9.6 Universal Design

Universal design is a nice way to describe basic principles to consider when designing things, including architecture, software, and courses. Almost everything should consider the demographics of potential users and ensure that whatever is being designed can work for as many as possible. It is likely that 100% universality is impossible to reach, compromises are always necessary for a number of reasons, but when possible, feasible, and reasonable, the goal should be strived for.

Various people have talked about how the principles can be applied to course design, and a good overview can be found on UW's site.

Universal is linked closely with accessibility and inclusivity. In our world, universal design, the 'what' is closely linked to the actual processes that surround the 'what'; namely, the 'how'. There is no point having great x, if the x is messed up during delivery.

Summary thoughts...

• At the end of the day everyone should stand a reasonable chance, perhaps with additional aids, perhaps not, to get the intended value at a reasonable level of equitable effort and comfort. It is possible to think about common issues in a course design and deal with them without great fuss. However, retrofiting can be really problematic and appear unreachable. We recommend that when courses have a major re-design, which should take place every 3-5 years, the courses address key requirements like accessibility and universal design concepts. For example, roughly 10-15% of the male population suffers colour blindness and there are different types and degrees of colour blindness to think about. In a class setting, this can often arise with charts, diagrams and images where ambiguity can arise. In the majority of cases, it is not a case of all colours being the same, there is still some distinction in some dimension. To address the issues, single coding is not recommended where colour and something else is used to provide visual separation. This can be the textures, formats, and in some cases pointers and text - e.g., a pointer with useful information to something that would be ambiguous.
• In the mid 1990's as we were developing blended technology for the classroom, we quickly discovered sweet spots for line size, font size, font type, and style. For example, fonts at the time, in the specific context, had to be 18 point bold sans-sarif. And any lines had to be a certain width. The students had to be able read, with appropriate contrast and clarity what was on the screen. The same issues exist today and the same decisions need to be made. Thinking about universal design makes it easier for the student to see and understand what the instructor is doing and it can also include how things things are done and not just the what. For example, quickly wiping work off the board before students can actually understand it is not good. Quickly overwriting and scribbling on the board is also not good. Moving quickly to the next point before making sure that the students got a key learning point is not good. These latter examples of practice likely penalize many students, while helping the instructor ensure that they get their mark distribution; only a few will actually follow along quickly enough to ace it. Those who have ANY kind of learning issue will suffer and fill in the left hand side of the distribution. It is not that they cannot learn, it is that they cannot learn at the speed you think they should be learning and it seems to us that many instructors believe that the average student should learn at the speed at which the instructor learns and once again, we remind instructors that assuming the average student is like them, is a poor assumption.
• That is not all. Universal design implies multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representing, and multiple means of action and expression. All of this implies, by the way, that you are going to be teaching less, focusing on the core, foundational ideas. You will have to trim 1/3 of the course in all likelihood. This is good because you will have to figure out what is important as learning outcomes and focus on it; teaching it less, but teaching it better.
• Not done yet. Universality also implies things like being fair, consistent, transparent (when you should be, need to be, transparent). It means being reasonable and using mature, good judgement in the areas you have discretion over.
• You need to consider the who, what, where, when, why, and how aspects of your course. No aspect escapes.

Here are some ideas for practical universality...

• Get advice and work with those who have done it, integrated it, figured it out. There are many mistakes that can be made, and few one-fits-all solutions. Watch, observe learn from a course where it is well done. Help teach, work the room with the instructor. You need to be active and 'do' to really understand the concepts.
• Analyse your current course and identify what is the good, the bad, and the ugly with respect to these issues - universality, accessibility, inclusivity. Understand how you got to each point.
• Be wary of simple lists of what to do, what not to do. Life is not that simple. If it was, there would be no need for this note or website. Good design has been talked about for many, many decades and it is not easy. We are still talking about it as the next 'best' thing. Why isn't it the norm, what exists in all courses already? Why are we still struggling?
• Prioritize and do not try to do everything at once. That being said, be aware of what you are staging and try to make it easy to do when the time is right. If you are going to try more than 2-3 new ideas at once, you will likely have a wonderful flame-out. For mere mortals we suggest 1-2. That seems to be number of changes and innovations anyone can handle in parallel. Very rare for this not to be the case. And, reserve certain ideas when the course is 100% rebuilt and you might have time to think things through.
• Introducing variability and flexibility is at times ironic and while making some happy, can make others grumpy. The ones who get it on the first 'method' or approach will need things to keep them engaged as try different treatments. Some students believe that more is best and the more they are memorizing, the more they are learning. These students will not be happy with the teach less, teach it better model. They will feel that they are being cheated. Some students will get confused and fustrated and upset: if they get by X and then get confused by Y, this can also be an issue and create self-doubt, etc.
• Most instructors have not had the opportunity to learn all methods equally and develop the skills that flexibility implies. It is possible that some of the methods will be sub-standard compared to the other methods. This is bad. It is also hard for all instructors to understand the neuroscience, to cognitive science, to learning theory linkages at a level of knowing what to use when, when not to use something, and know that they are using something correctly. Each type of material and learning outcome needs to considered on its own merits.
• As the old saying goes, you can bring the horse to water, but cannot make it drink. If students do not 'show up' and engage with the course, it does not matter about the methods. Before worrying about universality, it is probably more important to make sure that your course is relatable and has value. Once you know how to get the value, you can think about various methods to get to the same point. Otherwise, you might be guessing and generating hot air. Get the core figured out and then worry about other things. But remember, that you have to design and think about how to add in the bits (methods) you need. This implies planning slack, doing the triage on noise, designing learning units with the expectation of multiple runs at the wall. You will have to deal with universality (or you should) and you can make it easy on yourself or not.

Further reading

• Burgstahler, S. (2009). Universal Design in Education: Principles and Applications. University of Washington, Do-It Project.
• Rao, K., Ok, M.W. and B.R. Bryant (2014). A Review of Research on Universal Design Educational Models. Remedial and Special Education, 35, 3, pp. 153–166.