UDL Tip of the Month 2023

Series Introduction and UDL Framework Overview

This newsletter segment reflects the first in a monthly series of teaching tips from CITL’s UDL Team focused on the topic of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and how to apply UDL principles in your course design and teaching practice. This month offers a brief rationale for, and introduction to, the UDL framework. In the months to come, we’ll zero in on specific applications of UDL in areas like syllabus design, assessment design, engagement strategies, multimodal approaches, tool-based methods for applying UDL, and more. Along the way, we’ll also note important areas where UDL and accessibility converge.

At this point though, you may be wondering, “What is UDL, and what can it do for my students?” To begin with, UDL is an inclusive approach to learning that recognizes students' unique strengths, abilities, and learning preferences and guides the design of educational materials, methods, and assessments to meet those diverse learner needs. In fact, one of the goals of UDL is to help students become "expert learners" by empowering them to reach their full potential, regardless of their background or ability. While not a replacement for all disability accommodations, UDL may help reduce the need for individual accommodations by removing major barriers to instruction and taking a proactive approach to inclusive course design.

UDL was inspired by the Universal Design movement in architecture and product development, which called for "the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design." Researchers at the Center for Applied Technology (CAST) applied this foundational principle to learning by incorporating neuroscience research and progressive education theories to create a set of guidelines for designing and implementing inclusive learning environments. In a nutshell, UDL is based on specific neural networks that govern what, how, and why we learn. These three networks (affective, recognition, and strategic) help define the conceptual framework of UDL and map to fundamental inclusive learning considerations.

The UDL Framework

What's Your UDL Strategy?

Looking over the UDL conceptual framework, particularly the “inclusive learning considerations,” can you think of one or more ways you might already be applying UDL principles in your course design and teaching? If so, please Email CITL’s UDL Team a brief description of your applied UDL strategy. We’ll feature the winning example in our next monthly “UDL Tip of the Month” which will explore areas where applied UDL and recognized best practices for course design and teaching intersect.

UDL Principle 1: Multiple Means of Engagement

This month’s teaching tips from CITL’s UDL Team focus on the first of the three principles that make up the UDL framework: Provide Multiple Means of Engagement. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) explains that because learners differ in the ways they can be engaged and motivated to learn, providing multiple options for engagement is essential. 

In Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone, Thomas Tobin maintains that “a UDL approach is about purposely thinking differently about the interactions we create for our courses.” The Community of Inquiry (COI) model shown below offers one useful way of thinking about the various ways learners can interact and engage: with the content (cognitive presence), their instructor (teaching presence), and their peers (social presence).

Figure adapted from R. Garrison, T. Anderson, L. Rourke et al. Community of Inquiry Model (2007)

Providing multiple means of engagement in each of these spheres of discourse stimulates learners’ interests and motivation for learning while also offering them greater opportunities to contribute to the course learning community. Here are a few examples of options for increasing student-content, student-instructor, and student-student engagement.

Student-Content Engagement

• Activate students’ prior knowledge early in each learning module (e.g., by inviting students to relate a concept or topic to current events, their personal experience, or to another concept or topic they learned about previously in the course).
• Provide guides for students’ learning (e.g., key words lists, guiding questions to focus reading, links to items for further study, rubrics, templates, checklists).
• Provide multi-stage projects that allow students to build on their accumulated learning in the course.
• Use low stakes formative assessments and repeatable learning checks with mastery-oriented feedback to help reinforce key concepts and ideas.

Student-Instructor Engagement

• Send a welcome email message and/or video prior to course launch.
• Post regular/weekly announcements that do more than housekeeping by helping learners synthesize information covered, get them excited about what’s coming up in the next unit or week, and highlight exceptionally good work by individual students.
• Maintain a virtual office for live web conferencing or text chat.
• Use the course blog tool as an informal communication channel.
• Provide a Q & A Forum for course-related questions that allow students and the instructor to respond to course content questions.
• Solicit Informal Early Feedback (IEF) on instructional activities.
• Leverage online journals as a reflective student-instructor communication channel.

Student-Student Engagement

• Leverage the online discussion board (instructor-graded and/or peer-reviewed).
• Provide opportunities for collaborative group work (e.g., role playing, case studies, debates, group presentations).
• Use wikis to facilitate collaborative authoring.
• Provide informal discussion areas for students.

These lists are by no means exhaustive, and CITL’s UDL Team would love to hear about, and showcase, strategies you’ve used to increase engagement options in your course. Additionally, if you’re looking to enhance the accessibility and inclusivity of your course and teaching, CITL's Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Team is here to help. You can reach us at CITL-UDLTeam@illinois.edu. Tune in next month when we look at some examples of how information and content can be presented in different ways to provide multiple means of representation, the second principle in the UDL framework.

Selected Resources:

• CAST Professional Learning. Top 10 UDL Tips for Designing an Engaging Learning Environment.
• CAST. Provide multiple means of Engagement.

UDL Principle 2: Multiple Means of Representation

Last month’s teaching tips from CITL’s Universal Design for Learning (UDL) team centered on the first principle of UDL: Providing Multiple Means of Engagement. This month’s tip extends the UDL framework overview to focus on the importance of addressing diverse learning styles and needs by Providing Multiple Means of Representation, the second of the three major UDL principles.

This principle acknowledges that learners vary in how they perceive and comprehend information. Providing multiple means of representation is also crucial for ensuring equitable access to learning materials and thus overlaps in several ways with accessible course design practices. Overall, offering content in multiple formats and mediums can go a long way in helping create a more inclusive learning environment for students. Providing multiple means of representation is broken up into three areas in the UDL framework: 

1. Perception: ensuring information is equally perceptible to all learners.
2. Language and Symbols: ensuring key terms and symbols have other ways to show what they mean.
3. Comprehension: providing scaffolding to help learners process information.

Here are some example strategies in each of these areas:

Perception

• Captions for video and text transcripts for audio (e.g., podcasts)
• Alternative text description for all informative images, graphics, and animations
• Accessible text that is discoverable and searchable as text instead of an image of text (e.g., a screenshot image containing text or a PDF that is a scanned image) Note: our university has a campus license for SensusAccess, a text conversion tool that converts documents into a range of alternate media. The service also converts inaccessible documents such as image-only PDF files, JPG pictures, and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations into more accessible formats.

Language and Symbols

• Clarifying vocabulary through a list of key terms and/or a glossary
• Presenting mathematical equations in an accessible format for all users, including learners who use screen readers and other text-to-speech assistive technology. Note: our university has a campus-wide license for EquatIO which provides accessible math conversion
• Enabling speech-to-text in Canvas with the Immersive Reader

Comprehension

• Pre-course surveys and self-assessment tools to activate prior knowledge
• Infographics, diagrams, and charts to help visualize complex concepts or relationships
• Study guides focused on key concepts and ideas central to the learning objectives
• Interactive models or simulations that help learners visualize complex concepts
• Step-by-step guides or tutorials for complex tasks
• Case-based assignments where students can apply knowledge learned in one context to solve problems in diverse settings
• Project-based assessments that require students to utilize learned concepts in designing solutions or creating products applicable to different situations

As with last month’s examples, these lists are by no means exhaustive. Tune in next month when we look at some examples of how we can provide multiple means of action and expression, the third principle in the UDL framework.

Selected Resources:

• CAST Professional Learning. UDL Tips for Accessible Educational Materials.
• CAST. Provide Multiple Means of Representation.