Universal Design, in a nutshell, means designing an environment that is universally ideal for everyone (as opposed to designing for the average and having to accommodate for those with disabilities).
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach that can help ensure that your course content is accessible for all students. The beauty of UDL is that improvements you make to your course to accommodate the students who need it will help everyone – not just students with a disability. This is called the Curb-Cut Effect and is beautifully illustrated in the image from Sketchplanations. While it might feel overwhelming to design a course that will meet the needs of all of your students, the UDL approach of “Plus One” can make it more manageable. Start with one assignment or page or video and build your UDL muscle by making things like Alt-Text and Headings a habit. Look for “pinch points” and build content to help students overcome them. (Reframing UDL – The Plus-One Approach has a great explanation of this) As educators , the more we know about and implement Universal Design, the better we can address the needs of every member of our community
What is UDL?
Many people hear UDL or digital accessibility and think of things like captions and alt-text. Those two things are certainly part of UDL process, but there is more to it than that. The goal is to design a course where all learners can learn.
According to CAST, the creators of the UDL Framework, “Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.”
CAST has created the following chart to show the different aspects of the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. If you visit their website, you can click on each of the elements of the chart to learn more.
Why UDL
UDL is important because all students are unique and teaching them well requires a variety of approaches . There is no such thing as an average student. The EDUCAUSE 2020 Student Technology Report: Supporting the Whole Student had the following Key Findings on Accessibility and Accommodations (emphasis added):
- Mental health disorders and learning disabilities are the most common types of disabilities students report, with more female students than male students reporting having a mental health disorder.
- Nearly half of students with disabilities do not register with their institution’s disability services office for support.
- One in three students with disabilities do not have positive responses to how their institution supports their need for accessible content and/or technology accommodations.
This means that there is a good chance that you have students in your class who need some kind of accommodation but aren’t receiving it. Applying UDL principles when you design your course can help those (and all) students. If we value diversity and student success, then we owe it to our students to do what we can to ensure a diverse student body has the tools and opportunities it needs to
How to Apply UDL / Examples
Take the Quiz – If you want a benchmark to see how you are doing, AHEAD has a quiz that will give you your UDL score (scroll to the bottom of the page). This quiz will introduce you to the UDL principles and also show your strengths and weaknesses.
How to Apply the UDL Toolkit
At the top of the page you will find links to the three sections of the toolkit: Educational Materials, Teaching Methods, and Learning Assessments. Each of those pages contain a table with information about UDL strategies you can apply. Clicking on a strategy will take you to a page with more details and resources.
General Examples
Implementing multiple means of representation is a great place to start when you are looking to apply UDL principles to your course. That could be representation for your teaching practices or representation of how students demonstrate learning. You can also find more information about this in the Educational Materials section of the UDL Toolkit.
- UDL Tips from CAST – these are PDFs that cover a wide variety of ways to approach using UDL to make learning more inclusive.
- Tip: Research paper alternatives – this post from Breana Bayraktar looks at things students can do with research beyond writing a paper.
- Introduction to Inclusive Assessments using Universal Design for Learning – a resource from the University of Limerick on how to apply UDL to your assessments
Specific Examples
- Course Modifications to Promote Student Mental Health and Move toward Universal Design for Learning – a look at how physics faculty applied UDL principles to make their courses more accessible for students with mental health issues.
- Capstone Project: Making History Approachable Through Choices – this is an example of capstone by a faculty member at Chemeketa Community College. Capstone Projects links to other projects from this program.
UDL at Dickinson
- Accessible Moodle Learn how to make your Moodle site more accessible
- Faculty Testimonials Coming Soon!