Table Of Content
- Udemy’s Pricing Model: How To Use It To Your Advantage As An Online Course...
- What Are the Three Principles of Universal Design for Learning?
- What Is UDL, and How Can It Be Used in Higher Education?
- Questions to ask yourself when teaching online
- What Is Universal Design for Learning? A Guide for Teachers

The mission of the organization is to transform education design and practice until learning has no limits. UDL is defined as a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insight into how people learn. It’s important to teach to each student’s individual strengths, skills and needs.
Udemy’s Pricing Model: How To Use It To Your Advantage As An Online Course...
Closed captions, automatic doors and accessibility features on smartphones are all examples of universal design. You can create flexible options in the design of the goals, assessments, methods, materials, and environment — and make them available for all your students. This does not mean we can’t embrace multiple forms of intelligence and provide numerous scaffolds and supports. We should provide visual, auditory, linguistic, conceptual, and sociocultural scaffolds, but not because of learning styles—because of variability. Providing multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression creates opportunities for all students to learn. When teaching, I aimed to address many barriers before we began a unit.
What Are the Three Principles of Universal Design for Learning?
The ultimate goal of UDL is for all learners to become “expert learners.” Expert learners are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed about learning. Even if you’re not familiar with the term universal design, you’ve likely encountered it in your everyday life. Common examples include automatic doors and dictation tools on smartphones.

What Is UDL, and How Can It Be Used in Higher Education?
Now, this education model is increasingly recognized as vital for inclusive and effective teaching. In this model, student engagement includes motivating students toward learning in the classroom. Representation involves supporting a student’s education needs based on factors like disabilities, cultural or language backgrounds, and other needs. And finally, action and expression refers to providing students with means to engage in class based on those needs. By applying UDL principles, teachers can effectively instruct a diverse group of learners.
Ways to Create an Inclusive Reading and Writing Program
A 2022 study published in Inclusive Practices found that students learning next-generation science performed well in a learning environment where UDL principles were implemented to promote inclusiveness. UDL helps build in more ways a diverse group of learners can access information and show what they know. This approach to teaching or to workplace training doesn’t specifically target people who learn and think differently. But it can be especially helpful for kids with these challenges — including those who have not been formally diagnosed. Similarly, teachers can use textbooks created to be accessible with screen reader and magnification software.
Beyond traditional homework, students can also submit video recordings of a presentation or speech. If the information does not engage the student’s interest, it is essentially inaccessible. Students must be able to absorb and process information in their minds. Each student is interested in different topics of discussion, so teachers must figure out how to gauge their interest in different ways. When people think of a teacher at work, they envision someone speaking in front of a room full of students. What they don’t see are the hundreds of hours of lesson planning that happened before the first day of school.
Universal design for learning examples
Universal Design for Learning: Practical Suggestions - Carleton College
Universal Design for Learning: Practical Suggestions.
Posted: Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:00:00 GMT [source]
In fact, taking a look at the three principles of UDL and ways to use them could even boost your customer reviews and referrals, as all students will feel included and valued. To understand what Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is, it helps to understand what it’s not. For example, if your students typically struggle with a new concept after you present it, you could make a short video recording of key ideas. Make sure that there are options regularly available for any student to use as needed. CAST created the Universal Design for Learning framework, and it remains one of our core levers of change to help make learning inclusive and transformative for everyone. Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you that no two students are alike.
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UDL is a framework for designing learning experiences, so students have options for how they learn, what materials they use, and how they demonstrate their learning. When implemented with a lens of equity in a multi-tiered system, the framework has the potential to eliminate opportunity gaps that exclude many learners, especially those who have been historically marginalized. If we want all students to have equal opportunities to learn, we have to be incredibly purposeful, proactive, and flexible (Novak, 2021).
This approach acknowledges that some students may prefer visual materials, others audio, and yet others might benefit from a kinetic experience. By moving away from rigid, one-size-fits-all educational strategies, UDL recognizes individual learner variability and provides variable means to achieve educational objectives. In this article, we will delve into the essence of UDL, outlining its principles and the significant advantages it introduces to education. Read on to discover what the Universal Design for Learning is all about and how it can reduce educational barriers for students. Then, discover a few practical ways that you can use Universal Design for Learning guidelines in your classroom—along with some examples to get you started. As a teacher, one of the best ways to help students is by reducing barriers to learning.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed. “You should be testing technology tools to make sure they’re accessible not only for people with disabilities but also in terms of mobile access and bandwidth,” Tobin says. These are not exhaustive lists, but rather a starting point to get the ideas flowing. Each learner navigates the classroom in a different way, and they also express themselves uniquely. If someone has an executive function disorder, meaning they have trouble planning, organizing and problem solving, they will express themselves differently than someone who has a language barrier. For example, some postsecondary students are able to use written communication with ease, while others can only communicate through speech.
The individual’s capacity for executive functions can also be lowered by disabilities. It might take longer to plan UDL courses, but it is a proactive investment in your classroom. Building inclusivity and flexibility into your curriculum gives you more time to focus on engaging with students instead of removing barriers you hadn’t considered. UDL is an inclusive method of instructional design that meets the diverse needs of all learners. Teachers might allow learners to select topics they find meaningful or decide between creating a video or a comic strip to display their understanding.
By regulating their emotions, students can better cope with changes in their environment. Instructors might ask students how they’re feeling today on a scale of 1-5 to understand their needs and any accommodations. Providing multiple means of engagement can be thought of as the ‘why’ of learning. While some love spontaneity, others will only feel comfortable when there is a daily routine followed in the classroom.
Each learner self-regulates in a different way, and these disparities are often due to their motivation levels. Other factors like contextual interference—a disruption in the motor learning phenomenon that affects how people learn and practice new skills—and self-regulation skills can also impact the student’s concentration. This is caused in part by the learner not seeing the value of certain goals and objectives. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that involves using a variety of teaching methods to respond to the needs of all your higher ed students. It is a teaching technique that provides flexibility in how instructional materials are delivered—and is ideal for supporting students of all backgrounds, cultures and abilities. The goal of Universal Design for Learning is to remove barriers to learning.
Promoting learning environments that are inclusive is a key component of UDL and one that can be accommodated with a little extra effort. In order for a student to learn, they must make an effort to pay attention in class. If a student is motivated correctly, they can focus and make a sustained effort in the classroom.