4.3 Accessibility, UDL, and Your Tools

Accessibility of the Tool

Tools can be cool and useful, and it’s very tempting to adopt a tool and begin to use it in your classroom or in your OER without first considering if all your learners can actually use it. As you look for and play with potential tools, take a beat to ask

• Will this work for students using a screen reader?
• Is there a cost involved for learners?
• Will it work on all devices?

These and other questions will help guide you in deciding on whether or not the tool is a good choice. We have provided you with guides to the three main tools covered in this chapter, but you will want to review any other tool’s accessibility before deciding to use it.

• • Pressbooks Accessibility 
  • H5P Accessibility
  • Hypothes.is Accessibility

Universal Design for Learning

For those that aren’t familiar with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the companion Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) framework tool, this section offers a brief explanation and guidance on how to use CAST’s interactive tool.

Attention: You Have Options!

On this page, you can choose how you would prefer to learn about UDL. You can view and listen to the video, interact with the H5P pop-up, or you can read the text on the page and interact with the H5Ps throughout the page.

What's This Tool - H5P Interactive Video

Introduction

What is UDL? Where did the idea come from? What’s the goal of UDL and how can its framework be used by educators? In this section, we’ll answer these questions and hopefully help you feel more confident in how to use the amazing tool known as the Universal Design Framework.

Concept of Universal Design

The term Universal Design (UD) was introduced in the 1980s by architect Ronald Mace. Originally, UD referred to “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design” (Connell et al., 1997). What did this mean?

^{Architecture House Entrance by cocparisienne is licensed under a CCO 1.0 Deed.}

Well, consider the barriers presented when entering a building that has steps that lead up to a door with handles. Who might have difficulty accessing such a building? You might say someone who is uses a wheelchair might find the steps a barrier … but so might a person pushing a stroller. The handles on the door might be a barrier for someone who has limited control over their arms … but so might someone with their hands full.”

 ^{8607282541_56e9ccffb7_z.jpg by czelticgirl  is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.}

Compare that with a building whose entrance is at ground-level with doors that open automatically. Who might have difficulty navigating this building? The answer is … very few people. UD tried to find ways of designing architecture that would remove barriers and make buildings, among other things, physically accessible for everyone.

But accessibility barriers don’t just exist in architecture. They are built into learning environment, too. Just like those stairs pose barriers in the built environment, there are many barriers to learning in education. And where UD worked to remove physical, architectural barriers, UDL was created to remove barriers in the field of education.

A UDL approach includes paradigm shifts: from a deficit mindset to neurodiversity; from singular accommodations to universally accessible scaffolds and supports; from a teacher-centric view to a student-centered approach centered on student agency. By removing the barriers, we improve access for all learners.

Universal Design for Learning

Based on cognitive neuroscience research, the UDL framework was created by David Rose, Anne Meyer, and more at the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) (Meyer, et al. 2002; Rose, Rouhani, et al., 2013; Rose, 2016). The CAST organization exists to eliminate the barriers to learning and support the development of expert learners. They seek to address issues of accessibility, which includes diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We educators often design our curriculum for the “average” student. By doing so, we accept the fact that some students’ needs will not be met. While this was accepted for years, this practice doesn’t actually support marginalized students. In fact, by design, it sets up historically underserved students to continue to be marginalized.

UDL is based on the understanding that all learners vary, and that there is no “average student.” Since we can’t plan for every variability of every learner, UDL focuses on designing, developing, and delivering curriculum with built-in options that ensure everyone’s needs can be met. By designing curriculum that works for all learners, the learning environment becomes more equitable, accessible, and inclusive for all diverse student populations.

To help support educators toward this end, CAST created the UDL Guidelines, a framework to provide educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and others the strategies for implementing UDL in a learning environment. The UDL guidelines offer concrete ideas for curriculum design, development and delivery that ensure all learners can be supported.

Take a look at the Cast UDL Guidelines at the CAST website.

UDL Guidelines

Checkpoints, strategies, and goals for achieving the three principles of UDL.

The UDL Guidelines are broken down into three principles, based on three types of neural networks. Each principle has three checkpoints, depending on the educational goal of the learner. Each principle also leads to a different learner-outcome or goal. Collectively, the three goals make up the definition of an expert learner. CAST’s UDL Guidelines on their website are also interactive, so that educators and designers can drill down for more details and ideas for implementation.

Networks

UDL Guidelines are based on the three primary brain networks:

• Affective networks: the “why” of learning
• Recognition networks: the “what” of learning
• Strategic networks: the “how” of learning

When educators create learning experiences that activate these three broad learning networks, learners are moved towards the goal of expert learning. In addition, the UDL framework reminds us that all brains are variable and that the old idea of “learning styles” do not actually exist. Instead, we know that each brain is processing information in complex and variable interactions between the various networks of the brain.

Principles

CAST has identified a series of principles to guide design, development, and delivery that address each of the three brain networks:

• Multiple means of engagement (addresses the Why of learning)
• Multiple means of representation (addresses the What of learning)
• Multiple means of action and expression (addresses the How of learning)

CAST’s UDL Graphic Organizer includes each of these networks and principles as headings over columns of strategies that support the lighting up of each of these neural networks.

Checkpoints

Each network contains checkpoints that emphasize learner diversity that could either present barriers to, or opportunities for, learning. There are three for each network making nine in total. The checkpoints for each network are as follows:

Now, these guidelines are not prescriptive. But they do offer informed suggestions that can be used in any program, course or learning environment to support masterful learning and accurate assessment for all learners.

Just as we are still learning about the brain, and the ways we all learn, the UDL Guidelines are consistently informed by user feedback and ongoing research, meaning the guidelines used in UDL have been revised a number of times.

UDL in Practice

So, what does this actually look like in practice? Remember, the UDL Framework is not prescriptive, but it can provide educators and designers some concrete ideas for designing the learning. For example, let’s say a teacher is trying to get their students more engaged in an online class. They could provide multiple ways for students to access the learning. Recruiting interest or thinking about what interests the students would be a great place to build engagement. Some strategies suggested by the checkpoints include starting with giving students choice.

Below, you will find multiple practical examples of supporting UDL in your own OER under each of the UDL Guidelines.

When we look deeper at the embedded suggestions on the CAST website, CAST has given some more specific examples for educators such as allowing leaners autonomy where possible and allowing learners to set their own goals. This likely will look different for different age groups.

For an elementary student, this might look like having a student create a chart to reach their identified goal. But for an adult student, it might look like a discussion post at the beginning of a course where they share why they took the course and what they hope to achieve from it. In an organization, it might look like a professional documenting their professional goals annually and sharing them with their team.

Note that the UDL Framework not only shows guidelines, principles, and checkpoints that are organized by what we want our learners to do, but they are also aligned with the three parts of the UDL goals for creating expert learners. By engaging our learners, we create expert learners who are purposeful and motivated. By offering representation in the learning, we create expert learners who are resourceful and knowledgeable. And by offering ways for learners to act and express themselves, we create expert learners who are strategic and goal-oriented. So, that is yet another way educators can use the UDL Framework — by looking at these end goals, choosing one end goal they want to work toward, and working back up the framework to find strategies to reach those end goals.

Getting Started

“UDL is really just ‘plus-one’ thinking. For every interaction that learners have now — with the materials, yes, but also with each other, with instructors and with the wider world — provide one more way for that interaction to happen.” Thomas TobinYou might feel a bit overwhelmed with all the possibilities, guidance, and uses for the UDL Framework. How do you integrate all 3 Guidelines, 9 Principles, and even more Checkpoints? But, as UDL educator and author Thomas Tobin explains, UDL isn’t about applying all of these pieces. Rather it is a “plus-one approach”.

The ‘plus-one’ approach helps to take what otherwise might look like an insurmountable amount of effort and break it down into manageable, approachable chunks. It also helps people to determine where to start applying the UDL framework so they can address current challenges and pain points in their interactions.

So, just start by finding one current challenge you are having, identifying one strategy using the UDL Framework to address that challenge, and implement that one strategy. Ta-da! You’re on your way!

Take a minute to review the key takeaways about using UDL with the H5P Quiz below.

What's This Tool? - H5P Quiz

Resources

“Universal Design for Learning: A Framework” by Theresa Huff is licensed with a CC BY-4.0.