Overview

Faculty and instructors regularly encounter Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework in principle, but struggle to translate its three principles (engagement, representation, and action/expression) into concrete decisions about their own courses. I co-designed and co-facilitated a 60-minute synchronous workshop for OSU instructors that moved participants from reflection to self-assessment to action, built for delivery in both in-person and online synchronous formats.

Format: 60-minute synchronous session (Zoom or in-person), designed as part of Drake Institute's new instructor orientation.

Audience: OSU instructors, approx. attendance 50.

My role: Co-designer and co-facilitator.

Technology used: PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat

The Challenge

Workshops on inclusive teaching often introduce the concept, theoretical underpinnings, and its importance, but rarely provide attendees with a structure for auditing their own courses. The result is a session that changes attitudes but not practice. We needed a design that would:

• Ground abstract UDL principles in something participants could immediately apply to their own syllabus or lesson plan.

• Work equally well for instructors attending in person and those joining synchronously online.

• Move beyond materials and accessibility checklists into the harder, more personal territory of teaching identity and power-sharing in the classroom.

My Approach

1. Opened with soliciting participants' expertise. The session opened with a live Mentimeter poll asking participants to recall a specific moment an instructor made them feel welcome or included, and to name exactly what that instructor did. This surfaced participants' tacit knowledge of inclusive practice before introducing any framework, and gave us real examples to reference throughout the session.

2. Paired every UDL principle with a self-assessment tool. We distributed a UDL self-assessment checklist and had participants identify which strategies they'd already implemented versus which felt harder to adopt. This turned a conceptual overview into a personal inventory.

3. Structured the back half around a "Four Dimensions" framework. Drawing on the Drake Institute's "Four Dimensions of the Learning Environment" model, we walked participants through Content, Teaching Methods, Learners, and Teacher as four separate levers they could adjust. We also asked a targeted reflection question at each stage (e.g., "Can your students see themselves in your discipline?" for content; "How do you capture other voices in the room?" for teaching methods).

4. Built in a harder conversation about teacher identity and power. The final dimension — Teacher — used a bell hooks reading (Teaching to Transgress, 1994) on removing hierarchy from student-teacher relationships to prompt small-group discussion on sharing power in the classroom. This pushed the session beyond "accessible materials" into a more reflective register, asking participants to consider their own teaching persona.

5. Designed for two delivery contexts at once. The facilitator manual explicitly accounts for both in-person and synchronous online delivery, including live-transcription setup, breakout room logistics, and a shared virtual workspace (e.g., Jamboard or a shared doc) so that online participants had the same collaborative experience as those in the room. In effect, the session's own delivery modeled the multiple-means-of-engagement principle it was teaching.

Materials Developed

• A full facilitator's manual with minute-by-minute timing, discussion prompts, and contingency options for running short on time.

• A companion slide deck with embedded Mentimeter activities and discussion prompts.

• A UDL self-assessment checklist handout (referenced in-session, distributed separately).

Outcome & Reflection

Participants left the session with two concrete artifacts: a personal self-assessment of their course against UDL's three principles, and a reflection on their own teaching persona and approach to sharing power with students.