Universal Design for Learning: Top Ten Tips (advanced)

Following on from the Top Ten UDL Tips for beginners, and Top Ten UDL Tips for intermediates, in this posting we'll look at the Top Ten Universal Design for Learning tips for advanced teachers, remembering that the ultimate goal is to ensure multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement:

Universal Design for Learning: Top Ten Intermediate Tips (Advanced)

1. Communicate high expectations to all students in your class. If you have accommodated all students, everyone should have an equal chance at success. Provide them with examplars.

2. Upload your videos onto YouTube, and caption them, and learn more about the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

3. When developing learning materials, in terms of the range of learners sensory preferences use the V-A-R-K Learning Styles model to create different types of learning materials and activities, e.g. PNG, Podcasts, PowerPoint, and Playdough

4. Explore each of the three common types of alignment in programme design: Vertical Alignment (linking modules between different years), Horizontal Alignment (linking modules in the same year), and Constructive Alignment (linking Learning Outcomes, Teaching, and Assessment, in a single module).

5. Pre-teach all symbols and unfamiliar vocabulary in an early class, and create a glossary booklet (with both text and visual descriptions) that you hand out at the start of the semester.

6. Consider the physical tasks that the students are required to do in class, find ways that you can provide alternatives in the requirements for speed, strength, timing, and range of these activities.

7. Create assessments so that the criteria to achieve a passing grade, a good grade, a very good grade, and an excellent grade are clearly articulated. Is it possible to provide alternative criteria for each level also?

8. Involve students as much as possible in setting their own learning goals. Also work with them to create a personalized checklist of goals agreed to, and encourage them to tick off each goal as it is accomplished to let them see their progress.

9. When developing learning materials, in terms of the range of learners' cognitive preferences use Keirsey Temperament Sorter to create different types of learning materials and activities, e.g. create activities that include aspects of problem solving, planning, personal growth, and proficiency.

10. Create a series of supporting documents to increase students' independent learning skills and discipline-specific skills that they can access at their own rate.

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