When University of Bridgeport joined the Goodwin University family in spring 2021, a significant priority was bringing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to the UB campus. In November 2022, University of Bridgeport graduated its first cohort of UDL Teaching Fellows, with the goal of bringing a more student-centered approach to UB classrooms.
Over the course of six months, 12 UB faculty members across various programs completed eight 3-hour workshops, where they took an in-depth look at their teaching and examined ways to make their courses more inclusive of diverse learners. This first group of UDL Teaching Fellows is just the beginning of bringing UDL to UB. Universal Design for Learning makes university classrooms more supportive for learners of all backgrounds, meaning students are more engaged and connected to the material.
Like Goodwin University, UB hopes to bring UDL to the forefront as the future of teaching and learning.
Universal Design for Learning Breaks Down Barriers to Learning
When students enter the classroom, they do not always come in with a clean slate. Students across university campuses are dealing with personal stressors like work and family that can impact their ability to focus on their studies. In addition, college students around the world are collectively coping with how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the progress of their learning while they were still early in their high school careers. These students are now stepping into college classrooms, and many lack the confidence they need to be successful. Even more, university campuses are home to diverse groups of students with intersecting identities — no two learners are the same, and no two learners engage with their education in the same way. All these factors and more speak to the need for educators to build inclusive and supportive learning environments.
UDL Helps Offset the Negative Effects of Outside Factors that Impact Learning.
UDL flips the script on teaching and learning by addressing barriers to learning before any instruction occurs. It’s an approach to education that allows educators to focus on student relationships and gives students more ownership and flexibility in their learning.
Dr. Diana LaRocco is the Dean of the School of Applied Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Director of the Goodwin University Institute for learning Innovation. Dr. LaRocco designed and has implemented the Goodwin’s UDL Institute. She also played an integral role in bringing UDL to University of Bridgeport. “Our UDL institute was deliberately designed to engage faculty in critical self-reflection on their teaching to identify what is working well and where students seem to struggle. The aim is for faculty to be more intentional in the design and implementation of their curriculum,” says Dr. LaRocco.
Choice, flexibility, and student-faculty relationships are some of the more prominent themes in UDL classrooms. More students can succeed when they are given flexibility in how they learn and demonstrate their knowledge. This way of designing a curriculum meets the needs of diverse learners who want and need more ways to show their success in the classroom.
The core of Universal Design for Learning is to create classroom curriculums that are:
- Intentional
- Inclusive
- Impactful
- Integrated
Applying the UDL framework doesn’t just feel better — it works better. UDL is grounded in fundamental research into neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the science of learning. The related research shows that more learning occurs in the classroom when individual differences are anticipated and intentionally planned for in the curriculum.
Here’s what UB’s UDL Teaching Fellows had to say about bringing Universal Design for Learning to their course design.
UB’s UDL Fellows Reflect on the Implementation of UDL Principles at UB
“The UDL principals and concepts are dead simple yet over-the-top effective.”
– Michael A. Ciolfi, DC, MBA, DBA, Teaching Fellow, and Dean of the College of Health Sciences
While Dr. Ciolfi does not have a current teaching assignment, he worked closely with the instructor of CS 721 (Clinical Services I) to implement UDL principles into the design of this course. This course is the first time UB Chiropractic students interact directly with patients in UB’s Chiropractic Clinic.
The faculty members noticed that students often struggled through their earliest direct interactions with patients, leading to longer than desired patient appointments. To address this concern, they added simulated patient encounters to the curriculum to practice critical patient intake skills such as collecting patient histories and performing physical exams. To allow for this practice, the amount of time students had to see patients needed to be reduced.
Despite the reduction in patient appointment times, Dr. Ciolfi notes, “One amazing result from this change was that the number of patients seen by the students nearly doubled — this was the result of students becoming more confident and efficient in delivering effective patient care.”
In the future, Dr. Ciolfi hopes to remove written exams from this course and replace lectures with voice-over PowerPoint presentations and videos. Since this course’s instructor is a newer faculty member, the slow implementation of UDL practices will benefit both the students and the faculty member.
The purpose of UDL is not to redesign an entire curriculum at once but to be reflective on one’s teaching practices and implement UDL principles into courses over time — resulting in the eventual complete redesign of the course.
“As a seasoned educator with over 35 years of experience, I was confident I knew a lot about teaching and instruction, but I didn’t feel I had my finger on the pulse of the learners anymore.”
– Maureen Wright, Adjunct Professor, School of Nursing
Professor Wright notes that her time at UB’s UDL institute helped nudge her thinking beyond her previous knowledge base to a new level of understanding of today’s college students. Noting significant differences in college students after the pandemic, Universal Design for Learning is helping faculty members like Professor Wright meet the needs of learners affected by the pandemic while helping her better understand and connect with the students of today.
“While learning the UDL approach and making changes to my focus course, I realized that the methods of delivery were only partially inclusive to my students. I needed to consider the different learning preferences of my students.”
– Latoya Maxwell, MSN, RN-BC
Professor Maxwell implemented UDL strategies into NUR 201: Introduction to Professional Nursing. She changed the delivery of information by adding videos and visuals to supplement written content. In addition, she added voice-overs to her PowerPoint presentations and turned on closed captioning to address the needs of auditory learners and those who may need closed captioning on videos. Professor Maxwell also used social media to help make the content more relatable and increase student engagement. As a result, Professor Maxwell noticed student engagement increased in her course, and students participated more in the online discussion boards. She also noted pass rates increased in content areas where she implemented these UDL principles.
“One of the most important principles of UDL is its emphasis on identifying and eliminating barriers to learning before students even start the course.”
– Yvrose Romulus, Adjunct Instructor, Director of Strategic Programs
Professor Romulus teaches in UB’s Ernest C. Trefz School of Business. While working toward becoming a UDL Teaching Fellow, she looked at two courses, MGMT 200: Workforce Dynamics and MGMT 302: Multicultural Management. She worked to eliminate fear and negative perceptions around topics in her business courses.
“By centering UDL guidelines in my teaching, I can use approaches to teaching that help shape students’ thinking in a broader aspect and cultivate knowledge while minimizing anxiety, allowing them to complete more complex tasks with less burden. In the end, students embrace learning with less fear, leading them to think more positively and gain more confidence — they will hopefully welcome challenging tasks and develop a love for learning so they can thrive in their careers,” says Professor Romulus.
“Having an opportunity to set aside time to be mindful and reflective on my teaching practice has been a valuable experience. One of the most powerful aspects of UDL is that it gives the faculty member a framework that can help guide classroom pedagogy and assessment while remaining flexible enough to fit a wide range of academic topics and teaching styles. UDL helped me reimagine my expectations about how I should approach certain topics and ways to encourage and motivate both novice and expert learners in my courses.”
– David E. Oberleitner, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology, Chair of Online Behavioral Sciences, Director of Division of Behavioral Sciences.
Dr. Oberleitner implemented UDL strategies into PSYC 103: Introduction to Psychology. He worked to give students multiple ways of interacting with and mastering course materials. He also wanted to reduce the stigma around specific Psychology topics, including the statistical and biological aspects of Psychology. Dr. Oberleitner believes UDL principles help students build connections and develop a deeper understanding of core concepts.
“Universal Design for Learning helped me reflect on my teaching practices and gave me a framework to reduce learning barriers by focusing on learner variability.”
– Dr.Mita Saksena, Adjunct Professor, College of Health Sciences
Professor Saksena implemented UDL solutions in her course, Global Public Health. She worked to lay out the goals and objectives of the course more clearly, align assessments to the learning outcomes, and add more visual and interactive elements to the course materials and syllabus. In the future, she hopes to provide access to tools and assistive technologies to give her students complete choice of action and expression of their learning and to provide more support for auditory and visual learners.
Some of the UDL strategies implemented by UB’s UDL Teaching Fellows included:
- Being more intentional about going over syllabi while explaining or addressing fear of certain content areas
- Providing more explicit directions for class assignments and discussions
- Giving explanations and instructions in multiple formats: verbal, written, and visual
- Offering content in multiple formats: verbal, images, video, independent readings, PowerPoint presentations with voice-over, and closed captioning
- Extending office hours and Zoom office hours to maintain lines of communication
- Creating more opportunities for student collaboration
- Adding tools and resources to supplement content
- Explicitly teaching organization and core professional skills in their major or content area
- Allowing for more simulation and hands-on practice
UB’s UDL Teaching Fellows are working to address the needs of UB students across programs and schools at UB, including the College of Engineering, Business, and Education, The College of Science and Society, The Ernest C. Trefz School of Business, and The School of Nursing.
The future of Universal Design for Learning at University of Bridgeport is exciting as additional cohorts of Teaching Fellows will continue the work of eliminating barriers to learning for more of our students.
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