Get on Board: Universal Design for Instruction
by Alaina Beaver, Universal Instructional Design Consultant, Office of Information Technology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
How do you learn best? How might a learning environment or experience be more useful to you?
These are questions that I often ask educators when we sit down to talk about bringing Universal Design into their instruction. What I like about these questions is that they help us focus on the bigger picture. From this conversation, we can generate a list of answers to the question “What do you want your students to learn in your course?” From there, the next logical steps involve delivery of material (“How do you want to impart this content?”) and assessment (“How do you want students to show you what they’ve learned?”). There’s one tiny catch in this planning: faculty need to make sure that their courses are in compliance with CU-Boulder’s new Accessibility Policy. That’s where Universal Design for Instruction–and consultation with me–enter the picture.
Universal Design for Instruction is a well-documented framework, but the underlying idea is deceptively simple: let’s make learning work for all people.
In practice, there are important factors to consider. First of all, faculty members need to understand what “accessible” means. The reality of accessible materials often comes down to this question: can a computer process the text, images and videos aloud so that anyone can gain access to the same information equitably, regardless of their level of ability?
In order to answer “yes” to this question, several things might need to happen:
- Documents should be properly tagged with heading levels
- Pictures should have alternative text associated with them
- Audio or visual content should have appropriate transcripts or captions, etc.
Such features make digital versions of materials fully accessible to people with a wide range of learning needs, from not being able to see or hear to having a cognitive learning impairment. People with severe dyslexia, for example, often need to both see and hear text read aloud on a computer in order to understand it fully. If you’ve ever been at a gym or a noisy sports restaurant, you’ve probably benefited from the captions enabled on the TV screens there. Once you look at the wide range of people that accessibility measures benefit, the stereotypes and stigmas behind “disability” quickly break down.
Another factor of Universal Design for Instruction, though, is the understanding that there will always be cases where accommodations need to be made–and that’s okay. For example, some students with blindness or low vision may require braille notes to use during a class presentation. Because braille is a special language designed for persons with blindness, accommodations can be arranged with the institution’s Disability Services support personnel to give students what they need to be successful. I emphasize that, as the instructor of the course, it’s not your job to provide braille materials, but to plan your class accordingly so that students have ample time to prepare and acquire accessible materials themselves.
In the language classroom, Universal Design for Instruction can often be achieved by providing students with creative choices for how they express their learning. For example, in a beginning level French course, an assessment might involve looking at a picture of a room and writing down different objects in the image. Such image-based assessment provides challenges for accessibility. However, this presents a great opportunity to revisit the learning goals: do you want students to really be able to see and identify objects in the room, or do you want students to demonstrate that they’ve learned all of the items on the furniture vocabulary list?
A Universal Design for Instruction approach would be to instead ask students to imagine a room, and to describe it using no fewer than X number of words from the list. The learning goal is met and students have some creativity in imagining a room of their choice; meanwhile, the instructor does not need to worry about creating an accommodation for a vision-centric assignment.
In an ideal Universally Designed classroom, everyone learns, and no one notices that anything out of the ordinary has happened–instead, it just “feels like good teaching.” When you walk into the grocery store and the doors open for you, it’s just easy.
When I assist educators with redesigning their courses to become UD compliant, I try to emphasize the end goal. It might take some extra time to learn new skills on how to make accessible digital materials. It requires some extra brain power to think of these additional considerations.
However, the overall feedback I receive from the instructors I consult with is that it’s worth it. Faculty feel good knowing that they’re doing the right thing. They’re aligning their work not only with the institution’s accessibility goal but with the larger aim of providing equitable access to learning for everyone.
Faculty realize that accessibility, good user experience, and beautiful design are all important features of teaching, and often, many of them are already embedded in their courses. I have the pleasure of supporting their efforts, and sharing our collective successes at CU system events such as Diverse Learners Awareness Week. Riding the wave of a cultural shift at a major institution takes a little getting used to, but when we’re all on board, it’s an incredible ride.
Thank you very much for such interesting article, student-centered philosophy, a great job is required to do!
Thank you very much for such interesting article!
I understand that implementing Universal Design for Instruction may require some extra effort, but it’s absolutely worth it. By doing so, we create a more equitable learning environment for all our students.
Once I had a student who was on a autism spectrum. And it was very difficult at the beginning because I didn’t know anything about this spectrum. I knew it, but not how to deal with it.
I find this info very useful and I’d like to add that all teachers must be trained for these kinds of students and challenges.
This article makes me remember how challenging is when we have students with disabilities. A couple of times blind students showed me how powerful our minds are and we as teachers have to learn how to express our ideas in such a descriptive that they can see through our eyes. What a challenge!!
Thank you for shading lights of students with special needs and the multiple level classes.
I enjoy reading this article. It inspires me a lot! The quotes below from the article are touching:
“Let’s make learning work for all people>”
“Riding the wave of a cultural shift at a major institution takes a little getting used to, but when we’re all on board, it’s an incredible ride.”
The author inspired me with some ideas: “emphasize the end goal”, “imagine a room”, not a teacher’s job to provide braille materials, but to plan his/her class accordingly so that students have enough time to prepare themselves.
Thank you!
thank you
In my school we have special needs kids where they have a shadow that helps us with the material they might need
Truly student-centered philosophy. I love the idea!
I personally found this article inspiring and it also made me remember the special cases I’ve had through my life as a teacher; I had a student with a cerebral palsy who finally became a psychologist and lately I also had in one of my groups a student with extremely low vision in both of his eyes, so for both cases I was glad to work in an educational institution which accepted them and made some changes and modifications to their programs in order to help them.
I was also thinkking as a reflection that perhaps visual materials and others at high school level may not be as effective as lower levels of education, but definetely there’s still a lot to do to help these students achieve their goals.
if we can get to thi s level in which does not matter any disability a students can have, I mean, that is an amazing way to encourage students’ to continue learning no matter what. We as teachers have to be more prepare and we have to take more risks in order to fulfill that idea.
Universal Design will be the future.
It’s inspiring to know UDI and hope to apply in my course design.
Emphasis on the end goal is a very sound concept, An d the stress on learning that looks natural is fine.Providing enough time for everyone so that differently abled students can complete their tasks is very good advice.
Let’s make learning work for all people. I like this quote. It is not easy in the hectic day in and day for teachers to address differentiation at all times. Sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day to prepare lessons with the appropriate modifications for students who need them. Also, for some students, their needs are not as obvious. On the other side of the coin is the fact that sometimes, it’s okay to push students to try something different and new. At the end of the day, modifications to learning tasks usually benefit everyone in the classroom.
“Riding the wave of a cultural shift at a major institution takes a little getting used to, but when we’re all on board, it’s an incredible ride.”
Such a beautiful statement to leave the reader with.
MANY THANKS.
The notions of togetherness, patience, balanced discourse, collaboration, and nuance in education–especially in a context in which education is in crisis–need to be repeatedly put out there to keep mentors/leaders/teachers focused and to help them feel capable and confident.
Again, thank you.
Imagining a room and describing it, should joyfully engage first year students. Simple and bright. Thank you!
Great suggestions for accommodating everyone in my classroom. I especially like the imagination idea and the many ways people are using it to assess vocabulary and grammar (prepositions) understanding. The ideas mentioned here are a welcome addition to my “teacher toolkit.”
I wish all universities required courses to follow ADA guidelines. Faculty need more trainings in this!
The example of “Ask students to imagine a room and use x # of words from the vocab list” seems so obvious! I wish I had more experience thinking this way. Excellent and useful article! Thank you!
It is a cool idea! The only challenge I see there though is that students then memorize an answer in advance, not really having a chance to show off broad learning…
Thank you so much so good idea to implement in classroom
To quick thoughts of Universal Design of Instruction: Making the Lesson goals available for the students for every step of the lesson and this will help students to know what they are working to achieve. it will be easy for me as well to refer any time the goal if it is posted properly and students have access to see. Also, using large visual and tactile aids
The imagine activity is easily transferable to many other topics: prepositions as someone already mentioned. Also, imagine that you are about to go on a trip. What are the X number of items (clothes and accessories) that You put in your suitcase?
OR You have to teach a health class on the body parts. present your lesson to your students making sure that you include X number of body parts
OR sports at a camp: list of sports that your campers can choose from.
Great idea. Thank you.
I liked the idea of imaging a room. It gives students freedom to create and learn in a more personalized and relaxing way. Thank you for the information.
I have always liked doing assessment where students decide how to present what they know, similar to your suggestion about imagining a room. Where I struggle is with assessment. It’s much more complicated. rubrics need to be well written to work and I don’t always get those right. Any advice about assessment of these types of activities would be awesome!!
The technology tools to help with differentiated learning are much appreciated.
I was just talking to a colleague & friend as we were figuring out how we would teach the course we designed together several years ago and the very topic of how we would to prepositions of place came up. Your idea of having them imagine a room and describe it – is exactly something we could use. Your ideas on how to make all our materials accessible is excellent. It leaves our any embarrassing moments as you accommodate students. Thank you!
Interesting concept to “imagine” what one is describing rather than “see” what one is describing. Good opportunity to teach students about the “mind’s eye.”
Thank you for the useful tip!
I like the freedom that comes with having students to use their imagination for writing prompts instead of using one image for all.
The imagine activity is easily transferable to many other topics: prepositions as someone already mentioned. Also, imagine that you are about to go on a trip. What are the X number of items (clothes and accessories) that You put in your suitcase?
OR You have to teach a health class on the body parts. present your lesson to your students making sure that you include X number of body parts
OR sports at a camp: list of sports that your campers can choose from.
Great idea. Thank you.
i like the imagination idea
I like the idea of having students imagine what a room looks like to assess whether or no they have learned room/furniture vocabulary- and it is creative, require critical thinking, and problem solving skills.
It’s great that with the help of different educational and IT tools teachers have an opportunity to create a universally designed classroom. If the Faculty while creating such a classroom really takes into consideration all the important features of teaching like learners’ needs, accessibility, good user experience, and beautiful design it will turn out to be successful and contributing process.
Great to always keep the end goal in mind. As language teachers, we want the students to be able to express themselves in the TL. I need to remind myself that each of the students is going to come away from my class retaining something different, but if they can use it to communicate- that ‘s the point.
Engaging student with a variety of tool is a key element while designing a course program. Students do not always know their full potential neither which tool is better or more enjoyable to each of them, therefore the more we teachers provide to our students the better way they will know themselves as well.
As an educator, it is our ultimate task to put premium on learning and educating ourselves to this kind of matters as what mentioned in this article so that we can accommodate and even scaffold our students according to their needs.
Thanks a lot. Bright ideas! It’s really great, fantastic and possible!
I love the idea of using imagination to get students to be creative.
Trying to engage every learner is the ideal goal. Tools to do so are not always available.
Beginning with end in mind! Great resources!
I will gradually assimilate the ideas. Just getting used to a way of thinking .. and like the imagination factor
To quick thoughts of Universal Design of Instruction: Making the Lesson goals available for the students for every step of the lesson and this will help students to know what they are working to achieve. it will be easy for me as well to refer any time the goal if it is posted properly and students have access to see. Also, using large visual and tactile aids.
Thank you for the examples on how to deal with the learning challenges
thank you