Introduction to Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an iterative design process that addresses the
needs of all learners, not only those with disabilities (CAST, 2018). It allows for multiple means
of representation, action and expression, and engagement so that a learner can demonstrate
mastery and expertise in a way that works best for them. It allows instructors to create flexible,
adaptive environments for a large variety of students with the understanding that any place can
be a learning place. For instance, video captions do not just benefit those with hearing
impairments, but it benefits those who might be learning the language (English or other),
working parents who might not want to disturb their children with the sound on a video, or a
busy student in a loud environment who may not be able to hear the sound.
UDL is not something that should be an afterthought. Rather, the work should be front-
loaded and intentionally designed. At the beginning of a course, any items not being used on the
LMS should be hidden; all documents should be available in a variety of formats and written
documents should have descriptive text and captions for important images, organized by styles
(Word) with clear and appropriate headers (Word and PowerPoint), and be OCR readable; videos
should be captioned with closed captioning and audio descriptions; audio files should have a
transcript available; tables and diagrams should have descriptions; and color-coding only should
be avoided. Students should be able to choose the medium and manner in which they
demonstrate knowledge, whether it is a traditional essay, podcast, or even a website. These are
by no means the only requirements but are the minimum requirements that should be included.
Everyone has different ways of learning and demonstrating knowledge that is most
comfortable for them, based on research not only in education and pedagogy but also those for
equity and inclusion. Equity research has shown that by removing the systemic barriers that are
placed in front of learners through UDL, they can better access the material and master it. We
know that some learners express their knowledge better in verbal form than written form. Other
students learn better with tactile, hands-on work more than dual-coded lessons of lecture and
image. This makes flexible learning environments, both face-to-face and online (and blended)
especially important. We must not consider UDL solutions as one-size-fits-all. Rather, we must
change what we do depending on the learners we have. We might find, for instance, that our
group of learners may work differently than our previous group of learners. We must also
consider the learning space and that not all classrooms, physical or virtual, are designed equally
and therefore we must modify what and how we do things for our learners based on the
environments where we are teaching. It is especially important to note that UDL is not, however,
a watered-down way for students to learn. It does not diminish expectations but it allows students
to demonstrate knowledge in a way that works best for them.
Thomas Tobin and Kristen Behling, in their 2018 book, Reach Everyone, Teach
Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education, call UDL “plus one thinking.”
This means that for everything we plan for our students, we should have something additional
added in which students can learn or demonstrate knowledge in a different manner. A carefully
conceived assessment activity should provide a choice for at least two from which students can
choose, usually within different modalities (a discussion post or a video). One in-class activity
for a lesson that the instructor plans should be expanded into two possibilities, tactile, verbal, or
aural.
There are many parameters for making a course and its materials UDL accessible, which
you can find on the provided checklist. This list includes not only practical things but also
technological things that require modifications using the tools in software such as the Microsoft
Office Suite and external tools.

As a first step, the provided Word document syllabus does not adhere to UDL principles.
Read the checklist and see how it is categorized. Then examine the syllabus. Identify what items
are not UDL adherent. Then, summarize how they can be modified to adhere to UDL principles.
 Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Checklist 1

Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education (UDL) Checklist

Are the Course Materials and Textbook:

£ Available open access or low cost?
£ Available in multiple formats (large print, audio, Braille, DAISY/NIMAS, etc.)?

Does My Syllabus:
£ Adhere to the guidelines of the Accessible Syllabus Project
(https://www.accessiblesyllabus.com)?
£ Provide clear headings?
£ Present information such as grading schemas as both pie charts and percentages?
£ Present students with rubrics for the course?
£ Outline clear goals and expectations for the course?
£ Provide clear due dates and exam dates?
£ Provide an accessibility statement?
£ Describe the location of URLs? Does it make clear if it will open in a new window?
£ Use bullet points to organize non-hierarchical lists and numbers to organize hierarchical lists?

Webpage Accessibility:
£ Do websites used or built for the course meet the guidelines of the Web Accessibility
Initiative (https://www.w3.org/WAI/)?
£ Are crowdsourced web documents used in class saved as OCR-compatible PDFs and posted?
£ Are webpages students visit OCR compatible?
£ Do the hyperlinks explain what the link is for?
£ Is there a note that the link will open a new webpage?
£ Are there alternatives for visual or aural material?
£ Can the pages be navigated without a mouse (with only keyboard controls, for instance)?
£ Does the page lack flashing content to avoid inducing seizures?

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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
 Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Checklist 2

Text Document and Presentation Slide Accessibility:

£ Are my files available in multiple formats (PowerPoint, Narrated PowerPoint, Word, PDF,
HTML, Rich Text, Text, hard copy)?
£ Have my files been run through Microsoft Office’s accessibility checker?
£ Are my files OCR compatible?
£ Are my headings on documents and PowerPoint slides clear?
£ Are my hard copy handouts available in large print and digitally?
£ Are my files organized in a logical and clear manner?
£ Is there enough white space so both humans and screen reader can read and navigate easily?
£ If a background issue, is there color contrast between the text and background?
£ Are text colors chosen carefully?
£ Are red and green avoided?
£ Did I decode the use of colors through text or symbols?
£ Is the layout uncrowded?
£ Does the content appear in a predictable way?
£ Did I create the document using Microsoft Word’s Styles function?
£ Are the fonts easy to read?
£ Are the line lengths short?
£ Is there a navigable table of contents for long documents?
£ Use bullet points to organize non-hierarchical lists and numbers to organize hierarchical lists?
£ Are my documents available also in the Comic Sans, OpenDyslexic, or Dyslexie font?
£ Are numbers also written out in words?
£ Is spacing at 1.5 lines?
£ Are text boxes, animations, automatic slide transitions and timings, hyperlinks, and
navigations avoided in PowerPoint?
£ Are URLs placed in sentence context? Does it make clear if it will open in a new window?
£ Equally easy to read on phones, tablets, and computers?

Created by Reba Wissner. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
 Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Checklist 3

Are the Audio Files (Podcasts, Radio Interviews, Narrated PowerPoints, etc.):
£ Available with easily accessed transcripts?
£ Are transcripts for narrated PowerPoints placed in the notes box of the corresponding slide?

Are Musical Scores and Examples:

£ Available in XML format?
£ Available in Braille music notation?
£ Also available as recordings or MIDI files?

Photo and Video Accessibility:

£ Are all the videos captioned?
£ Are all images (still and video) described in text and captioned appropriately?
£ Are all images in-line with the text?
£ Are all photos and images that are integral to the content described using Alt-Text?
£ Are all decorative photos and images described using null Alt-Text?
£ Are graphics and images supplemented with closely-related text explanations and captions?
£ Do the videos lack flashing content or looping to avoid inducing seizures?
£ Are all animations removed?
£ Can videos be adjusted by the watcher to watch at a slower or faster frame rate?

Complex Images, Charts, Tables, and Graphs:

£ Are headings clear?
£ Are red and green avoided?
£ Did I decode the use of colors through text or symbols?
£ Are the tables captioned and with headers explaining/summarizing the information?
£ Is my large table broken into smaller tables?
£ Are all charts, tables, and graphs described using Alt-Text?

Created by Reba Wissner. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
 Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Checklist 4

On the LMS:
£ Are the files available to all students in advance of class in a variety of formats?
£ Did I run the files run through the accessibility checker (i.e., Canvas accessibility gauge)?
£ If they did not pass the accessibility check, have I made modifications for them to pass?
£ Did I hide the features and tabs that will not be used?

Do the In-Class Activities:

£ Provide multiple means of engagement (visual, verbal, aural, tactile, multimedia, etc.)?
£ Provide multiple means of representation (visual, verbal, aural, tactile, multimedia, etc.)?
£ Provide multiple means of action and expression?
£ Allow for modifications based on learner need?
£ Allow for those with mobility aids or assistive devices to fully participate?

Do the Assessments:
£ Come with clear instructions?
£ Allow the students a choice of assignments?
£ Allow the students to decide what medium to use?
£ Occur in a distraction-free environment (testing)?
£ Contain scaffolding?
£ Contain opportunities for both summative and formative evaluation?
£ Allow students to see examples of assignments with different grades?
£ Come with rubrics in advance of their due date?

Is the Language Used in the Course and the Materials:

£ Jargon-free (or at least the jargon is defined first)?
£ Provided with symbols or notations that are decoded, clarified, and explained?
£ Simple and concise?
£ Are emojis or other visual icons used to help convey emotion or good/bad?

Created by Reba Wissner. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
 University of Somewhere - Anywhere
Introduction to Information Literacy
INLT 101
Fall 2020

Class Hrs: 3.0 Credit Hrs: 3.0

Instructor

Jane Doe
jdoe@somewhere.edu
Anyroom 203
101.234.9876

Catalog Course Description

This course introduces students to information literacy concepts. It will improve students’ abilities to research,
evaluate, and cite information.

Course Materials

Information Literacy Instruction That Works: A Guide to Teaching by Discipline and Student Population.
Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2013.

Special Technology Requirements

-Hardware Requirements
The minimum requirements
-Software Requirements
The minimum requirements

Course Goals

The course will:

A. Introduce and examine the six basic concepts of information literacy, based on the Framework for
Information c Literacy for Higher Education.
B. Prepare students to analyze information’s value and author’s authority
C. Build students’ research and citation skills

Expected Student Learning Outcomes

The student will be able to:

1. Determine an appropriate research scope
2. Formulate research questions
3. Design and refine needs and search strategies
4. Determine the credibility of sources
5. Identify information production sources
6. Access and organize information
7. Properly attribute and cite

1
Course Schedule

Week Learning Activities

1 Materials & Lecture Topic: Course introduction
Activity: Scavenger hunt
Forum: Use discussion board to brainstorm and tell others where you’ve already looked.
Dropbox: Submit Treasure hunt (one per group)
2 Materials & Lecture Topic: Finding research ideas
Activity: Brainstorm 3 controversial topics to research
Forum: Discuss which of the 3 controversial topics you’ve chosen and why.
Dropbox: Submit 3 controversial topics to research
3 Materials & Lecture Topic: Search strategies and tools
Activity: Make a search strategy and list potential places to search
Forum: Discuss search strategy and tools, brainstorm synonyms.
Dropbox: Search strategy and tools