Lesson 5 – Pulling It All Together
Universal Design for Learning, academic accommodations, and accessibility are interconnected topics that guide how we teach and the materials we share with our students.
- UDL helps to ensure we reduce or remove barriers to make learning more inclusive for everyone. It provides learners with agency.
- Accessibility helps us make more usable documents and courses so students who use assistive technologies can access them. This makes documents more accessible for all learners.
- Accommodations ensure that students with disabilities have educational supports to provide equal access to learning.
When teachers design their courses and the delivery of their lessons with UDL and accessibility in mind, students are inherently accommodated for many of their educational needs.
What’s Next?
When you feel ready to examine your courses and make some changes, there are useful tools and resources available.
- Think UDL is a podcast series where experts in the field of inclusive education discuss UDL. Episode 132 discusses the Design Cycle with Kavita Roe.
- For practical tools to guide your course development, explore Dr. Katie Novak’s templates. You may need to share your email to download free templates.
- Explore the CAST website for free UDL downloads that may help guide your process
- Log in to the Knowledge Centre at Algonquin to learn more about student accommodations
References