Accessibility & UDL: Course Design for Everyone (3 Days)

Overview: Traditionally, accessibility is understood to be a way to provide access to physical spaces and content for people with disabilities. While that is critical, it is also a narrow way of conceptualizing accessibility. This workshop will introduce participants to the theory and practice of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which provides a framework for designing courses, assessments, materials, methods, and learning environments that proactively account for variability in the population. UDL draws from decades of research in neuroscience, cognitive sciences, and education sciences to promote practical and conceptual frames for the design and delivery of courses. Unlike traditional approaches to accessibility, UDL advocates providing access to not just physical spaces and content, but to learning and expert learning. Unlike traditional accessibility, UDL advocates the provision of access not only to individuals with disabilities, but to everyone. This workshop will go introduce UDL theory and practice, then look specifically at participants’ courses to walk through a UDL design sequence from closely examining goals to developing well designed assessments to the provision of options for learning in methods and materials. By the end of the workshop, participants will have had the chance to re-design one unit of their course and the skills to expand these strategies to other units therein.