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Universal Design for Instruction

Universal Design for Instruction (not Universal Instructional Design or Universal Design for Learning) is an approach to teaching that involves the proactive design of instructional materials, strategies, and assessments to meet the diverse learning needs of students with and without disabilities in postsecondary education. Nine principles derived in part from Universal Design principles in architecture are used in planning and delivering course content and assessing learning outcomes. By planning in advance for the various learning needs of students, Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) makes course content more accessible to all students and lessens the need for accommodations for specific learners.

Universal Design
Universal Design is a framework first developed by Ronald Mace and his colleagues at North Carolina State University. This concept involves anticipating the physical needs of diverse consumers and designing buildings and other items to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible. By proactively anticipating diversity in users and designing environments and products to be accessible, there is less need to retrofit accommodations since usability by the public has been broadened by removing barriers.

Making a product or environment accessible to people with disabilities often benefits others. For example, sidewalk curb cuts, designed to make sidewalks and streets accessible to those using wheelchairs, are today often used by people on skateboards, parents with baby strollers, and delivery staff with rolling carts. When television displays in noisy areas of airports and restaurants are captioned, they are more accessible to people who are deaf as well as everyone else.http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm

The principles of Universal Design are :
 * 1) 1.	Equitable Use
 * 2) 2.	Flexibility in Use
 * 3) 3.	Simple and Intuitive Use
 * 4) 4.	Perceptible Information
 * 5) 5.	Tolerance for Error
 * 6) 6.	Low Physical Effort
 * 7) 7.	Size and Space for Approach and Use

Examples of products or spaces that reflect the principles of Universal Design are :

Universal Design for Instruction
Universal Design for Instruction is based on the application of the principles of UD to the design and delivery of course material and the process of assessment. UDI is an approach to teaching that consists of the proactive design and use of inclusive instructional strategies that benefit a broad range of learners including students with disabilities. This framework can minimize the need for “special” accommodations and retrofitted changes to the learning environment. Universal Design for Instruction operates on the premise that the planning and delivery of instruction, as well as the evaluation of learning, can incorporate inclusive attributes that embrace diversity in learners without compromising academic standards. UDI changes “the focus on how to meet the needs of students with disabilities from a focus on compliance, accommodations, and nondiscrimination to an emphasis on teaching and learning.”

Principles of Universal Design for Instruction©
In addition to the seven principles that are adapted from the UD principles of the Center on Universal Design (CUD) at North Carolina State University, two additional principles are included: a community of learners and instructional climate. These additions were based on an extensive literature review on postsecondary instruction and reflect the social nature of learning environments that are critical to address during the course design process. The Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability at the University of Connecticut has provided a definition for each principle as it relates to the instructional environment.

Applying the Principles of UDI to Online and Blended Courses
The UDI Online Project team at the University of Connecticut has developed examples of ways the Principles of UDI© can be applied to the design of instructional material for online and/or blended courses :

Other Applications of Universal Design
In addition to the field of architecture, the concept of anticipating diversity among users and designing features to make environments and products accessible by a broad range of people has relevance to other fields, most notably, education. Additional initiatives to extend the concept of universal design to education have emerged, and they are described in order to delineate other approaches to accessible instructional environments. Beginning in the 1980’s, the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), a not-for-profit organization, has engaged in efforts “to expand learning opportunities for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, through the research and development of innovative, technology-based educational resources and strategies”. CAST’s approach is based upon Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with a particular focus on students in the K-12 system and the use of technology to support the goal of differentiated instruction. Another initiative funded at the University of Guelph in Canada was a two year project to study universal instructional design (UID), a model used by faculty who applied the seven principles from North Carolina State University’s Center for Universal Design (CUD). Although this study’s funding ended in 2003, preliminary results showed a significant relationship between the level of UID in a course and students’ sense of self-efficacy. A third approach is Universal Design of Instruction, the model proposed by the Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT) Center at the University of Washington. Checklists based on the seven principles of universal design (UD) are available for the application of UD not only to instruction but also to technology, student services, higher education facilities, and computing labs. Finally, Universal Design in Education (UDE) is the phrase proposed by Bowe in 2000 meaning “the preparation of curricula, materials, and environments so that they can be used, appropriately and with ease, by a wide variety of people.” He suggested ways that UDE could be applied across the educational continuum including continuing and adult education. While each of these approaches is grounded in the work of the CUD at North Carolina State University, implementation initiatives as well as guiding principles are not uniform.

Universal Design

 * http://www.universaldesign.org/
 * http://www.adaptiveenvironments.org/index.php?option=Content&Itemid=3
 * http://www.makoa.org/accessable-design.htm

Principles of Universal Design for Instruction:

 * http://www.udi.uconn.edu/index.php?q=content/introduction-universal-design-instruction
 * http://www.udi.uconn.edu/index.php?q=content/universal-design-instruction-module
 * http://ualr.edu/pace/index.php/home/hot-topics/ud/
 * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY6PhtCLrTg
 * http://www.cuyamaca.edu/instsupport/pdf/universal_design_of_instruction.pdf

Application of the Principles of Universal Design for Instruction

 * http://www.facultyware.uconn.edu/files/UDI_principles.pdf
 * http://udi.uconn.edu/index.php?q=node/16
 * http://www.portals.emory.edu/udi_pdf/instruction.pdf
 * UDI Online Project. (2010). Universal Design for Instruction Module. Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability, University of Connecticut, Storrs. http://www.udi.uconn.edu/index.php?q=content/universal-design-instructio....

Universal Design for Learning

 * http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html

Universal Design of Instruction

 * http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Academics/instruction.html