One of the fastest ways to start implementing UDL in your design and in your teaching, is to think about ways of offering meaningful, accessible choices to students. We can often feel overwhelmed by the prospect of offering choice; our market-driven economy often makes us think that offering choice means endless variety or letting students “do what they want.” That perceived limitlessness can feel intimidating.

These questions can help to frame up offering choices based on your course objectives, student feedback, and accessible practice.

What problems in my class might be solved with designing for choice?

UDL implementer Thomas Tobin suggests that an excellent way to dive into UDL is with the UDL Plus-One (Tobin & Behling, 2018).

Identify one point of friction (a pinch point) in your class as a site for UDL implementation. This could be a test that many students struggle to pass, generating discussion, or even asking copious questions about an assessment (after hours, urgently). Once you have identified the pinch point, think about a choice you could offer. For the test students struggle to pass, design learning materials that can be read and watched. For generating discussions, students can participate by speaking in class or through polls or word cloud generation. To address problems with copious questions, add a feedback component when you present the assignment to guide proactive framing (DisabilityAwareness elearning, 2021).

How can I learn about student preferences?

We often talk about connecting with students and grounding good teaching practices in good relationships. The reasons for this approach are many and one pragmatic reason for this relationship building is so that we can create a comfortable environment for the expression of preferences and choice. Designing for choice and preferences is less a matter of mind reading and more a matter of creating a climate of feedback so that preferences become clear. Does independent work suit most students in the class? Can regular small group consultation support communication access and comprehension? Does building a support network among students help or do they prefer a direct channel to instructor-driven support? Build a climate of feedback by making suggestions and designing regular check-in points at the beginning, middle, and end of assessments.

Is there a place for co-construction in my design?

Co-construction is the idea that students and the instructor work together to design aspects of the course including parts of the syllabus, an assessment, or topics for papers. Co-construction can be an excellent way to truly gauge comprehension. After all, it is one thing to answer instructor-designed questions, but quite another to identify what should be assessed in the first place. If you are considering co-construction, consider too, that offering alternative tools for collaboration supports co-construction. Dictating notes, sentence starters, story webs, concept maps, and manipulatives are ideas to help learners and instructors jump into framing up comprehension and assessment methods together.