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, Dr Lydia Bracken, discusses representation and diversity in reading lists and syllabi. Dr Bracken is the Assistant Dean for Equality Diversity and Inclusion (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) and Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Limerick.
Revise our reading lists to ensure that they are diverse in terms of the authors who are represented, diverse in terms of gender cultural background ethnicity and so on and also to use diverse examples to give life to what we are teaching.
Transcription
EDI relates to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and essentially it's focused on things like fairness on recognizing and respecting differences and ultimately creating an environment where everyone feels welcome and included.
Traditionally conceptions of substantive equality have focused on giving each individual the support that they need in order to succeed and in a teaching and learning context that's very useful because it ensures that our students then can access the material and that they can engage with the subject matter.
Universal Design for Learning allows us to go a step further because Universal Design for Learning focuses on eliminating the barriers that create the need for the support in the first place.
So rather than creating individual accommodations for each of our students we're focused on access for everyone that comes from intentionally inclusive design. I think UDL is probably most closely associated with maybe how we teach or it's best known for influencing how we teach but I'm very interested in what it can tell us about what we teach and what sources we should rely on.
So in particular I'm interested in the idea of multiple means of Engagement and its focus on optimizing the value and relevance of our teaching to sustain student interest. So from an EDI perspective, this prompts us to think about representing diversity in syllabi and ensuring that our students can see themselves represented in course content and course curricula.
Ways that we could do this would be for example to revise our reading lists to ensure that they are diverse in terms of the authors who are represented, diverse in terms of gender cultural background ethnicity and so on and also to use diverse examples to give life to what we are teaching.
In some subjects this kind of broad diversity might not be possible or it might be easier in some subjects than it is in others but where there is an imbalance for example in the reading list it is important that we give our students the opportunity to critique that and to comment on the fact that everyone on the reading list is of the same gender for example and to think about how that might influence the way they are then interacting with the subject matter and learning about that particular subject.
So ultimately for me I think inclusive teaching and learning that's based on Universal Design for Learning concerns both how we teach and how the students access the material as well as what we teach and what sources we rely on.