Description
Abstract:Across the increasingly complex Higher Education landscape, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), (CAST, 2018), has gained attention as a practical framework for creating more inclusive, accessible, flexible, and equitable learning experiences for diverse student populations (Fovet, 2020; Banwari et al., 2023). However, the implementation and realisation of UDL across teaching and learning processes and practices presents many challenges, not least for those attempting to effect change from the ‘ground-up’, (Hills et al., 2022).
This storytelling session offers a personal reflection on the highs and lows of promoting UDL across a period of four years working at four different universities, each with its unique institutional culture as well as distinctive teaching and learning models (e.g., campus-based, online, blended, hybrid etc.).
Using digital storytelling techniques (Lambert, 2012), the presenter will take the audience on a narrative journey across a four-year timeline exploring their own lived experience as a UDL advocate working in different roles supporting academic professional learning, curriculum design, and inclusive practice. Through this journey, successes and setbacks will be highlighted as well as anecdotal insights gathered through influencing decision-making and navigating the complexities of institutional and systemic change.
During the story, the audience will be offered a series of provocations, inviting them to reflect on their own experiences of enacting UDL in their own contexts. This will also include questions relating to emerging tensions and critical discourses around UDL, and how UDL guidelines might complement or compete with other priorities across the HE sector.
Multimodal versions of the story will be shared for accessibility purposes.
| Period | 17 Sept 2024 |
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Keywords
- UDL