Universal Design for Learning (UDL) involves a proactive process of designing learning experiences in order to achieve the highest level of functionality and positive user experience for the widest audience possible. In order for UDL to be effective, it requires purposeful consideration and strategy in all areas of course planning and design.

As Dr. Stephanie Rosen explained:

"UDL assumes that all students are different from each other and that variations in abilities, backgrounds, needs, and preferences are normal and to be expected. It therefore emphasizes flexibility and redundancy to better serve a range of diverse learners.

UDL is not just a set of strategies that can be applied; it is a critical approach that always asks who might be excluded or disadvantaged by a particular format or approach, and imagines alternatives that are more accessible and flexible."

Research Basis

Although inspired by the Universal Design movement of art and architecture, the research basis for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) more directly emerges from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, educational psychology, teaching and learning, and related fields. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), a non-profit research organization that spearheads UDL research, explains the development of UDL framework in this way:

"UDL is based upon the most widely replicated finding in educational research: learners are highly variable in their response to instruction. In virtually every report of research on instruction or intervention, individual differences are not only evident in the results; they are prominent. However, these individual differences are usually treated as sources of annoying error variance as distractions from the more important “main effects.” UDL, on the other hand, treats these individual differences as an equally important focus of attention. In fact, when viewed through the UDL framework these findings are fundamental to understanding and designing effective instruction." - CAST (2018)

According to research conducted by CAST, learning occurs as a result of the interaction of three brain networks: recognition networks, strategic networks, and affective networks. In order to activate and address these three brain networks in the process of learning (and knowing that these systems don’t work identically in any two people), UDL proposes that we must provide for multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement in order to create conditions for learning that better account for individual student differences.

CREDITS: Some information on this page is adapted by CRLT from CCBY-SA AccessMOOC. Additionally, some elements used by AccessMOOC is by permission of The Ohio State University Distance Learning team.