STRATEGIES – UNIVERSAL
DESIGN IN E-LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS
BTC DISABILITY SUPPORT SERVICES
UNIVERSAL DESIGN:
The design of all products and
environments to be usable by all
people to the greatest extent
possible.
~Ronald Mace, Center for UD
North Carolina State University
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR
LEARNING


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Representation: Give learners a variety of
ways to acquire information and
knowledge
Expression: Tap into a person’s interest,
offer appropriate challenges and motivate
students to learn
Engagement: Provide learners with
alternatives for demonstrating what they
know
BENEFITS OF UDL:
Makes teaching methods available to all
students
 Helps students identify the way they learn
best
 Makes students feel successful and want
to learn
 When instructors learn about UDL, their
teaching improves

BEFORE CLASS BEGINS…
Schedule an inperson meeting
with class
 ‘Buddy up’
students
 Demonstrate logon procedures
 Identify notetaker or closedcaptioner

UDL STRATEGIES ON-LINE…
Information should be
multi-sensory (visual,
auditory, graphics,
color)
 Smaller, chunked
sessions for increased
attention
 Use captions on all
visuals and graphics

UDL STRATEGIES ON-LINE…
continued

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Choose simple
fonts
Choose web
pages with
narrow
columns and
font to the left
of the page
ELLUMINATE
FEATURES:
Increase/decrease
font size
 Increase/decrease
volume
 Closed-captioning
 Printable transcript

MODERATOR TIPS…
Post lecture
material prior to
Elluminate
session
 Repeat (reword)
class questions
before giving
answers
 Assume nothing!

 "The
Pessimist complains about the
wind, the Optimist expects it to
change and the REALIST adjusts his
sails."