STRATEGIES – UNIVERSAL DESIGN IN E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS BTC DISABILITY SUPPORT SERVICES

UNIVERSAL DESIGN: The design of all products and environments to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible. ~Ronald Mace, Center for UD North Carolina State University

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING Representation: Give learners a variety of ways to acquire information and knowledge Expression: Tap into a person’s interest, offer appropriate challenges and motivate students to learn Engagement: Provide learners with alternatives for demonstrating what they know

BENEFITS OF UDL: Makes teaching methods available to all students Helps students identify the way they learn best Makes students feel successful and want to learn When instructors learn about UDL, their teaching improves

BEFORE CLASS BEGINS… Schedule an in- person meeting with class ‘Buddy up’ students Demonstrate log- on procedures Identify note- taker or closed- captioner

UDL STRATEGIES ON-LINE… Information should be multi-sensory (visual, auditory, graphics, color) Smaller, chunked sessions for increased attention Use captions on all visuals and graphics

UDL STRATEGIES ON-LINE… continued Choose simple fonts Choose web pages with narrow columns and font to the left of the page

ELLUMINATE FEATURES: Increase/decrease font size Increase/decrease volume Closed-captioning Printable transcript

MODERATOR TIPS… Post lecture material prior to Elluminate session Repeat (reword) class questions before giving answers Assume nothing!

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change and the REALIST adjusts his sails."