Universal Design for Learning
Understand Barriers
Empathize with Diverse Students

What is Universal Design for Learning?

We'd like to introduce you to an approach that will help you design a course to meet the needs of a diverse set of students, Universal Design for Learning (UDL). From the physical structures on our campuses to the course design, UDL can be used as an underlying principle to ensure accessibility is built into our learning environments.

Please view this short introduction to UDL:

To sum up the principles of UDL:

Provide multiple means of representation.
Present content and information in multiple media, and provide varied supports.
Use graphics and animation, highlight the critical features, activate background knowledge, and support vocabulary so that students can acquire the knowledge being taught.
Provide multiple means of action and expression. Give students plenty of options for expressing what they know, and provide models, feedback, and supports for their different levels of proficiency.
Provide multiple means of engagement. What fires up one student won't fire up another!
Give students choices to fuel their interests and autonomy. Help them risk mistakes and learn from them.

To learn more about UDL, visit the CAST website, and think about becoming a member. Membership is free and allows you access to their superb book, Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice

Understand What Causes Barriers

Part of UDL is understanding your audience, including acknowledging ability differences and the barriers inherent in some forms of media used in online classes. To overcome these barriers, many students use Assistive Technology (AT), a broad range of devices and software that can be helpful to people with differing abilities. To provide the most help to these students, it's critical to ensure our course design supports AT. Here is a quick overview of the differing abilities of students who may be in your online classes, the barriers they face, and the assistive technology they may use to provide access:

*Abilities, Barriers, Assistive Technology*
Differing Ability	Barrier	Assistive Technology
Blindness	Unable to access visual material, such as texts, images, and some aspects of video	Screen readers, Refreshable Braille Displays, DAISY, Audiobooks, Digital Note-taking
Low Vision	Unable to access visual material, such as texts, images, and some aspects of video, especially if contrast is low, or font is pixelated	Screen readers, Screen Magnifiers, Large print, DAISY, Audiobooks
Color blindness	Inability to differentiate colors
Deafness	Unable to access audio material, including conferencing and office hours held over the phone	Cochlear implants, remote captioning, closed captioning, ASL, Transcripts
Low or impaired mobility	Unable to use a mouse and/or keyboard commands	Speech recognition software, specialized keyboards, alternate switching mechanisms, word prediction software, custom interfaces
Learning differences	Inability to focus due to sensory overload, sidetracked by distractions, unable to break content into smaller, more digestible chunks.	Audio and visual reinforcement, layout alteration, study tools, tutoring.

Assistive Technology modifies media, translating an inaccessible media type into an accessible one. For instance, Screen Readers take text, which is inaccessible to blind and low-vision users and turns the text into audio. Closed captioning, on the other hand, take an audio file, which is inaccessible to those with hearing impairment, and turns the audio into a text file. These translated files are called "alternate media."

Here's an excellent introduction to Assistive Technology:

Sounds simple, right? With planning, it can be!

Empathize with Diverse Students

We're almost ready to dive into the mechanics of making your course accessible, but first, we'd like you to hear and see why this issue is so important. Please view this short video to help you "Keep Accessibility in Mind".

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