“Every act of teaching is an accommodation because it creates certain conditions for students to learn and display learning” (Womack, 2017, p.497).
As with any other new practice or process, learning about and starting to use UDL can be intimidating, overwhelming, and come with built in biases and misgivings. With UDL these misgivings can be compounded by ableist narratives built into the very foundation of the educational system, narratives that can be hard to identify at first glance. Some of these concerns include:
- That disabled students are trying to take advantage of the system or use accommodations that they could do without
- That students with accommodations have an unfair advantage
- That freely providing accommodations or using UDL will lower course standards
While prominent narratives in the university, these concerns are unfounded, with research showing that the opposite is true.
- It is estimated that only half of disabled students disclose their disabilities and many forego accommodations that they need to succeed in order to avoid stigma
- Students with accommodations face considerable social and academic stigma
- Building access and UDL into your course increases the capacity for students to learn and display their learning in meaningful ways, allowing for deeper connections across course content
Using UDL is a way to invite students into conversation with the course material in ways that are accessible, equitable, and meaningful for them. Building access into your course is beneficial to all students, but especially disabled students who are unable to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to receive formal accommodations due to lack of information, insufficient healthcare access, financial barriers, medical racism, or other factors. UDL is also a way to expand beyond impairment-specific accommodations that may neglect other invisible disabilities, socio-cultural factors, or personal circumstances.
UDL is not a substitute for formal accommodations or academic consideration, but a tool to be used alongside them, extending access, care, and meaningful education beyond the bounds of paperwork. It moves accommodation from just a formal process to the most basic act of teaching, where adaptations are continually made to support learning.
So, What is UDL?
UDL is:
- A process, a means rather than an end
- A verb, not a noun
- A way to promote student autonomy and transform passivity into engagement
- Valuable for all students, but centers disabled students, especially multiple marginalized disabled students
- Based in the recognition of difference and individual learning journeys
- Proactive
UDL is not:
- A replacement for accommodations or academic considerations
- A watering down of course content
- A practice that compromises rigor
- A one-size-fits-all solution or checklist approach
- Universal
- Reactive
“Inclusion and rigor are only incompatible when rigor is defined as exclusion and inflexibility. When rigor is defined as difficulty, they are complementary values” (Womack, 2017, p.497). Ultimately, the way to teach difficult material well is to make it more accessible. In this vein of thinking, UDL encourages you to examine “pinch points” in your course—places where students consistently ask for accommodations, get confused, or require ongoing clarification. Pinch points often signal spaces where UDL might be implemented.
When you come across a pinch point:
- Ask whether the task or content at hand be achieved/learned/engaged in a different way with the same learning outcome
- Notice what judgements around your students or your own teaching come up in this reflection process
- Are any of the judgements you’re passing based on the assumption that you or your students should be learning or teaching in specific ways?
- Where did you learn that this is the way it “should” be done? Does that still hold value for you or your students?
- If there is another more accessible way to meet the same goal that aligns better with your teaching values, do it! If you can’t change the pinch point entirely:
- Extend the time for the point, either reviewing material or providing extended deadlines.
- Offer supplementary material in a variety of mediums so that even if you can’t address the content in class in a different way, options are available.
- Consider whether you can add just one more way for the task to be learned/engaged/assessed by using this .
Implementing UDL can require you to confront internal biases and reflect on your work, but it is important to remember that simple changes can make a big difference. You do not need to change everything all at once, but rather you can choose a few suggested strategies and build on your successes. A great place to begin is in thinking about the language and rhetoric you use in the classroom and how it sets the tone for your work.
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lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Accessibility: Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Centre for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University
