9 Unit: 9: UDL in Policy and Practice
After working on this unit, you are expected to be able to
- Describe national and international legislative frameworks for providing accessible learning experiences for students with disabilities.
- Find and describe local legislative frameworks for providing accessible learning experiences for students with disabilities.
- Describe concrete examples of UDL principles in practice.
- Identify synergies between open educational resources (OER) and UDL.
This section considers Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accessibility in the context of policies and legislation. It includes information on the legal obligations of post-secondary institutions to ensure that all students are provided with equal opportunities to learn as well as how institutions have incorporated a commitment to UDL through policy.
Postsecondary institutions have specific obligations with respect to the accessibility of their digital learning materials and technologies for students with disabilities. As post-secondary institutions increasingly move toward the digitization of instructional programming, it is important for practitioners to understand the underlying legal and policy parameters in order to ensure that all of their students are able to participate in an equally effective manner.
Legal Obligations for Accessibility
Legal obligations for accessibility will vary depending on where you live. However, it is usually the case that educators and institutions have a legal responsibility to provide accessible platforms and materials to ensure that all students can participate and benefit from learning opportunities.
For example, in the United States, there are two disability-related civil rights laws that govern the obligations of post-secondary institutions to provide accessible digital learning materials and online courses. These are Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Together, these laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in all post-secondary institutions in the United States.
In Canada, post-secondary education is a provincial responsibility, and as of 2020, only three provinces currently have accessibility legislation: Ontario, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia. However, all provinces have a human rights act that specifically prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities among other protected categories.
Take a few minutes to research what legislation exists around accessibility and the rights of students with disabilities in post- secondary education in your region.
International Treaties and Standards
UNCRPD
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is an international human rights treaty that deals specifically with rights and protections for people with disabilities and addresses education (see Article 24). The convention came into effect in 2008 and has over 160 signatories.
The convention identifies eight general principles (United Nations, n.d.):
- Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;
- Non-discrimination;
- Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;
- Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;
- Equality of opportunity;
- Accessibility;
- Equality between men and women;
- Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.
Here is a list of all the signatories. Check the list to see if your country has signed: UNCRPD Signatories
The Convention also has an Optional Protocol. States who have signed this protocol are recognizing the right of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to accept and consider complaints from individuals. This Optional Protocol has over 90 signatories. Here is the list of signatories for the Optional Protocol.
WCAG
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an internationally recognized set of standards for ensuring the accessibility of web content. These guidelines are developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
These guidelines are voluntary, but accessibility legislation often makes direct reference to these guidelines. The guidelines are organized under four principles of accessibility:
| Principle 1: Perceivable | Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
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| Principle 2: Operable | User interface components and navigation must be operable.
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| Principle 3: Understandable | Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable.
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| Principle 4: Robust | Content is robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
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As you may notice, many of these guidelines align with accessibility practices that were discussed in Section II.
Universal Design for Learning
As awareness and popularity of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has grown, UDL has become more likely to be explicitly referenced in institutional policies and governmental legislation.
Some institutions have formally referenced UDL in institutional policy. For example, Centennial College, a private college in Montreal, Canada, has incorporated UDL into its policy on program evaluation (Centennial College, 2016). This includes the creation of a UDL Committee which oversees this process. Another example is Greensboro College in North Carolina, USA, which includes Universal Design for Learning in the institution’s strategic plan (Greensboro College, 2020). They have stated the goal that “Greensboro College will become a UDL institution” as one of their core academic missions.
Even if an institution does not have any formal policy around UDL, many institutions have supports for faculty adopting the UDL framework in their teaching. This may look like support resources, workshops and training, and consultations. Take a look at the university websites that you are familiar with to see what they have to offer.
Government legislation has also occasionally referenced UDL. In the United States, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (2008) encourages the use of technology in teaching “consistent with the principles of universal design for learning.” In Ontario, the Policy on Accessible Education for Students with Disabilities recommends that the Ontario education system “implements Universal Design for Learning (UDL) across all educational systems, while continuing to provide accommodation based on individual needs” (OHRC, 2018).
EDUCATION: Instructional leadership for teaching and learning course
Image attribution: “CascadiaOpenSummit_Day2-114” by BCcampus_News is under a CC0 Licence.
Dr. Marjorie Ringler teaches this face-to-face lecture once a week for students enrolled in the Masters in School Administration.
Challenges in the Classroom
- Unable to understand how theory translates to practice
- Lack of opportunities to practice leadership skills needed to be an effective principal
- Lack of student engagement in lecture-style classroom
UDL strategies are used to address the challenges
- Provide Multiple Means of Engagement: To heighten interest and support progress monitoring, Dr. Ringler used service-learning projects and group work. She asked students to provide feedback every class and had them complete weekly personal reflections about learning.
- Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression: To support student planning and composition, Dr. Ringler shared weekly learning objectives, guided notes, and graphic organizers to practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing language of leadership.
- Provide Multiple Means of Representation: To support the processing of information, Dr. Ringler used multiple forms of media including videos and simulations.
Outcomes
- Students respond positively to the class.
- Differences in student outcomes were achieved.
MUSIC: Music theory course for non-music majors
Dr. Dan Guberman redesigned his course materials for both the classroom and online.
Image attribution: “2019 Symposium” by BCcampus_News is under a CC0 Licence.
Challenges in the Classroom
- Difficulty identifying points of confusion to provide additional explanations on materials
- Lack of feedback from students
UDL strategies are used to address the challenges
- Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression: To support student planning and composition, Dr. Guberman aligned his notes to his videos.
- Provide Multiple Means of Representation: To support the processing of information, Guberman used weekly videos covering each course topic and extensive homemade course materials (i.e., course outline, written notes in replace of textbooks, and online links to other resources).
Outcomes
- Students report better understanding of the material thatis covered
- Improvement in student grades
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT:
Building systems and codes course
Mr. Bryan Wheeler teaches primarily to second-semester freshmen construction management majors. The course is composed of three contact hours of lecture and two contact hours of lab per week.
Image description: A birds-eye view of two construction workers working in a pit that will soon become a building.
Image attribution: “Construction workers” by Sean Hagen is under a CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence.
Challenges in the classroom and lab
- Lack of student-to-student learning in the college classroom
- Limited student understanding of course applications to professional settings
- Student engagement in labs
UDL strategies are used to address the challenges.
- Provide Multiple Means of Engagement: To heighten interest and support progress monitoring, Mr. Wheeler used multiple examples of actual job site experiences during lectures and lab. He provided students with hands-on safety and method training and implemented a team competition design project. In the classroom, he used a circular seating arrangement to promote discussion and interaction.
- Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression: To support student planning and composition, Mr. Wheeler provided fill-in-the- blank handouts in the lab and PowerPoints in the lecture. A weekly reading assignment and lecture schedules were posted on Blackboard to assist students with managing personal study schedules and prepared students to be active participants in lectures and labs.
Image description: A group of 8 college students sits around a table discussing their project.
Image attribution: “Group work” by Lisa Vanovitch is under a CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence.
Outcomes
- Students were extremely motivated and engaged in the team competition design project.
- Students responded positively to the changes in the coursework.
- Students were supported and engaged when completing scaffolded handouts during lectures and answered questions more readily.
- Student engagement, response, and interaction improved profoundly with the circular seating arrangement.
SOCIAL SCIENCES: Introduction to Psychology Course
Dr. Heidi Bonner teaches a hybrid course that meets 40% online and 60% face-to-face.
Challenges in the classroom
- Lack of familiarity and knowledge with hybrid courses
- The variable student learning curve
UDL strategies used to address the challenges
- Provide Multiple Means of Engagement: To heighten interest and support progress monitoring, Dr. Bonner used reflective journal entries to evaluate how students are feeling about the course. Students participated in small groups for in-class work.
- Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression: To support student planning and composition, Dr. Bonner provided class activities where students were able to demonstrate their opinion or knowledge depending on the assignment and topic.
Outcomes.
- Students respond positively to working with peers.
- Course adjustments and changes based on student feedback as needed.
Image description: Three students in discussion sit around a table with laptops.
Image attribution: “Queer in Tech” photo by Mapbox Uncharted ERG is under a CC BY 3.0 Licence.
Open educational resources (OER) are online digital educational materials and tools that are under an open licence, like a Creative Commons licence, that allows other people to share, edit, and remix the content. An OER can be anything that would be used in a teaching and learning context. For example, an entire textbook, videos, slides, or exam questions.
OER offers high-quality, free alternatives to expensive commercial textbooks and homework systems, which can make post-secondary more financially accessible for students. OER ensures that students who cannot afford additional course materials can still access all of the course content. In addition, because OER is primarily digital materials, they can be more easily adapted to create flexible learning experiences for students than print materials can.
OER and UDL
OER and UDL have a lot in common. They both focus on eliminating barriers, increasing access to information, promoting inclusivity rather than exclusivity, and are driven by ethical practices. OER and UDL are efforts that support each other in making post-secondary education more inclusive for a range of students.
Image description: A Venn diagram showing what OER and UDL have in common: They both eliminate barriers, increase access, promote equity and inclusivity, and have an ethical lens.
Image attribution: “OER + UDL Venn Diagram” by Dale Coleman and Jennifer Snoek-Brown is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.
The beauty of OER is that you can remix, adjust, and adapt the content to be more compatible with UDL principles. If you have an OER that fits your course but doesn’t use UDL principles, then it is easy for you to edit.
These edits may include making the language more accessible to your students, localizing and updating content, adding video or audio, creating formative assessment questions, removing sections that aren’t relevant, and more. You can also make the OER itself more multimodal by providing captions or transcripts for existing videos or creating podcast versions of text content. And then you can share your work with other instructors so they can benefit from the improvements you have made.
The editing permissions provided by OERs can also allow students to become content creators and editors. For example, that may look like creating an assignment where students edit an existing chapter or add a new one to the course textbook. Or maybe that looks like getting students to work together to create a new course textbook like as Dr. Jessica Kruger did with her students:
Watch Video: https://youtu.be/dNm6cdWuKtY
Video attribution: “Open Pedagogy” by Martha Greatrix is under a CC BY 3.0 Licence.
Multiple Formats of OER
Another strength of open educational resources from a UDL lens is their tendency to be available in multiple formats. This is especially true for resources published in a tool called Pressbooks.
Pressbooks is an open-source, self-publishing platform designed to support the publication of open textbooks and other open educational resources. Pressbooks allow authors to create one version of a resource and make it available in multiple formats. These formats include the following:
- A webbook that can be accessed from a browser on any type of device.
- PDF files: One designed for printing and one for reading on a device.
- EBook files that can be read on Kindle and eReader apps.
All of these formats give students a lot of choice and flexibility in how they access the OER. The different options allow for online and offline access, access on computers, tablets, and mobile phones, and the ability to annotate the files. This allows for flexibility based on preference, device and Internet access, ability, and context. It also allows for different levels of engagement.
Watch Video: https://youtu.be/_XKuAD7kOf8
Video attribution: “UDL and Open Textbooks” by the Commonwealth of Learning is under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Find OER
There are many places to look for open educational resources. For example, major search engines like Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, and Vimeo have filters that allow you to search openly licenced content.
Watch Video: https://youtu.be/n_CtAuCCkfc
Video attribution: “OER Search Tools” by the Commonwealth of Learning is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence
There are also a number of OER collections. Here are a few to check out, but there are many more out there:
Open Textbooks.
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All OER.
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UDL appears in post-secondary education in many different contexts. UDL and accessibility appear in international, domestic, and institutional policies, legislation, and standards. Most significantly is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
When employed in a post-secondary classroom, UDL can look like a lot of different things that will shift depending on the instructor, the students, specific challenges, and the subject being explored. UDL can be used at all levels and in online-only, hybrid, and in-person classrooms.
UDL aligns well with the use of open educational resources (OER). The licences and flexible formats of OER allow instructors to easily adapt course materials to better incorporate UDL principles.
1. True or false? All institutions are required by law to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
a) True
b) False
2. True or false? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has a section on education.
a) True
b) False
3. What might be a motivation to redesign a course with UDL inmind?
a) Students struggling with reading assignments.
b) Difficulty keeping students engaged during class.
c) Students with a range of interest and knowledge in the subject.
d) All of the above.
4. What is an open educational resource?
a) An educational resource available under an open
b) Any educational resource available on the
c) An educational resource available for free to
d) An educational resource that uses open
5. How can OER support UDL?
a) OER can be made available in multiple
b) OER can be used to provide information in different
c) OER can be edited to better fit student interests and knowledge level.
d) All of the
6. True or false? All open educational resources use UDL principles.
a) True
b) False
