We asked our faculty and staff at the University of Limerick to give us examples of how they have implemented Universal Design for Learning (UDL). In this example, Instructional Designer Brian Shee discusses why UDL choice and flexibility are so important to help professional learners returning to learning achieve learning objectives.
Transcript
UDL is all about inclusivity. It's about acknowledging that no two people are the same, everyone's unique and just like that everyone's approach to learning is also unique. UDL encourages you to sort of acknowledge those differences and incorporate that into the design of your learning.
I'm an instruction designer so for the micro creds project so it's a lot of it is online learning and I work with lecturers across the university who are developing these new micro credentials that have been launched over the last couple of years. I've actually incorporated UDL into the the learning design framework that we've developed for the micro credentials project with a specific focus on in mixed methods or mixed media in terms of achieving learning objectives, and also in offering choice in assessment. Those are two main things that I've incorporated from UDL into our learning design.
The different options varies depending on the lecturers and depending on the learning objectives but what we strive for for is sort of match it up with the needs of the actual target market which in our case is professional learners. Depending on the industry you're coming from they might have a preference to do better at doing presentations so we've given the option to do a narrated PowerPoint instead of a report but the option is still there to do a written report if that's something more comfortable with as well
It's been good feedback in terms of students and in relation to the learning design framework that we have in place that it's sort of it's more in tune with their needs and which their particular requirements like they're balancing home life, professional life. Again return education for the first time sometimes might be the first time in in higher education in terms of someone who's returned to education maybe after a long absence or it's their first time engaged in further education since they're leaving cert or whatever professional development course has done before.
UDL really gets in tune with their needs. It ensures that their particular requirements or their own unique approaches to learning that they are being addressed and to ensure that they do get the optimum learning experience and achieve learning objectives that are there set out for everyone basically having the options in terms of like how they get assessed like you have the options there because people might have particular strengths in certain areas but also in terms of how the content is delivered.
What you often see happening is that lecturers get very comfortable with their own sort of preferences to how they actually deliver whether it be just like doing a pre-recorded video or are doing a doing a lecture or doing very text heavy or whatever it is but what you have to notice here is that not everyone absorbs information the same way and to be very unlikely if someone absorbs the entire entire class would absorb it the same way that a lecturer has put forward so by doing mixed methods it actually makes more interesting and engaging for the Learners and you also ensure that you're not focusing too much in one particular learning approach.
Like there's so many different learning approaches out there that we're aware of and no two Learners are the same and how they actually achieve learning objectives and how they how they prefer to engage with course materials so by ensuring that you actually strive to have mixed methods whether it be a mix of videos activities, discussion forums whatever it is you're ensuring that you're not focusing too much in one particular learning method and you're not isolating any particular group of your learners in terms of the Learning Experience.
I'm not going to say especially for my particular learner target market which is professional Learners doing on a part-time basis and juggling different responsibilities but I think that given some of the option that it reduces the pressure on the Learners as well and again it's all about making sure are ensuring that like they have the they have an enjoyable learning experience not just achieving the learning objectives but they actually do enjoy obtaining our our achieving those objectives they actually enjoy the journey so I think that's very important as well.
The assessment obviously that's what like in terms of completing a course or micro credential it's the assessment that's going to determine what the outcome of that is so there's a lot of pressure there straight away but by giving someone the option of assessment like it takes the same amount of time for a lecturer to grade a presentation as it would a written report, so why don't just give the students the option of what they'd actually prefer to do but given the option you're taking a lot of pressure off them and again you're not just addressing the needs of any particular group you're spreading the burden basically.