ESTABLISHING A POSITIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
19 Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that seeks to maximize learning opportunities for all students. Universally designed learning experiences provide students with opportunities to engage with content in multiple or flexible ways. Efforts are made to make information available to students through various means of representation, to allow students to engage the material through multiple means, and to provide multiple means of action and expression (CAST, 2018).
Universal Design for Learning or UDL is a framework for teaching and learning that can help support a more inclusive pedagogy. It is based on research done by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) and there are three main principles to the UDL framework listed below with a brief description of what each principle is about and how it could be applied in your work.
Accessible Pedagogies
Accessible pedagogies are more than simply attending to Universal Design for Learning in course and assessment design. There are a few things that you need to keep in mind in your seminar and lab facilitation that can support accessibility beyond the multiple means approach in the UDL principles. Here is a list of a few practices and reflection questions to consider to make your pedagogy more inclusive and accessible.
- Accessibility of resources and materials. Ensure that the materials and resources that you share are accessible, such as Word documents, PowerPoints, and PDFs. CPI has a resource to support accessible document creation.
- Use accessible and inclusive classroom practices when teaching on-campus. This includes making sure to use a microphone for bigger classes and where available, making sure that your handwriting or annotations are clear and large enough on the board to be seen in the back of the class.
- Use accessible and inclusive classroom practices when teaching online. Use a headset and microphone to support clarity. Turn on the closed caption feature of the platform you are using. Have a discussion about communication protocols to ensure that people do not talk over each other.
- Use inclusive exemplars for your case studies and assessment questions. Is there disability representation in the examples you are providing? What are some disability considerations that would be contextual to your course subject?
- How inclusive are your resources and your reading list for the class? Who are the authors of the articles and books?
This is not a comprehensive list, but rather places to start in your reflection on accessible pedagogies.
