I am an instructional designer working in higher education. I get to work with some fabulous and brilliant colleagues and faculty. I have new learning opportunities and challenges every day! My current learning opportunity is about the principles of Universal Design for Learning, and how these may be applied to online courses.
What's an instructional designer? <-- Click this link to find out more.
I work with faculty to put their course content online in a way that's accessible to students.
What does accessible mean? <-- Click here for some helpful information.
The most simple definition might be that all course content needs to be easily obtainable for use by students. However, in just the first couple of days of this OLC Workshop it's clear that there are so many layers to this.For more details, watch this video of David Rose, one of the founders of CAST. He talks about "optimizing" the curriculum and learning environment to meet the needs of the most diverse group of learners.
I especially appreciate the detail included on this UDL Progression Rubric created by Katie Novak & Kristan Rodriguez.
UDL Progression Rubric <-- Click this link to download the rubric
They've broken down the three main principles of UDL - Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression into clear, measurable descriptions, with helpful suggestions in each area. I look forward to reading through the entire rubric in more detail so that I'm better able to utilize this information in online course design. Having these resources to offer to my faculty will also be helpful, as they like to know I'm not just making stuff up to create more work.
Enjoy!
