log also counts what the records cannot show on their own: whether requests of that kind fell once a barrier was designed out, and who never asked at all, since most learners who had support at school never ask again once they leave it. That is where Fieldwork and the three engagements begin.

What it changes

For the learner

Is not the only person to benefit from their own case; the next learner meets a lower barrier.

For the institution

Turns its casework into evidence for its accessibility plan and its curriculum governance.

For the system of learning

The barrier is relocated from the person to the environment, which is where the social model says it was.

Record it produces

The anonymised pattern log, with the count of requests avoided; the proposal or plan entry it produces.

Leads to

• Move 2 · Establish what is essential (feedback) — A recurring barrier reopens the program's statement of what is essential.
• Move 3 · Design the options (feedback) — A recurring barrier becomes a design change for everyone, not an option for one.

Depends on

• Move 5 · Put it in place and check it — Each completed, checked decision is one entry in the pattern.

Grounded in

Records held for their stated purpose (FIPPA); the institution's accessibility plan (Accessible BC Act); the barrier is in the environment (Oliver); design for the range (CAST).

Sources

Sources 2, 16, 17, 8, 19, numbered to the list at the end.

Draws on the landscape group

Services

Sources

1. Ontario Human Rights Commission (2018). Policy on accessible education for students with disabilities.
2. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSBC 1996, c 165.
3. World Health Organization (2001). International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.
4. Central Okanagan School District No. 23 v. Renaud, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 970.
5. British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v. BCGSEU, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 3 (Meiorin).
6. Moore v. British Columbia (Education), 2012 SCC 61.
7. AERA, APA & NCME (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing.
8. CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, version 3.0.
9. Burgstahler, S. E. (Ed.) (2015). Universal design in higher education: From principles to practice (2nd ed.).
10. Messick, S. (1995). Validity of psychological assessment. American Psychologist, 50(9), 741–749.
11. Lyman, M., et al. (2016). What keeps students with disabilities from using accommodations in postsecondary education? Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 29(2), 123–140.
12. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
13. Charlton, J. I. (1998). Nothing about us without us. University of California Press.
14. Sins Invalid (2019). Skin, tooth, and bone: The basis of movement is our people (2nd ed.).
15. University Act, RSBC 1996, c 468.
16. Accessible British Columbia Act, SBC 2021, c 19.
17. Oliver, M. (1990). The politics of disablement. Macmillan.
18. Human Rights Code, RSBC 1996, c 210.
19. Newman, L., Wagner, M., Knokey, A.-M., et al. (2011). The post-high school outcomes of young adults with disabilities up to 8 years after high school: A report from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NCSER 2011-3005). SRI International.