Universal design is 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.–Ron Mace
The intent of universal design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications, and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal design benefits people of all ages and abilities.
UD = UDL, UDI, UCD
UD is just good teaching…
Who Benefits:
- Students who speak English as a second language
- International students
- Older students
- Students with disabilities
- A teacher whose teaching style is inconsistent with the student’s preferred learning style
- All students
How to Implement:
- Put course content on-line allowing students to “pick up” material that might have been missed in lecture.
- Use peer mentoring, group discussions, and cooperative learning situations rather than strictly lecture.
- Using guided notes enables students to listen for essential concepts without copying notes off of overhead.
- Update course materials based on current events and student demands.
- Provide comprehensive syllabus with clearly identified course requirements, accommodation statement and due dates.
- Fluctuate instructional methods, provide illustrations, handouts, auditory and visual aids.
- Clarify any feedback or instructions, ask for questions, and repeat or give additional examples.
- Relate a new topic to one already learned or a real-life example.
- Allow a student to tape record lectures or provide him/her with a copy of your notes.
- Allow the student to demonstrate knowledge of the subject through alternate means.
- Permit and encourage the use of adaptive technology.
- Develop study guides.
- Give more frequent exams that are shorter in length.
taken from The Ohio State University Partnership Grant page UDL Elements of Good Teaching
How to incorporate UD in your classrooms
Embracing universal design of instruction means more than understanding that all students learn differently. To turn UDI-friendly faculty members into actual practitioners of UDI, you need to equip them with concrete strategies that they can apply in their classrooms.
MacLean Gander, a professor and senior associate at Landmark College’s Institute for Research & Training, offers the following suggestions for instructors:
- Provide alternative modes for acquiring and demonstrating knowledge. Students with rapid-naming difficulties, visual-spatial processing problems, and executive function disorders can all benefit from this.
- Use stepwise, multimodel approaches to writing assignments. Students with reading disabilities in particular may experience reading delays, difficulties with spelling, and a failure to acquire written language structure and mechanics.
- Provide access to assistive technologies. A screen reader doesn’t just help students with vision problems. It can also help those with reading difficulties. And a dictation program can help students overcome writing difficulties. If your college has institutional licenses to any AT, show instructors how they can use these programs to help students. Then encourage instructors to get students using these technologies.
- Use effective classroom management and questioning techniques. Some students need a bit of time to process information. Instructors often ask questions and call on a random student to answer, then call on someone else if that student fails to quickly respond. That first student may have known the answer but needed some time to formulate it. Thus, a long pause to allow the student to think would have been useful.
- Reduce time as a factor in testing. Students with a wide variety of conditions experience panic attacks at test time. Giving them time to calm down and take tests at their own speed can help them, as well as those who have a low processing speed for written language or have difficulty producing writing.
- Include visual representations of information. Students with nonverbal working memory tend to have a need to “see things,” Gander explained. Plus, this helps all visual learners as well.
- Provide structure, consistency, clear expectations and immediate feedback. Break assignments and other tasks into clear steps and provide coaching along the way. Students with learning and attention difficulties often have problems remembering to get things done and internalizing directions or advice.
- Offer all students explicit processes for material organization, time management, studying, reading, note-taking and writing. Students who lack self-guidance and organizational skills will find this particularly beneficial for staying on top of assignments and classwork.
Universally Designing Course Requirements
- ACCESS-ed: Promoting UD in Higher Ed The ACCESS-ed Website presents products and resources for the implementation of universal design on post-secondary campuses. In addition to our own products, the website compiles and indexes a database of universal design resources from other available sources to incorporate a comprehensive set of information and resources
- Tips to Reach All Students with a Universally Designed Syllabus You can get your students off to a good start with a universally designed syllabus. When you create your next syllabus, start with the traditional methods and then add new features.
- Accessibility Quick Tips In the ever changing landscape of today’s online classroom, we must all find ways to ensure that content is accessible to students with disabilities. Quick Tips were created to help faculty begin making their online content accessible. Following these guidelines will not only remove the many barriers experienced by students who use adaptive technology but it will ensure full inclusion for all student.
- Equal Access: UDI – A Checklist for Inclusive Teaching This checklist was field tested at more than twenty postsecondary institutions nationwide. The results of a nationwide survey to test face-validity of checklist items led to further refinement of the checklist.
- Teaching with Technology Strategies for using technology in the curriculum to enable students to realize their educational goals are outlined. Strategies are offered for the use of technology to provide an inclusive, cooperative community for learners. The goal of providing an accessible learning environment, which is available to all students, is part of that effort and is in alignment with the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI)
- Universal Instructional Design in Post-Secondary Settings: An Implementation Guide
What is Universal Design for Learning?
UDL Analogy for Higher Education
Universal Design for Learning calls for …
•Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,
•Multiple means of action and expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know,
•Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners’ interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation.
CAST’s UDL online modules: These two online modules introduce the theory, principles and application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to teacher candidates and in-service teachers. They provide higher education faculty with a multimedia, interactive online-learning environment that can be embedded in instructional methods courses. They are designed to be flexible enough to be used as part of an online, hybrid or face-to-face course.
ACCESS-ed offers the entire higher education community quick and easy solutions to challenges they may face when creating an inclusive campus.
UDL Q & A for Higher Education
Applications of Universal Design in Postsecondary Education
Postsecondary Examples of Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
MERLOT ELIXR: Sharing Faculty Stories about Exemplary Teaching – Universal Design for Learning
Accessibility in post secondary education: Application of UDL to college curriculum
National Community of Practice on Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Conceptual White Paper on Universal Design in Education on UW-System Campuses
Why We Need Flexible Instructional Media
Reframing Google’s Search Options: The Poster, by Joyce Kasman Valenza
Bloom’s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally
Universal Design of Postsecondary Instruction
Curriculum Transformation and Disability, a federally-funded project housed at the University of Minnesota, adapted principles of universal design developed by Connell et al. (1997), along with Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (1987), to create Principles for Universal Instructional Design in Higher Education (Fox & Johnson, 2000). These principles were utilized and tested by more than 200 faculty at six colleges and universities in the Midwest. They are:
* Create a welcoming classroom climate. Setting a welcoming tone up front allows students an opportunity to tell you what their needs are. Examples include developing an inclusive syllabus statement regarding disability accommodations, attending to all students’ physical needs, and establishing ground rules for class discussion.
* Determine the essential components of the course. If you identify the essential outcomes you can expect all students in your course to demonstrate, you can fairly evaluate all students and not have to worry about “watering down” the course.
* Provide clear expectations and feedback. Having expectations clearly laid out in the syllabus and providing students with regular feedback on their performance are just two examples of ways to provide clear expectations and feedback.
* Explore ways to incorporate natural supports for learning. Natural supports are non-accommodation-based strategies that are built into a course. They benefit all students. For example, study guides, discussion groups, and practice tests may benefit all students, not just students with disabilities.
* Provide varied instructional methods. Providing students with different ways to access material creates an accessible environment for all students. Some students thrive in lectures; others obtain information effectively from text, while still others learn best through visual media such as diagrams, illustrations, charts, or video.
* Provide a variety of ways for students to demonstrate knowledge. Just as no single mode of presentation suits all learners, neither does one single mode for demonstrating knowledge. Providing students with choices in demonstration of knowledge, such as allowing students to choose between writing a paper, presenting a speech, or conducting a multimedia project, allows students to show what they know in a manner that works for them. However, you must always make sure that providing choices in demonstration of knowledge does not conflict with the course’s essential components.
* Use technology to enhance learning opportunities. Technology may be the key to increasing flexibility in your courses. Putting materials on-line, arranging for course listservs, and selecting software that is compatible with screen readers may assist all students in accessing materials in their own time in a manner that is accessible to them. The key is to not exclude students by using technology that is not accessible.
* Encourage faculty-student contact. Faculty-student contact is one of the strongest indicators for student retention. Strong evidence reported in Astin’s study What Matters in College? (1993) supports the view that faculty involvement with students and active self-directed learning by students contribute more than anything else to measurable student success (Fox & Johnson, 2000, p. 43).
At the postsecondary level, course content and requirements vary widely. Faculty who are committed to inclusive practices have applied universal design principles in many creative ways. Some examples are listed below (Ivy Access Initiative, 2003):
* A law faculty member developed a website that is “Bobby-approved.” *
* A biological sciences faculty member created more accessible lab experiences by developing teams of students that included [students with and without disabilities].
* A math/statistics faculty member began providing handouts of overheads to the entire class so that students could use them for reference and review. He also began to deliver his lectures more carefully, by replacing general terms like “this” or “that” with more specific descriptions, by pausing where appropriate, and by making eye contact with his students.
* A composition faculty member began audio taping his class so students could review class discussion and the professor’s instructions about completing assignments.
* A foreign language professor used puppet shows, role plays, velcro cards, and searches of computer web sites in the second language to make the instruction as multi-modal as possible.
* A psychology professor allowed students the choice of writing the final exam as a take-home or a 3-hour in-class final.
* A sociology professor revised her syllabus to specify the objectives more clearly, and added a research project in addition to the midterm and final exam in order to diversify the types of work that affected the final grade in the course.
* A geology professor developed computer animation modules to illustrate some of the key concepts in a course on physical hydrology. These are shown in class and available out of class as well.
* A computer science professor started to begin each class with a forecast of the key concepts to be discussed that day and why they are important in the course material (after students complained that they had no context for his lectures).
* An introductory physics course administers the midterm exams in the evening, allowing all students up to two hours for a one-hour exam.
* A biology professor introduces new topics by asking all students to write a short essay on the topic, in class. Some students are better writers than talkers, and the professor finds that this practice leads to more universal participation in the subsequent class discussions.
* Another biology professor began using two overhead projectors in his lectures so he can leave the old slide on the screen longer.
Summary
Universal design is growing in popularity because it improves learning for everyone, while minimizing the need for individualized accommodations. In addition to being cost-effective and user-friendly, universal design has the added benefit of promoting full inclusion of students with disabilities in the educational environment. Using both technology and creativity, universal design promises to offer full access and participation to an expanding circle of students.
*Note: Bobby is a Web accessibility software tool designed to help find and address barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with current accessibility guidelines. For more information, visit the Bobby Web site at http://webxact.watchfire.com/
WCAG 2.0 Theme Song Video
Top 10 Sites For Back ChannelingBack channeling is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks. This is such a useful way to collaborate with educators and students when introducing new ideas, presenting in front of a large crowd, or even when watching a video
Open Resources
UD Training
RTC Pilots First Teacher Training Program Modeled On UDL
Differentiated Instruction and UDL
Universal Design Resource Links