Overview

Universal Design for Learning

Universal design for learning, or UDL, is a set of principles that strives to make instructional materials more flexible to meet the needs of a diverse set of students or learners and reduce barriers in teaching. The concept of UDL and the principles were developed by CAST, a "nonprofit education research and development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals through Universal Design for Learning."

In summary, the three principles of UDL are:

• Multiple means of representation or multimodal forms of course content. This means including content in multiple formats, such as video, audio, graphics, text, etc.
• Multiple means of action and expression or allowing students to work with content and demonstrate what they've learned in a variety of ways. This means including assessments in a variety of ways, such as written responses, multiple choice, projects, creative assignments, discussion boards, oral presentations, etc.
• Multiple means of engagement or increasing interest and motivation in learning by students. This means varying activities and content to be appropriate for different genders, ethnicities, cultures, and races of people. Invite students to share their personal experiences, along with what they learn in class.

UDL in Academic Libraries

In higher education, librarians try to improve student information literacy and research skills through library instruction (sometimes called bibliographic instruction). There is an increasing trend of more online courses being offered in colleges and universities. To help meet the needs of distance education or online students, librarians are creating online instructional resources to help teach students research skills and information literacy skills. With the diverse group of students taking online courses, it is important for academic librarians to use universal design for learning techniques to reach as many online students as possible. By using universal design for learning techniques and incorporating accessible learning materials, academic librarians will meet the instructional needs of online learners.

Focus of this Website

This website focuses on sharing research articles and websites that can help academic librarians learn about universal design for learning and how to make instructional library resources accessible to a wide audience of students. In addition, several technology tools will be introduced that can assist librarians in creating instructional materials. Examples of online instructional resources will be included to demonstrate how universal design for learning can be used for library instruction. Special note: all images in this website are from Pexels and do not require attribution and are under creative commons zero license, allowing them to be used for personal and commercial purposes.

About Me

My name is Breanne Kirsch and I am a Public Services Librarian at the University of South Carolina Upstate. I am interested in ways UDL can be incorporated when creating online instructional resources to meet the needs of more of our students. This website was created to assist other librarians in learning about UDL and accessibility to improve instructional resources. You can reach me by email or on Twitter @EmergingTechLib.