From Vantage College, Jennifer Walsh Marr, Lecturer in Academic English, and Brian Wilson, Curriculum Manager and Faculty Liaison, discuss their work to make VANT 140, a language tutorial course affiliated with VANT 150, Engineering Design, more accessible by using UDL principles.
How have you applied UDL to your work and approach?
Jennifer: UDL application has been an ongoing process for me for years. In this concerted effort, I’m teaching our international, multilingual students the language of engineering design. With this, I aim to foster their awareness, raise a critical awareness of language, and bring a layer of UDL to the course as well.
Brian: I’ve been through the UDL program twice now as the staff partner to two different instructors. I’m finding now that in addition to trying to support the instructor I work with as they implement UDL principles into their courses, I’m now able to spread UDL practices broadly within Vantage. As I speak with other instructors or staff members, I can initiate conversations about how we might apply UDL to other courses we offer at Vantage.
Could you tell me more about your UDL project on VANT 140 and tell me more about any changes made to the course to prioritize UDL and accessibility?
Jennifer: I teach VANT 140, which is the language support course for VANT 150, which is an engineering design course. As an applied linguist, I worked with my applied scientist colleagues to look at the language of engineering design and how we can make the language used in VANT 150 more robust. I worked closely with Juan Abelló, a mechanical engineering instructor who works on the foundations of engineering design, and we’ve put a language lens on terms, such as describing the difference between a problem, a problem statement, a need statement, and the difference between an engineering requirement and an engineering goal. We use a language lens to make those concepts clearer and help students use terms accurately. In engineering textbooks, there are many drawings, designs, illustrations, and graphics; we need to differentiate something that is decorative from something that is functional, and then determine what level of specificity and accuracy is needed to describe an image for its purpose. We are also thinking about alt-text, but recognizing that AI can do a lot of alt-text generation now, we’re looking at how students describe images from a language development standpoint: So, what does an image mean, and how can we describe it in words. We also experimented with the opposite approach, where students first wrote definitions of key concepts, then supplemented those definitions with graphic representations, thereby expanding the range of representation methods and their interactions with language.
Brian: Building on Jennifer’s remarks, Vantage has made a unique contribution to the UDL Program due to its emphasis on language, a crucial component of accessibility. Many people understand the importance of language in accessibility, but it’s encouraging to see concrete examples of how language functions through Jennifer’s work. This not only helps students in their coursework but also tackles broader questions of accessibility, and now I’m hearing more discussions about accessible language in the UDL Fellows program compared to when the program first launched. Jennifer and Weaver Shaw, the instructor I previously worked with, have been instrumental in helping others understand how language contributes to the central pillars of accessibility within their respective disciplines.
Jennifer: And to add to that, learning discipline-specific language is crucial, because no one speaks their disciplinary culture as their first language. For example, English is used differently in engineering compared to sociology or political science. It’s all English, but the use of adjectives, or whether something is descriptive or argumentative, largely depends on the norms of that field, making it critical for instructors to teach those nuances in language to students.
What motivated you to engage with the UDL Fellows program and start incorporating UDL principles in your practice?
Jennifer: I’ve always cared about accessibility! I think some of it is happenstance and some of it is empathetic but participating in a fellowship like this enabled a bit more structured attention to it and allowed me to notice gaps in my practice that I wouldn’t have noticed without that structure. My participation was motivated by self-interest; however, the more service-oriented motivation was centred on language equity. Multilingual users at UBC are not a niche market by any means, and everyone deserves support for fostering language development.
Brian: In a previous chapter of my career, I was involved in language education, which highlighted for me how language plays a central role in accessibility. This sparked my interest in digital literacy—how language is used in technology and how technology can, in turn, be leveraged to make education more accessible. When the UDL Fellows program was formally established at UBC, I wanted to take the opportunity to deepen my understanding of UDL and see what others are doing to make education more accessible. It’s crucial to recognize that language accessibility benefits everyone, not just a specific group like English language learners. People often conceptualize language as a separate category from other accessibility features, but in reality, there isn’t a hard distinction between language groups. Everyone benefits from making language more understandable and accessible because we are all on a continuum of language proficiency in various contexts.
Did you experience any challenges with implementing UDL, and how did you overcome them?
Jennifer: I have deep respect and affection for my engineering colleagues, but I must admit that often there’s an underlying disposition of elitism and an attitude of, “Why do we need to be accessible?” And this prejudice isn’t limited to just the engineers, but because the university sees itself as an elite institution that has very high standards, there’s a fundamental mismatch about what people see as excellence and what they see as accessible. It can be difficult to untangle those false binaries. This “sink or swim” mentality can make it hard to see how people with different abilities can bring a bigger picture to a situation. This is especially true in engineering.
Brian: As an observer and supporter of instructors, I’ve noticed that the amount of work can be overwhelming. There’s always so much that can be improved even in a course that’s already great, which can make it difficult to know where to start and stop.
“Accessibility isn’t a destination; it’s a process where the targets and the goals keep changing.”
This can also make it difficult to stay current, as some things evolve faster, and others evolve slower. For example, you might think you’ve mastered formulating alt text, but now AI has been thrown into the mix, along with new translation tools and image-generating tools, making it hard for an instructor to make sure that new tools remain equitable and accessible for all, with the instructor needing to make informed decisions about what tools to support or not support as part of their course.
What accessibility and inclusion barriers have you noticed at UBC? How does UDL help address these barriers?
Jennifer: I have two personal anecdotes that can perhaps speak to two things. The first is that I have an invisible disability that manifests in a myriad of ways but can really limit my mobility. There’s an accessibility shuttle on campus, but it has to be booked well in advance, which really only aligns with a particular model of disability and accessibility. So, I could be quite lame on West Mall trying to flag the shuttle down with a cane, and they will drive right by. So, while the accessibility shuttle is a good resource, it’s limited in that way. The other anecdote is that one of my children was a UBC student and suffered a temporary disability with their hand in a cast, and they were unable to write an exam in the time period allotted, so they reached out to their instructor, who directed them to the accessibility office, who basically said that their case was a not a permanent or long-term condition, so they were out of luck. This exposes a giant flaw in the framework for accommodations and is an instance where policy based on universal design would make things much easier to navigate for everyone.
Brian: I find that there are times when programs like the UDL Fellows Programs, in addition to being incredibly valuable, can at times be a bit counterproductive in that all the time spent thinking, planning, and implementing ends up making accessibility prescriptive. Because there’s an underlying assumption that “we know best” at elite institutions like UBC, there’s a risk in programs like this where we end up trying to prescribe solutions to problems that may not be well understood, or may not even exist. We’re not asking enough questions, yet we’re giving out answers. A significant gap exists in our lack of direct engagement with communities, which impedes our ability to effectively serve them.
Jennifer: And to add to that point, because the UDL fellowship is an exclusive club, in order for the program’s lessons to be inclusive, there may be a hope or expectation that we take what we’ve learned back to our home units and redistribute knowledge, but we haven’t culturally taken that on as an institution.
Is there anything else we haven’t talked about that you would like to mention?
Jennifer: I would advocate for more community revisits. In the Indigenous Initiative community, we hold drop-in coffee chats, which foster great ongoing conversations that continue even after participants have completed the program. I believe we should encourage more such events.
Brian: I’d like to highlight a point made earlier by Jennifer, regarding the importance of involving students as active participants in her VANT 140 course. I think that speaks to the importance of increasing where universal design principles can be integrated into teaching in a way where the students learn to apply them themselves, which also helps prepare them for professional life. I’d like to see more of that.