Charting Your Route: Mapping and Planning
Designing for the Human
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to
- Make a plan for inclusively designing with and for the human
The People Who Use the Trail System
Trail architects plan for hikers’ different experience levels, physical abilities, their reason for being there, and their pace preferences. OER architects (that’s you) similarly have to plan for various types of learners, gaps in the learners’ prior knowledge, accessibility needs, and how the instruction will affect their learners’ confidence, motivation, and anxiety.
When people get lost, it’s usually not because the trail is difficult. It’s because the route wasn’t clearly designed with them in mind.
Why This Matters
Mapping is a proactive, learner-centered practice. It anticipates variability rather than reacting to problems later. This aligns with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, which are best practices based on neuroscientific research for supporting all learners[1], as well as with the Jesuit educational commitment to cura personalis (care for the whole person), which emphasizes attending to learners’ diverse contexts, abilities, and experiences from the outset. Research indicates that inclusive outcomes are strongest when accessibility and UDL principles are embedded during the design phase rather than retrofitted after instruction is developed.[2] When you plan with the learners in mind, your learners – and all learners – are more likely to find success and satisfaction.
Note: The Your Turn boxes throughout the rest of this chapter signal application of the information provided, offering you guidance and practice or application of the chapter’s content toward creating or adapting your own OER.
Your Turn: Creating Equitable OER with Intention
As you deliberate which OER content to retain or create, it can be helpful to revisit the OERFSJ Rubric, including Sarah Lambert’s 3 R’s of open education. In particular, consider how your content recognizes diverse experiences and ways of knowing, and whether historically marginalized individuals or communities are represented through their own voices rather than spoken for by others. Identity, however, is more complex than broad categories of diversity suggest. To help conceptualize whose voices are present (and whose may be missing), you may find it useful to reflect on an identity wheel adapted from Loyola Marymount University’s (LMU) Anti-Racism Workshop Series (LAWS). The following reflection tool can help you get started with this process.
We encourage you to take these guiding questions with you as you design your OER content.
Adapted from “Guiding Questions: Creating Equitable OER with Intention” by Josie Gray and Clint Lalonde at BCcampus. Used under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Mapping is not about control or compliance. It is a form of care for learners’ time, attention, and confidence, and care for your own capacity to design sustainable learning experiences. This section of the handbook will help you reflectively and iteratively design and map your OER. From creating measurable objectives to finding, placing, and attributing images and figures, you’ll plan out your OER layer by layer, just like a trail architect.
The next step in designing your OER is to consider the goal and scope of your OER and then identify the key destinations for your learners.
- Boothe, K. A., Lohmann, M. J., Donnell, K. A., & Hall, D. D. (2018). Applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the college classroom. Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship, 7(3) ↵
- Akande, F. O., Koranteng, U., Mensah, D., Mensah, T. K., & Awah, L. C. (2025). Technology-supported inclusive education: A systematic review of digital accessibility and Universal Design for Learning. Asian Journal of Current Research, 10(4), 320–333. https://doi.org/10.56557/ajocr/2025/v10i49950 ↵
