Sometimes, serendipity plays a remarkable role in our professional journeys. After years of championing Universal Design for Learning (UDL), offering one-off workshops, and engaging in accessibility initiatives for our courses, the perfect opportunity can unexpectedly fall into your lap through unforeseen partnerships. This was precisely the case with our recent faculty development program on Inclusive and Accessible Course Design. Although I had been advocating for UDL for years, it was a conversation between a member of our Center for Teaching & Learning and the Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that actually led to the creation of this program.
How can university faculty effectively support diverse learners?
Our recent UDL program, developed in collaboration with the University Library and supported by the Associate Provost for DEI, aimed to empower faculty with strategies to create an inclusive and accessible learning environment. Over the course of two separate three-week programs, we discussed strategies to diversify materials, explored the principles of UDL, and implemented “plus-one” strategies to enhance course accessibility. This blog post reflects on the genesis of these workshops, the collaborative efforts that brought them to life, and the impactful experiences and feedback from our faculty participants.
Although I wasn’t there for the initial conversations, I was invited late last fall to a meeting with the AVP of DePaul’s Center for Teaching and Learning. They asked if I was interested in collaborating with the University Library on creating a faculty development program that would focus on Diversity and Inclusion, with an emphasis on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I’ve helped create and lead one-off UDL workshops over the past several years, and I’d been interested in developing a more structured program, so I jumped at the opportunity.
In conversations with faculty developers and learning experience designers at other institutions, the most common “road to UDL” is through disability services and compliance with legal requirements for accessibility. I was particularly excited to have this new route to get our faculty familiar with and excited about UDL. Rather than starting from a position of compliance, we could promote UDL as a framework for inclusive practices.
Our Goals
During our initial conversations with our Associate Provost for DEI and with the IDEA Librarian, we decided to create a hybrid program. The goals of the program were to provide faculty with foundational knowledge in Universal Design for Learning and to guide them in incorporating diverse strategies and UDL into their teaching practices. We wanted to support faculty in assessing where they stand currently with UDL and diverse/accessible course materials, identifying areas of opportunity, and creating a plan to show how they will address those areas of opportunity. With the support of the Associate Provost for DEI, we were able to fund a stipend for faculty to participate and complete the program.
We also deliberately highlighted the connection between these strategies and the mission of the university, as well as efforts to improve student retention.
The Implementation
Due to enthusiastic interest, we decided to split the faculty into two groups and offer a second cohort to accommodate everyone. We gave the faculty the option to choose a face-to-face or a synchronous virtual session that would be supported by three weeks of online content and activities.
One of the most interesting observations was that faculty discovered various entry points to UDL. Some were already familiar with the principles but hadn’t paid much attention to accessibility. Others were concerned about student motivation and found the UDL guidelines on Engagement to be the most relevant. Still, others ran with the suggestions for multiple means of Expression and offered their students choices for certain assessments.
I wrote about iterative course design and the strategy of the “plus one” approach in a previous blog post, so I won’t go into that here, but we encouraged our participants to adopt this strategy as they planned revisions to their courses.
In their feedback, participants asked for more disciplinary examples, especially outside of the liberal arts, humanities, and social sciences.
What Next?
Looking ahead, our goal is to continue to offer the program, incorporating feedback from previous participants to enhance the content and delivery. We especially want to include material that addresses specific disciplines and teaching contexts, ensuring that faculty across the university see ways to implement UDL principles.
I encourage faculty developers to talk about UDL and inclusive design to any administrator. You never know where a valuable partnership might emerge.