TELedvisors Network webinar: Universal Design for Learning in action – Past, present and future directions

The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is becoming much more well-known lately. UDL ensures educational content is accessible and effective for all learners, regardless of their backgrounds or abilities and is essential in creating inclusive and impactful online learning materials.

Join us for this presentation to discover more about what this means in practice, how we got ‘here’ and where we are going next in the UDL journey. Following presentations from ADCET symposium ‘What, Why and How of UDL’, this month’s session showcases two universities (University of the Sunshine Coast and University of New England) and taking a look towards ‘next steps’.

Followed by discussion and sharing of experiences at other institutions. We are ‘Here’ with UDL – Where are you?

Presentation 1: Weaving the thread of UDL throughout the Curriculum tapestry,

Anita Jones & Amy Sjoberg, UniSC

Over 10+ years, UDL has been an integral thread woven into curriculum design and L&T initiatives at UniSC. This presentation features a brief history of these key initiatives, their goals and impact in furthering UniSC’s UDL maturity – which we have visualised using a UDL Maturity Rubric. We then cover our current ‘third space’ work across departmental boundaries using the Ally Accessibility Toolkit and our future strategies toward more inclusive learning experiences.

Anita Jones:

Anita works within the Centre for the Support and Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CSALT) at the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC). She recently held the role of Implementation Manager for the University’s successful transition from Blackboard to Canvas and is now the Project Manager for the implementation of Microcredentials. She has over 25 years of Higher Education experience, as a lecturer in ICT, then an Interactive Media Manager for Indigenous health learning, before moving to supporting teaching and learning at UniSC. Her research and professional interests are in Design Thinking approaches to change management, and Universal Design.

Amy Sjoberg

Amy also works at the Centre for the Support and Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CSALT) at University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC). In the role of Learning Designer, she contributed to the Canvas LMS transition at UniSC as an integral part of the high-performing team. Currently taking on the task as Educational Designer of integrating UDL and accessibility in online learning through design thinking and developing third space collaborations. With 20+ years’ experience in Australian higher education, she uses curiosity and exploration to approach new challenges!

Presentation 2: UDL in UpLift (Part II)

Kate Mitchell and Stephen Grono, UNE

Kate and Steve will briefly re-summarise a previous ADCET UDL symposium presentation (originally by Kashmira Dave and Kate Mitchell) with further updates around UNE’s Uplift project and its alignment to UDL. We will also present some of the work Steve has been undertaking with the Digital Education ‘Tiger Team’ to implement core consistency across units, as part of making it easier for UNE and teaching academics to meet the Uplift elements. We invite others to come with us on this journey and discuss what it takes for implementation at a real-world level and the benefits and drawbacks around scalable templates and building ‘for’ others.

Kate Mitchell, UNE

Kate Mitchell is a Senior Learning Designer for the University of New England. Her research and professional interests span ePortfolios, learning design, third space professionals, accessibility and inclusion, digital technology in education, and scholarship of teaching and learning. She has been a member of the ePortfolios Australia Organising Committee since 2015, was a co-founding member of the ASCILITE TELedvisors SIG, and has been a past and current mentor for other learning designers through both formal and informal initiatives.

Stephen Grono, UNE

Stephen Grono is a Learning Designer at the University of New England. A former primary school teacher, his role focuses on facilitating staff use of technology and online learning opportunities to enhance the delivery of teaching materials & student interaction and engagement with course content through Moodle and its related ecosystems. Stephen’s role enables him to apply high quality contemporary pedagogical practices and design as it relates to online education, drawing on his background in both education and technology, to provide contextualised support and solutions for the individualised needs of staff and teaching contexts. All-round herder of cats.