Universal Design for Learning Online

Universal Design for Learning Online

Universal Design for Learning is a research-based approach (primarily in neuroscience) to working with the predictable variability of your students to reduce barriers to learning that are unrelated to what you want them to learn and be able to do, so that they can focus on what is important. The purpose of this step-by-step instructional guide is to help you think through your course from a UDL perspective and identify changes you can make to remove barriers to learning by providing multiple means of engagement, representation, and/or action and expression.

Before you begin

It will be very helpful if you have listened to How to Integrate Universal Design for Learning Principles In Your Online Courses podcast with Dr. Thomas J. Tobin from 2:19 to 33:40 or read the Transcript.

If you are not familiar with Universal Design for Learning, it will also be very helpful if you have either

• Watched some or all of the Universal Design for Learning Series videos on YouTube. This is a series of six 5-minute videos describing the main points of Universal Design for Learning and how you can apply them to your class. 
• Looked through Chapter 5: A Framework for UDL Implementation in the book Universal Design for Learning: Theory and practice by Meyer, Rose, and Gordon (2014). You will need to create a free account with CAST to view the book for free.

What To Do

Review Your Course

1. Focus on areas where a number of students regularly have difficulty.
2. Identify some potential reasons as to why they may be having difficulty. Are they

• • not really engaged with the content? 
  • not "getting it" from the instructional materials provided? 
  • struggling with how you want them to show you what they learned?

1. Redesigning all of your content will take a large amount of time, so may choose two (2) lessons, units, or modules that you would like to work on and then revisit this guide to revise the remaining content in your course. The section of the class you choose should include instructional material and an assessment of learning.
2. For the lessons you chose, decide if you want to adjust something related to engagement, representation, or action and expression.

Plan Your Revisions

For the lesson you chose,

1. Think about the following

• • what you've been doing to engage students with this lesson
  • what materials students have been using to learn the content or skill (i.e. textbook, other reading, videos, lecture, etc.)
  • how you have them prove to you that know and can do what you want

1. Identify the difficulties students have been having with this lesson and why you think they may be related to the category you chose (engagement, representation, or action and expression)
2. Using the Universal Design for Learning principles and guidelines, identify one thing you are going to change for the fall and think about why you believe this change will help your students. Make sure to take into account how your students will be learning this fall as opposed to how they normally would interact with you and with other instructional materials.

You can use the following resources to help you with your revision plan.

• • UDL Guidelines for Engagement (the "why" part)
  • UDL Guidelines for Representation  (the "what" part)
  • UDL Guidelines for Action and Expression  (the "how" part)

1. Repeat steps 1-3 above for any other content you would like to revise.