UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN (UID)

ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS CODE

The Ontario Human Rights code provides an important document "Guidelines on Accessible Education " (November 2004) http://www.ohrc.on.ca/english/publications/accessible-education-guide.shtml which explains the duties of educators in Ontario schools to provide appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities, and it also promotes "inclusive design".

 

In order to ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to education, academic facilities, programs, policies, and services must be structured and designed for inclusiveness. This means education providers have an obligation to be aware of both the differences between students and differences that characterize groups of individuals when making design choices so as not to create barriers. This approach is referred to as “inclusive design” or “universal design”(Guidelines on Accessible Education, Nov. 2004)

GETTING STARTED WITH UID

Recent initiatives, mostly at the post secondary level, have taken earlier work about Universal Design and come up with the seven principles of "Universal Instruction Design" (UID) based upon the following premises:

UNIVERSAL

The premise within UID is that a course designed to accommodate diverse learners will lead to greater success for all students, including those with disabilities.

INSTRUCTIONAL

While serving the needs of individual students, a UID course maintains academic rigour even while offering options and alternatives for delivery of the curriculum.

DESIGN

A methodical approach to course design and delivery, UID integrates all parts of the curriculum. As the very word “design” implies, is a planned, purposeful, deliberate approach to optimizing all of the resources to serve the students and instructors alike.

(from presentation by Jaellayna Palmer, University of Guelph)

SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Instructional materials and activities should…

 

 

FURTHER INFORMATION

A good place to start learning about "Universal Instructional Design" is at the CAST website. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) is a "non-profit education and research and development organization that uses technology to make education more flexible and accessible for all students, especially those with disabilities". Please view their web site related to Universal Design for Learning: http://www.cast.org/

Then, you might be interested in reading the book "Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age : Universal Design for Learning", David H. Rose and Anne Meyer with Nicole Strangman and Gabrielle Rappolt.

This book is available for purchase, and is also available for reading online at: :http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

The "Teaching Every Student" section of this site also contains useful resources: http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/

Other starting points for information about Universal Instructional Design are available from the University of Guelph UID site: http://www.tss.uoguelph.ca/uid