Join us to discover and assess our schools’ multi-pronged UDL initiatives to increase access and inclusion. We’ll share outcomes of our campus-wide efforts and hands-on resources for immediate use at your school. The aim is both to inspire new and existing UDL initiatives as well as to receive valuable feedback on our own UDL efforts.
Accessibility and inclusion are two of the most important but hardest to achieve objectives regarding equal access to quality higher education. The rise of hybrid and online education over the last two decades has added another layer of opportunities and challenges to these efforts. Many initiatives to make learning more accessible to all, have applied Principles of Universal Design in Learning (UDL) in various educational contexts and university services, such as pedagogy, teaching strategies, IT, building design, student engagement, etc.
The main objectives of this interactive discovery session is to empower participants to kickstart new or enrich existing inclusion initiatives at their institutions, and to receive valuable feedback from our peers for ongoing efforts on our campuses. For that, we will share experiences from ongoing multi-prong UDL initiatives at our schools -- an all-online and f2f/hybrid institution respectively -- including:
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Comprehensive faculty and staff training efforts, both in-person and online, with active participation of students and instructors with disabilities,
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Implementation of a campus-wide UDL Plan and forming of an Accessibility and Inclusion Committee,
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Collaboration across disciplines and university units for increased communication and inclusion,
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Student participation in committee work, as well UDL Plan design and implementation,
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Student feedback on school initiatives, UDL implementation in their courses,
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Instructor feedback on UDL-infused faculty development and training.
We will focus on best practices gleaned from our research and lessons learned from our experiences in implementation, from designing UDL-based faculty training programs to forming partnerships with various stakeholders and fostering alliances at our universities to create a sustainable campus culture of access and inclusion.
Participation and Takeaways
The session is designed to maximize participants’ discovery of new ideas for UDL initiatives at their campuses. While we will prepare slides and handouts summarizing successful strategies at our institutions, we intend to have attendees’ prior knowledge and curiosity guide the conversation about starting similar initiatives and constructive, critical feedback on our ongoing efforts. Through sharing best practices, answering questions, and providing hands-on resources for immediate use with faculty, students, and staff, we hope to empower participants to discover existing assets and strategize about overcoming potential obstacles at their own institutions.