Based on the Los Angeles County Office of Education's 2-day in-person workshop, this course will support participants to learn everything they need to begin their UDL journey. The course contains content in a variety of formats, review exercises to reinforce learning, and quizzes to ensure you have the foundational knowledge to move through the sections. 

This course has been created with assistance from members of the CA UDL Coalition, including the Santa Clara County Office of Education and the Supporting Inclusive Practices program. The videos derived from the live UDL Boot Camp were funded by the California Department of Education, Special Education Division. Finally, this course has benefited from insights and feedback from the wonderful people at CAST.

Many of the learning materials educators use in the classroom are self-created. This has been made possible by the greater availability and improved ease of use of authoring tools. These tools now often include options for adding accessibility into the content creation workflow, and standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide guidance for how to do so. WCAG, which is now at version 2.1, is the international standard for making web content accessible. It is the foundation for many national accessibility laws, including Section 508 in the U.S.

The WCAG guidelines are written in technical language that can be confusing to even veteran developers. Fortunately, they can be distilled into a set of simpler principles, as captured by the acronym POUR, that define four qualities of an accessible user experience.

Aspects of learning, including attention, memory and decision making, are inextricably integrated with emotion networks.  Emotion is central to cognition. In addition, there is variability in engagement; what motivates and encourages one student to persist through challenges will differ from that of another student, and will even differ within the same individual at different times. Knowing how essential emotion is for learning, how can educators use the UDL framework to design lessons that support variability in engagement? How can they measure engagement to reflect on progress towards the deeper learning goals that are desired at a classroom, school, and district level? This resource presents initial reflections from a Massachusetts school district implementing the UDL framework in order to achieve improvement in student engagement.

This conference proceeding describes implementation of a UDL coaching methodology at the Oakland Intermediate School District and Farmington Public Schools.  Readers will learn how UDL coaches support student learning by mentoring general education teachers and building student-centered environments. The model is based on a three-pronged approach to address barriers at the district, building, and classroom levels. UDL coaching provides a blueprint for districts to establish innovative classroom practices that help make curriculum accessible to all students.

In today’s complex and dynamic classrooms, educators know they will be supporting students with very diverse learning needs. It can be challenging to craft learning opportunities that meet the needs of such a wide variety of learners. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to curriculum design that can help address the challenge. This course is designed to introduce the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) educational framework. By completing this course, you will gain an understanding of the basic principles of UDL, how to implement a variety of UDL strategies, and become part of a Professional Learning Community striving to improve teaching practice.

How to use this resource:

This course can completed many different ways.

• You can work through the course as a self-directed study, setting your own pace and accessing the course whenever or wherever you wish
• A school team interested in implementing UDL can work together according to an agreed-upon schedule. For example, individuals could explore a module and then come together, physically or virtually, to discuss and extend their learning
• If you are facilitating learning opportunities in your school or district to help educators develop knowledge of UDL, you can use the course curriculum and resources as part of your own face-to-face or eLearning course