Discover how Universal Design for Learning can make large STEM courses more accessible, flexible, and inclusive. This session shares practical strategies for content delivery, interaction, and assessment from a large, blended physics course. Engage in interactive discussion and leave with adaptable ideas to address challenges and improve access and engagement.

STEM courses are often perceived as rigid and high-pressure, characterized by dense content, inflexible structures, and high-stakes testing. These traditional models frequently disadvantage students who are balancing work and family, are underprepared, or struggle to adapt to course expectations. This session offers a counter-narrative grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), showing how intentional design can make even large physics courses more accessible, flexible, and supportive.

Drawing on CAST’s UDL Guidelines (2024), this session highlights how a physics faculty member and an instructional designer implement UDL’s three principles of offering multiple means of 1) engagement, 2) representation, and 3) action and expression. UDL course design aims to create learning environments that give all students equal opportunities to succeed by offering flexibility and options to meet diverse needs, interests, and abilities. Students in UDL-enhanced learning environments report a 24% increase in satisfaction, an 8% increase in retention, and a 59% increase in course interaction (Garrad & Nolan, 2023). By showcasing specific changes in blended physics courses, such as course structure, materials, grading, support, and instructor presence, we will demonstrate how these results can be replicated in other courses.

To support engagement, we’ll share how the course grading system was modified to reduce pressure and promote persistence. The current course design includes more frequent, lower-stakes assessments, many opportunities for ungraded practice, and assessments that allow multiple attempts. This approach supports students' emotional regulation and executive functioning while encouraging sustained effort. It also provides multiple opportunities for feedback and growth and is applicable to any course or modality.

We will also share strategies for reinforcing a strong sense of community and instructor presence, which is often underdeveloped in large STEM courses. Research shows that teacher presence not only increases retention but improves students’ sense of belonging and academic support (Stone & Springer, 2019; Ismailov & Ciu, 2022). These engagement strategies align with UDL considerations of fostering belonging and community to support learners.

To support action and expression, the course structure was reorganized to improve clarity and flexibility. Self-paced learning with embedded opportunities to check understanding, along with no-cost instructional materials, allows students with work, family, or other demands to access content in a way that fits their schedules. Offering a self-paced structure has been shown to increase students’ perceptions of intellectual stimulation and overall course satisfaction (Garrad & Nolan, 2023). Additionally, these efforts align with the UDL consideration of organizing information and resources and optimizing access to accessible materials and tools. Session attendees will see how these design choices were implemented in a large, blended physics course and consider how similar structures might support flexibility in their own courses.

Finally, we will share simple, high-impact ways of offering multiple methods of representing information. The blended course we will showcase includes a free, openly licensed online textbook and other instructional materials, such as videos, animations, and simulations, to support multiple ways to gain new knowledge. Additionally, the syllabus and course navigation were revised to ensure all expectations are transparent and easy to find. These strategies improve equity and clarity without requiring major structural changes. Participants will recieve examples of various strategies to represent information and syllabus language they can immediately adapt for their own courses.

Throughout the session, we will provide examples of the syllabus and course content in the Canvas LMS, showing exactly how specific UDL considerations were translated into strategically designed course components. We will use real-time polling and interactive discussion prompts to surface ideas and experiences from participants so that they can connect our examples and UDL principles to their own courses. Participants will contribute to a shared list of common instructional challenges and explore UDL-aligned solutions, resulting in a collaborative takeaway they can apply to their own courses.

Participants will leave with resources such as a UDL checklist for syllabus design, a summary handout of the strategies implemented in the physics courses (categorized by UDL principle), and access to presentation resources for future reference. Whether you are new to UDL or looking to deepen your application of it, this session offers practical and scalable strategies to improve learner outcomes and equity in STEM education.

References

CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org

Garrad, T.-A., & Nolan, H. (2023). Rethinking higher education unit design: Embedding Universal Design for Learning in online studies. Student Success, 14(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.2300

Ismailov, M., & Chiu, T. K. F. (2022). Catering to inclusion and diversity with Universal Design for Learning in asynchronous online education: A self-determination theory perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 819884–819884. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.819884

Stone, C., & Springer, M. (2019). Interactivity, connectedness and ’teacher-presence’: Engaging and retaining students online. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 59(2), 146–169.