Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for Everyone’s Benefit
Simply put, Universal Design for Learning is about proactively designing learning activities and workplace tasks and procedures to enable people to engage with material in a way that fosters their success, says Director of Disability Access and ADA Coordinator William N. Myhill.
Closed captioning, for instance, allows persons with hearing challenges to engage fully with a movie. Screen readers similarly boost engagement for the visually challenged. But challenges can be myriad when thousands of students present with disability accommodations, Myhill notes. Universal Design for Learning provides the framework for accommodating different learning styles in surprisingly easy and efficient ways.
“There can be multiple ways of achieving the same results or demonstrating one’s accomplishment of a task,” Myhill says. “It doesn’t have to be done the same way, every time, by everyone.”
Three thousand Syracuse students have disability accommodations and UDL is a central element in providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
UDL doesn’t neatly replace accommodations but offers a way for faculty and staff supervisors to put in place procedures and materials that have built-in flexibility to them. For instance, extra time allowed for all in the classroom to complete a task or activity builds in flexibility for all to complete work according to their needs. PowerPoint slides shared in advance of lectures or meetings allow people to preview material at their leisure and in a less high-stakes environment than a classroom or department meeting.
‘Plus-one thinking’
“That kind of priming helps everybody orient themselves to an upcoming task or lesson,” Myhill says. “I think of UDL as a framework that we can build into our regular pedagogical practices or into our work practices that provides a level of flexibility that makes some accommodations unnecessary.”
Universal Design for Learning has received a lukewarm reception from some faculty and staff who perceive it as extra work. It needn’t be, Myhill counters. He’d like to begin UDL training at the new employee phase of a person’s career. Incorporated into routine onboarding, UDL becomes a boon rather than a burden, a thing integrated rather than added on. And, later still, it becomes a skill easily deployed.
Myhill cites the concept of “plus-one thinking,” a term coined by Tom Tobin of the University of Texas. The premise behind plus-one thinking is that universal design for learning can be implemented incrementally. Think of UDL as tools or resources added to ensure an optimal learning or working experience for an entire group, Myhill says. A Universal Design for Learning addition might be to optimize choices for all participants in a classroom or professional activity. This allows participants to better align their skills and experiences with the activity, promoting independence and success.
UDL might also be deployed to level inequities experienced by historically underrepresented groups, people with marginalized lived identities, and English language learners. Such groups often don’t see themselves reflected in the materials chosen for learning activities. And they haven’t often been the authors of these materials, Myhill notes.
An international student, for instance, may have trouble with the idiomatic or metaphorical language a professor or supervisor uses in a presentation or reading. That difficulty could be eliminated by digitizing materials and hotlinking problematic terms to definitions, Myhill says. A better scenario: Practitioners of UDL begin to recognize the problems inherent in such language usage and remove the terms entirely. In the same vein, access to definitions of hard scientific concepts would theoretically make learning easier for everyone involved, Myhill notes.
Ideally, UDL replaces outmoded ways of thinking entirely. Why insist, for instance, that persons with mobility challenges trek across campus when Zoom or Teams platforms make it quick and easy to convene a group?
UDL also has the potential to make all involved a bit more empathetic, Myhill notes. He shares a story to illustrate. He’d invited Kate, a student in Syracuse’s law school, to speak to his class. Kate’s cerebral palsy made it necessary for her to use assistive technology to communicate.
“The students had to learn and give the grace of some time to allow Kate to prepare answers to their questions,” Myhill notes. “By providing these types of technologies, we’ve opened up the world for people to communicate and show their capacities in ways they didn’t have before.”
And through UDL, students gained insights into Kate’s lived experience.
Incorporating Universal Design for Learning into classroom and professional settings is a win for all involved, Myhill says. “Whether a faculty or staff member, with a little plus-one thinking you can be a better instructor or better supervisor without completely rethinking everything you’re doing.”
To implement Universal Design for Learning in your classroom, visit The UDL Guidelines and contact the Disability Access team to schedule a workshop.
William N. Myhill is the director of disability access and ADA coordinator in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion as well as an adjunct professor in the School of Information Studies. He trains faculty, staff and students on how to implement UDL in their classrooms.