About This Guide
About This Guide
Welcome
This guide is intended to support faculty in implementing the principles of UDL within their teaching practices at Fanshawe College.
UDL is a powerful approach that allows you to make sure the greatest range of students can access and engage in learning – not just certain students. Thus, Universal Design for Learning: a Faculty Guide intends to provide educators with strategies and resources to support greater accessibility and inclusion in higher education at Fanshawe College.
This guide is built upon the teaching philosophy that even taking one small step (that is, making a single pointed change in your course) to provide an additional method of access, option for assessment, or strategy for engagement is going to make a positive impact upon the learning experience and move your course towards greater inclusivity and accessibility. This is similar to the “plus one” approach commonly used by UDL practitioners and advocates (for example, see this video by Thomas J. Tobin: UDL plus-one). The broad idea is to not get overwhelmed at the work of applying UDL principles – the UDL approach and this book are not meant to serve as a checklist of all the “must-do” tasks for your course. Instead, they are meant to provide a framework and a helpful set of guidelines for the ongoing, reflective, personal, and iterative work of course design and of teaching.
Layout of This Book
You will encounter the following content throughout the book:
Ask Yourself
Placed at the outset of a page, these blocks will provide a prompt to start your thinking, a meaty question to consider, or an activity for you to find a starting point in your UDL journey.
Web Resource
Where these are inserted, they offer links to additional resources from around the web where you might dig deeper into a topic or learn more.
Reflection: One Small Step
Placed at the end of a page, these blocks ask you to reflect upon what you are learning and consider just one specific, discrete, and manageable way in which you might apply the principles of UDL in your courses.
Where included, you will also find Fanshawe text boxes that provide a college-specific connection to the content, showing how UDL aligns with the unique context and broad strategic goals of teaching and learning at Fanshawe College or for links to resources already available to support Fanshawe educators and learners.
Note that this book is designed to be used in a modular fashion – that is, you may find only certain chapters or sections of it applicable to the UDL work you are engaged in at any particular time. In a broad overview:
- Chapter 1: Introduction to Universal Design for Learning will provide the research foundations of UDL, an explanation for each of the three principles of UDL, and some guidelines for approaching course design (or redesign) from a UDL perspective.
- Chapter 2: Assessment and UDL will dig more deeply into using the UDL principles to design flexible and rigorous assessments.
- Chapter 3: UDL & Best Practices for Technology-Enabled Learning will examine web accessibility to reduce barriers to learning and provide additional technical guidance and information specific to the Fanshawe technology ecosystem.
Appendices
The following additional resources have also been included as appendices to this book :
- Appendix 1: PowerPoint Accessibility
- Appendix 2: Word Accessibility
- Appendix 3: PDF Accessibility
- Appendix 4: FanshaweOnline Accessibility
- Appendix 5: Additional Accessibility Resources
A handful of downloadable resources are placed throughout this book (handy checklists, case studies, and reference documents). Refer to the Appendix of Downloadable Resources to find these all in one place.
You will also find a collected glossary of key terms at the back of the book.
Navigation Tips
Searching this Guide
If using the online webbook, you can use the search bar in the top right corner to search the entire book for a keyword or phrase. To search a specific chapter, open that chapter and use your browser’s search feature by hitting [Ctrl] + [f] on your keyboard if using a Windows computer or [Command] + [f] if using a Mac computer.
The [Ctrl] + [f] and [Command] + [f] keys will also allow you to search PDF, HTML, and EPUB files if you are reading them on a computer.
If using an eBook app to read this textbook, the app should have a built-in search tool. Refer to your device for specific details.
Reading this Guide.
This guide has a table of contents to help you navigate through the book. If using the online webbook, you can find the full table of contents on the homepage or by selecting “Contents” from the top menu when you are in a chapter.
Every page of this guide has a button in the lower right corner labelled “Next →” to move forward and another button in the lower left corner labelled “← Previous” to move backward.
Feedback
Please share your adoption and any feedback you have about the book with us at oer@fanshawec.ca
