At UBC Health, Carrie Krekoski, Michelle Hamilton, and Jenny Li are rethinking how health education is delivered. By applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, they’ve made key components of the Integrated Curriculum more accessible, inclusive, and engaging for learners. In this article, they respond to a few questions about adopting and implementing UDL principles.
Can you tell us about what inspired you to begin integrating Universal Design for Learning into your work?
Jenny: By applying UDL principles in my role, I can provide a more supportive and accessible physical learning environment for students. For example, we use a shared spreadsheet to collect information from the health programs, and we include a dedicated tab where programs can submit student accommodation requests.
Because the physical classroom setting and its accessibility features can significantly impact students’ motivation, we are also working on offering options to enhance the learning environment. I see this as an important way to apply one of the UDL principles, multiple means of engagement.
Adopting UDL principles and improving accessibility is about creating opportunities to engage a diverse audience and foster inclusive and welcoming environments for everyone. UDL principles benefit not just students with accessibility needs but all learners, which makes this work even more rewarding
Carrie: My motivation to incorporate UDL into the integrated interprofessional education curriculum stems from a long commitment to creating inclusive, equitable, and effective student learning experiences. I’m also keenly aware of the presence of invisible disabilities and diversity among students and faculty.
Many health professional disciplines are distributed programs with students located across the province. Remotely located students often participate online, necessitating careful consideration of their needs. This makes the delivery, development, and evaluation processes somewhat more challenging.
All students should feel supported and valued, and we must model this in our professional practice to empower them. We hope this will improve their practice and ultimately lead to better healthcare outcomes for people.
What changes did you introduce to the Integrated Curriculum to make it more accessible?
Michelle: I make a concerted effort to incorporate universal design principles for learning when creating communications and visual materials. This year, we made several key changes to improve accessibility and inclusivity in our workshops. We developed Canvas pages and slides titled Ways of Working Together to promote respectful and inclusive learning environments. To enhance accessibility, we added features such as accessible fonts and spacing, video subtitles, alt text, and previews of our materials. Finally, we expanded our use of Padlet, a tool for group discussions and assignments, to offer students multiple ways to engage and express themselves.
The IC workshops and modules are embedded in each program’s curriculum. We realized we needed the same type of communication for the IC as learners in their core courses. We created a blog-style website called the IC Navigator, which acts like a syllabus to help students understand our workshops and navigate potential learning space barriers. The link to the IC Navigator is added to their course orientations and shared with instructors for easy access. We also shared our accessibility statement within each IC Canvas site to invite students to plan with us for accessibility.
We focused on applying UDL to all our user groups, so when we think about the Integrated Curriculum, it’s not just about students. We also recruit facilitators from the community and faculty from different programs, as well as staff, administration, deans, and directors. We connect with all of them around the content and logistics of the program.
What overarching challenges did you encounter while implementing UDL, and how did you manage them?
Jenny: The first challenge we encountered was space restrictions and classroom bookings. Some students require special audiovisual technology that is only available in specific classrooms. Additionally, UBC is a large campus, and students with physical disabilities may require extra time to travel between locations. While we make an effort to book classrooms close to the health programs, there are times when we have to use spaces that are farther away.
Carrie: We also need to secure rooms that meet the needs of Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning for the UBC 23/24 Indigenous Cultural Safety workshops. For example, the class might incorporate sitting in a welcome circle, which is not possible in a classroom with fixed desks. To have small group discussions in these conditions, we’ve spread out groups in classrooms that meet our requirements.
How have the students benefited from the UDL strategies you have implemented?
Carrie: When we asked our students about meaningful engagement, 90% agreed that the 2024 workshops facilitated meaningful interactions with other disciplines, and students reported that the workshops improved their interprofessional understanding, collaboration, and reflection on shared goals. 93% of students found the Integrated Curriculum accessible, with the UDL features improving engagement and inclusivity. 29% of those students reported using at least one accessibility technology to engage with the IC, whether that be alt text, image descriptions, transcriptions, etc.
For the first time, we also facilitated make-up workshops for each IC workshop, and 253 students took advantage of these opportunities. We also supported extending the Indigenous Cultural Safety workshops by one hour for deeper engagement and incorporated more icebreaker activities into our discussions.
Which resources did you find most useful in applying UDL?
Michelle: The first resource we found helpful was the training provided through the UDL Fellows Workshop and the online module resources. We frequently refer to the CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0, the Open UBC Education Resource Accessibility Toolkit, and the UDL Hub website. To guide our work, the accessibility checkers on Canvas and PowerPoint have been instrumental in ensuring materials are accessible. The Teaching and Learning Media Portal makes it easy to add subtitles to videos, and the equipment at UBC Studios is very user-friendly. It makes it easy for us to create high-quality videos and presentations in a short time.
Collecting feedback from students has been a particularly effective practice for us. We gathered input during the project through evaluation surveys and focus groups both before and after we rolled out the workshop. This feedback has been invaluable in shaping our approach for our upcoming second phase, which will further expand our UDL initiative throughout our program.