CAST Universal Design for Learning in Postsecondary Education Video
Channel: WICHE Professional Development for CHEO
Date: 2015-09-10

UDL principles help ensure basic accessibility and, beyond that, help address barriers that can arise for all learners in their variable interactions with learning environments.  This framework is not a checklist. You want to always think about the goal of your instruction or the learning experience, and then you can strategically use certain checkpoints to refine critical elements that are going to help learners reach their goals.   One million associates degrees were granted in 2011-2012, a 71% increase over those granted in 2001-2001; 11% of undergraduates in 2007-2008 reported having a disability; and enrollment of students who are 25 to 34 years old increased 45% between 1996 and 2010 and are projected to increase 20% between 2010 and 2021. The cost of ignoring strategic and affective dimensions of UDL in course design, assessment development, OER creation, institutional policies, etc. is significant.  Sam Catherine Johnston, research scientist with the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), presented this information to faculty working on the Consortium for Healthcare Education Online project at the CHEO Discipline Panel Faculty Professional Development Workshop – By Design: Taking ALL Allied Health Students Across the Finish Line, on May 14, 2015.  The event was hosted by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and was held at its SHEPC Learning Center in Boulder, CO.  The CHEO project is funded by a U.S. Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant. See www.wiche.edu/nanslo/CHEO-faculty-professional-development for more information about this workshop.