Using UDL to Encourage Wider Student Engagement

Maybe you’ve experienced it before: after the start of the term, students get familiar with course mechanics, settle in, and start asking deeper questions about the course content. When a course seems to find its rhythm like this, it feels great. However, it’s important to look out for students who might not be engaging as much and keep shaping courses so they invite contributions from everyone. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework offers concrete and discipline-agnostic considerations to expand meaningful participation. Here’s a quick look at how you can start to apply UDL principles, without adding too much to student or instructor to-do lists.

The first step is to pay attention. If you’re teaching face to face, take a day to observe how many students participate and which kinds of activities inspire the widest engagement. Or, analytics built into iCollege can help you make similar observations in your online courses. Based on your observations, reflect on what barriers might be preventing engagement.

Where you spot potential engagement issues, consider allowing students to choose how they participate and contribute. A student’s choice to engage in learning experiences is influenced by many things. Maybe some students feel more welcome and honored than others in their learning environment. Some may have negative histories with public evaluation or feedback. Others may not see the connection between required engagements and their values and goals. Each individual responds to social demands in different ways. UDL reminds us that we can’t use a ‘one size fits all’ approach to create meaningful engagement across the widest possible group of learners. However, many potential issues can be solved by starting with a commitment to providing learners more agency in the classroom. This can be done, without disrupting routines and creating a mountain of extra work for you or your students, by building opportunities for choice into existing activities. For example, students could choose formats for a discussion assignment. Rather than asking students to talk on the spot in a live class session, they could have the option to pre-record a video or to share their reflections after class. Online students could choose between several prompts or choose to develop and share questions of their own. My colleague, Jennifer Hall, offers more suggestions in her recent post. Check it out!

Growing student engagement in your courses is a long-term process, nourished by trying new things and collaborating. Commit to regularly seeking advice from colleagues, build regular opportunities for student feedback into your course, and dig deeper into how you might facilitate more universal engagement through UDL Guidelines: Multiple Means of Engagement. Keep an eye on the CETLOE blog to learn more about engagement tools and strategies, or set up an appointment to talk to a CETLOE expert. Whatever you do, keep exploring ways to make sure participation opportunities work for all your students.