Universal Design for Learning in Postsecondary Education: Reflections on Principles and their Application

Abstract

Authored by the teaching staff of T-560: Meeting the Challenge of Individual Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this article reflects on potential applications of universal design for learning (UDL) in university courses, illustrating major points with examples from T-560. The article explains the roots of UDL in cognitive neuroscience, and the three principles of UDL: multiple means of representing information, multiple means of expressing knowledge, and multiple means of engagement in learning. The authors also examine the ways UDL has influenced their course goals and objectives, media and materials, teaching methods, and assessment techniques, including discussion groups, lectures, textbooks, and the course website. The authors emphasize the ongoing developmental nature of the course and UDL principles as tools or guidelines for postsecondary faculty, rather than a set of definitive rules. UDL is proposed as a way to address diversity and disabilities as constructs of individuals and their environment in higher education classrooms. Universal design, although well established in architecture and other domains, is relatively new to K-12 education and even newer to higher education. Universal design involves designing products, buildings, or environments so they can be used readily by the widest possible range of users. Although, this concept of universal design is now familiar to many educators, its application in education lags far behind its application in the built environment. We believe this lag reflects an important reality: The idea of universal design transfers readily from the built environment to the learning environment, but its principles and techniques do not. In this paper, we will clarify the differences between applying universal design in these two contexts, illustrating the principles of what we call universal design for learning. To illustrate some of these principles in action in higher education, we will describe the university course for which the authors are the faculty and teaching assistants. First, however, we will make some distinctions between terms that are sometimes confused: assistive technology, universal design, and universal design for learning. Assistive technologies are technologies that are specifically designed to assist individuals with disabilities in overcoming barriers in their environment. Some relatively “low-tech” assistive technologies (e.g., canes, wheelchairs, eyeglasses) have been in place for over a century, but the addition of “high-tech” assistive technologies over the last three decades has often provided the most dramatic impact on higher education experiences for students with disabilities, while capturing the attention of the public. Examples of these newer technologies include such devices as electronic mobility switches and alternative keyboards for individuals with physical dis-