Terminology Tuesday: Universal Instructional Design (UID)

This week I sat in on a celebration of teaching and learning workshop where the theme was geared toward understanding student differences and enhancing student experience, specifically in terms of sense of belonging and accessibility. The topic of Universal Instructional Design (UID) came up, and while I was nodding my head to the point of pulling a muscle, I think many of my colleagues were at a loss for words. Now that’s not saying they all were, but I was probably the only one sustaining injury during those slides of the presentation. As a result, I’m planning a workshop on the topic of UID. In any event, I figured that if 75 people in a small workshop were wondering about UID, I thought a pocket of the Internet might be curious too, so here we go!

Universal Instructional Design (UID)

UID involves the careful consideration of all potential learner needs in the design and development of a curriculum and/or course. It involves thinking about how you can appeal to all individuals, enhancing the user experience, without hindering the content and learning objectives. Part of the bigger problem might be that not all instructors know how to write proper learning objectives, but that’s a problem for another day.

There are seven primary principles of UID:

1. Equitable Use;
2. Flexibility in Use;
3. Simple and Intuitive;
4. Perceptible Information;
5. Tolerance for Error;
6. Low Physical Effort; and
7. Size and Space for Approach and Use.

Some camps differ in their explanation of principles for UID, but all of the above seem to be considerations in most, if not all.

Now, what this really means is that you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator (and no, I don’t mean ‘dumbing things down’). Meaning that when developing your curriculum and/or course, you should think about making it as accessible as possible. For example, if you’re a science teacher who wants to teach your students about the lifecycle of a bog, design your curriculum to bring the bog to the students instead of requiring students to attend a field trip to observe a bog in its natural habitat. While the latter might be a neat way to engage your students, it automatically excludes those who have physical hindrances (e.g. are in a wheelchair or have allergies). Instead, you can change your way of thinking (and possibly learn something yourself) by creating a small-scale bog lifecycle in the classroom! Fun and outside of the box.

In my world of distance education, I encounter a lot of faculty members who are getting stuck behind the technology and what it ‘can’t’ do, that they get stuck in their problem solving. Having been a distance student, I have good insight into ways of enhancing the student experience within distance education, and it really starts with UID. Students enrol in distance education for a variety of reasons, but one of the top reasons is: Accessibility. If students are enrolling for reasons related to accessibility, shouldn’t we be ensuring an equitable user experience to traditional classroom experiences? I should think so!

Some Helpful Resources:

• Introduction to Universal Instructional Design (UID) at the University of Guelph
• Historical, Theoretical, and Foundational Principles of Universal Instructional Design in Higher Education
• Seven Principles of Universal Instructional Design
• Universal Instructional Design
• Curriculum Transformation and Disability: Implementing Universal Design in Higher Education