Universal Instructional Design

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Universal Instructional Design

• Jaellayna Palmer
• Project Manager Instructional Designer
• palmerj_at_uoguelph.ca

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PLEASE DO NOT REPRODUCE THESE SLIDES IN WHOLE OR
IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION palmerj_at_uoguelph.ca
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Key Items for Us Today
Universal Instructional Design . . .

• goals and philosophy
• implementation at Guelph and elsewhere
• your own plans from here

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What If
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What If
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What If
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Excerpt from Your Accessibility Plan
5.5.1 Ensure all McMaster websites and
sub-websites are accessible and in compliance
according to accessibility standard 5.5.2
Incorporate accessibility features in teaching
strategies, course design and evaluation
techniques, including the use of assistive
technologies. Centre for Leadership in Learning
(CLL) to take a leadership role in educating
instructors on how teaching methods on universal
design in the classroom. 5.5.3 Improve access to
printed copies of overheads, blackboard notes,
PowerPoint slides, etc. 5.5.4 Improve and make
widely available accessibility of course packs,
notes, class materials.
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Stats re Canada and Your Campus

• 12.5 of people in Canada have disabilities.

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Stats re Canada and Your Campus

• 12.5 of people in Canada have disabilities.
• How many members of your student population
  have self-identified with a disability?

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Stats re Canada and Your Campus

• 12.5 of people in Canada have disabilities.
• How many members of your student population
  have self-identified with a disability?
• As of April 30, 2003 431
• How many this Fall?

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Stats re Canada and Your Campus

• 12.5 of people in Canada have disabilities.
• How many members of your student population
  have self-identified with a disability?
• As of April 30, 2003 431
• How many this Fall?
• Note Largest number with Mental Health issues
  or Learning Disabilities

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Stats re Canada and Your Campus

• 12.5 of people in Canada have disabilities.
• How many members of your student population
  have self-identified with a disability?
• It is generally stated that only about 25 of
  all disabled students self-identify.

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Before Universal Instructional Design
there was Universal Design.

• Physical spaces
• Architecture
• Ergonomics

• City planning
• Interior design
• Engineering

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Formalized Study
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Some examples of Universal Design
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And NowUniversal Instructional Design
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Universal
Students, regardless of disabilities, personal
learning style, age or background should have
access to education. The premise within UID is
that a course designed to accommodate diverse
learners will lead to greater success for all
students, including those with disabilities.
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Instructional
While serving the needs of individual students, a
UID course maintains academic rigour even while
offering options and alternatives for delivery of
the curriculum.
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Design
A methodical approach to course design and
delivery, UID integrates all parts of the
curriculum. As the very word design implies,
is a planned, purposeful, deliberate approach to
optimizing all of the resources to serve the
students and instructors alike.
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Universally Designed Instruction

• begins with communicating objectives (learning
  outcomes).
• ensures that students have access to the
  content.
• assesses mastery of the material in multiple
  ways.

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Why Universal Instructional Design?

• Reducing barriers to receiving an education

• Anticipating and encouraging diversity

• Varied needs and capabilities as the basis for
  inclusion rather than exclusion

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And if those are not enough reasons

• Legalities in Canada
• Compliance issues

Remember Designing for accessibility usually
means better design overall for everyone
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UID Seven Principles

• Instructional materials and activities should
• be accessible and fair.
• be straightforward and consistent.
• provide flexibility in use, participation and
  presentation.
• be explicitly presented and readily perceived.
• provide a supportive learning environment.
• minimize unnecessary physical effort or
  requirements.
• ensure a learning space that accommodates both
  students and instructional methods.

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Possible Approach to Needs Analysis

• 1. Pro-actively administer the 7 Questions to
  students and to instructors.

2. Determine priorities and resources.
3. Make adjustments per reality check.
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The 7 Questions (student version)

• Did you have difficulties accessing course
  materials or participating in any essential
  activities related to this class?
• Were there major areas of confusion or
  inconsistency among course objectives, your own
  expectations and/or how the course was presented?
• Did you find that the course offered you enough
  choices in how it was presented so that you
  could, to a certain extent, approach the course
  in a way that suited your needs and abilities?
• Were there obstacles to your receiving or
  understanding the information and resources you
  needed in this course?
• Did you feel respected as a person, welcome to
  express your thoughts and able to explore new
  ideas in this course?
• While participating in this course, were there
  physical challenges or obstacles that you feel
  could have been avoided?
• Did you find any of the materials or activities
  in this course to be inappropriateor unsuitable?

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The 7 Questions (instructor version)

• Would students have difficulties accessing course
  materials or participating in any essential
  activities related to this class?
• Are there major areas of confusion or
  inconsistency among course objectives, your
  expectations and/or how the course is presented?
• Does the course offer enough choices in how it is
  presented so that a student could, to a certain
  extent, approach the course in a way that suited
  their needs and abilities?
• Are there obstacles to receiving or understanding
  the information and resources needed in this
  course?
• Do students feel respected as persons, welcome to
  express their thoughts and able to explore new
  ideas in this course?
• While students participate in this course, are
  there physical challenges or obstacles that could
  be avoided?
• Are there any materials or activities in this
  course that might be inappropriateor unsuitable
  for your students?

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Our Funded Projects

• First Year Chemistry
• French Tutorials
• Diploma in Agriculture, Applied Mathematics
• Foodservice Operations Management

• Biomedicine
• Extended Media
• Diploma in Agriculture, Agricultural
  Mechanization
• Advanced Nutrition

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Wide Range of Course Elements

• Lectures
• Quizzes
• Audio / Video
• Course and lab manuals

• Group activities
• Electronic conferencing
• Graphics and animations
• Presentation techniques

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Accessible and Fair

• Putting essential materials on-line for use with
  screen reading software such as Jaws.

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Accessible and Fair
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Straightforward and Consistent

• Consistency guides learning by providing visual
  and cognitive clues, i.e. predicting meaning and
  actions. Are the orange arrows (exaggerated in
  this screen snap) bullets or hyperlinks?

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Provide Flexibility in Use,Participation and
Presentation

Students have choices in how they can show
mastery ofthe course material.
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Be Explicitly Presentedand Readily Perceived

It is one thing to offer students alternative
file formats and quite another to tell them WHY
and HOW to use them.
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Provide a SupportiveLearning Environment

Being supportive includes encouragement to try
and making it ok not to succeed at first.
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Minimize Unnecessary PhysicalEffort or
Requirements

Students appreciated the information but found
this particular layout requires too much vertical
scrolling.
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Ensure a Learning Space that Accommodates Both
Students and Instructional Methods

• A large lecture and small group work just two
  of the many learning environments.

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Examples Funded by US Govt Grant
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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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State University of New York
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State University of New York, continued
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University of Connecticut
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University of Washington
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University of Saskatchewan
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Trent University
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Examples from Brown Universitys Ivy Access
Initiative
http//www.brown.edu/Administration/Dean_of_the_Co
llege/uid/html/what_applied.shtml
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UID at Brown

• A law faculty member developed a website that is
  "Bobby-approved."
• A biological sciences faculty member created more
  accessible lab experiences by developing teams of
  students that included both disabled and
  non-disabled students.
• A math/statistics faculty member began providing
  handouts of overheads to the entire class so that
  students could use them for reference and review.
  He also began to deliver his lectures more
  carefully, by replacing general terms like "this"
  or "that" with more specific descriptions, by
  pausing where appropriate, and by making eye
  contact with his students.

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UID at Brown

• A composition faculty member began audio taping
  his class so students could review class
  discussion and the professor's instructions about
  completing assignments.
• A foreign language professor uses puppet shows,
  role plays, velcro cards, and searches of
  computer web sites in the second language to make
  the instruction as multi-modal as possible.
• A psychology professor allowed students the
  choice of writing the final exam as a take-home
  or a 3-hour in-class final.

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UID at Brown

• A sociology professor revised her syllabus to
  specify the objectives more clearly, and added a
  research project in addition to the midterm and
  final exam in order to diversify the types of
  work that affected the final grade in the course.
• A geology professor developed computer animation
  modules to illustrate some of the key concepts in
  a course on physical hydrology. These are shown
  in class and available out of class as well.

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UID at Brown

• A computer science professor started to begin
  each class with a forecast of the key concepts to
  be discussed that day and why they are important
  in the course material (after students complained
  that they had no context for his lectures).
• An introductory physics course administers the
  midterm exams in the evening, allowing all
  students up to 2 ½ hours for a one-hour exam.

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UID at Brown

• A biology professor introduces new topics by
  asking all students to write a short essay on the
  topic, in class. Some students are better writers
  than talkers, and the professor finds that this
  practice leads to more universal participation in
  the subsequent class discussions.
• Another biology professor began using two
  overhead projectors in his lectures so he can
  leave the old slide on the screen longer.

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Supporting Faculty Development

• Instructional planning
• Course delivery
• Assessment
• Learning technologies

all from a UID perspective
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What Theyre Telling UsTeaching Assistants
they do seem so obvious and you say Well, of
course the material should be explicit and of
course it should be flexible! but the point is
that the courses are not designed that way and
thats why were here I think it will probably
always be in my mind a little bit more so than
before, just in whatever Im doing, trying to
meet the principlesjust thinking about
flexibility and the best way to do it - are there
other ways? I think just being aware of it is
what really makes a difference.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Bob Balahura Lori Jones, Chemistry 104 and 105
Lori Those principles are general enough that
you can use them throughout curriculum
development at any level...how many other courses
could you start evaluating and looking at what
simple things could be changed to therefore make
a huge impact ...it gives you direction, it gives
you a focus. Bob We've had a lot of CSD
students...The impact of UID, I think, will take
us further.... because once that's established
people will tend to follow those principlesif
you just do it once, then it can be said "Well,
that's too hard, let's do something else"then I
think you'll lose it... What we need to do is to
make it long-lastingConcentrate on the
principles, the practical principles of what UID
can achieve.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Dana Paramskas, French Tutorials
The game playing approach to self-directed
learning is important because I think it will
stick much more than it would the way we do it in
class, which is in a formalized processhad the
idea to build a Web-based game for French
students flashed through my mind earlier it
would have been so overwhelming.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Paula Brauer and Janis Randall Simpson, Nutrition
304, 404 and now also 401
I would really urge you, the UID program, to
continue. That extra little bit of money and
extra access to expertiseThere is a real aura of
legitimacy knowing that Jaellayna is there, other
courses are doing similar types of things.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Ben Hawkins, Agricultural Mechanization
I would say probably in the past we never gave
too much thought to different methods of
presentation or alternate methods...it UID
opened up our eyes and we started looking more
towards the students' perspective ... definitely
I'll be talking to the other instructors and
trying to promote some of this.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Jeff Stewart, HAFA
one thing that I find really intriguing about
UID is that it can be used as a model not just
for accessibility, but used as a model ..It the
UID poster makes it simple for somebody to
understand, this is what were trying to
accomplish here. There are some great principles
there.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Laurel Woodcock, Extended Media
A lot of students with ADD or dyslexia often end
up in the arts...When I read the principles...I
think I probably responded to different elements
of them. It the UID project has also been an
incentive to learn some new skills for myself
that I can apply in the course...I had no idea
that that would grow out it.
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What Theyre Telling Us
Theo Hunter, Applied Mathematics
We have had a number of disabled students over
the years, certainly with learning disabilities
as opposed to physicalWe know about open
learning, we know about courses on the Web, but
it seemed like a far-away thing that this is
something you have to have money to do and
certainly you have to have time to do and maybe
some help to do...And so this has opened up the
doors.
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Summary of Data, Pt. 1

• The implementation of UID characteristics has had
  a positive impact on the learning
  environment...Scores were generally higher across
  the board, including measures such as

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Summary of Data, Pt. 1

• The implementation of UID characteristics has had
  a positive impact on the learning
  environment...Scores were generally higher across
  the board, including measures such as
• the learning environment is physically
  accommodating 24
• course material is available in alternative
  formats 21
• course material is available in digital
  format 24
• professor respects the diversity of students in
  the class 21
• course material respects the diversity of
  students 15
• students have access to all parts of the
  curriculum 14

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Summary of Data, Pt. 2

• There was also a correlation between the
  implementation of UID principles and academic
  self-efficacy. In other words, the more UID
  principles were applied to the course, the
  greater the students confidence in their own
  ability to succeed. All eight measures of
  self-efficacy were significantly greater in the
  post-assessment, including

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Summary of Data, Pt. 2

• There was also a correlation between the
  implementation of UID principles and academic
  self-efficacy. In other words, the more UID
  principles were applied to the course, the
  greater the students confidence in their own
  ability to succeed. All eight measures of
  self-efficacy were significantly greater in the
  post-assessment, including
• their ability to achieve appropriate grades 21
  
• their ability to make understandable notes 20
• their level of understanding 19

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Summary of Data, Pt. 3

• The students emotional states were measured
  using PANAS positive and negative affect scale.
  The emotions measured form the preconditions to
  successful learning as well as indicate a healthy
  learning environment. Positive emotions increased
  and negative emotions decreased after UID
  implementation. These results also correlated
  with the degree of UID implementation. Measures
  that improved included

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Summary of Data, Pt. 3

• The students emotional states were measured
  using PANAS positive and negative affect scale.
  The emotions measured form the preconditions to
  successful learning as well as indicate a healthy
  learning environment. Positive emotions increased
  and negative emotions decreased after UID
  implementation. These results also correlated
  with the degree of UID implementation. Measures
  that improved included
• enthusiasm 16
• pride 16
• excitement 14
• feeling active 14
• irritability -10

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Assessment and Research

• Creating exemplary courses
• Application to future courses
• Faculty that understand UID and relate it to
  other faculty

• Research about what works or doesnt work
• General guides and information
• Reducing the need for special accommodation

Increased success for all students
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Dissemination Activities
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Resources

• http//www.tss.uoguelph.ca/uid
• Jaellayna Palmer palmerj_at_uoguelph.ca
• Interested in our listserv UID-forum ???

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Credits

• Funded by the Learning Opportunities Task Force,
  Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities,
  Government of Ontario, 2002-2003
• Source Jaellayna Palmer, University of Guelph