Bringing together educators and learning experts, it was an opportunity to take a deeper dive into UDL and complementary frameworks like community building and empowerment to improve learning across professional development and higher education ecosystems. 

As a sponsor for the event, we were excited to sit in on some great conversations and hear fresh perspectives on continuous improvement, inclusive pedagogy, and more, while sharing a bit of our own mission to deliver inclusive, engaging, and accessible digital-enabled learning experiences for all.

Conference highlights

A snapshot of two attendees interacting during a networking session at a previous annual CAST UDL symposium.

• Unpacking Nicole Tucker-Smith’s keynote speech on cultivating brave spaces by designing from diverse perspectives
• Discovering the concept of the science of hope and how it impacts learning from Cathleen Stocktill-Beachboard
• Participating in a continuous improvement activity with Alia Latorre
• Digesting Humberto Hernandez’s insights into inclusive pedagogies

Takeaways from the 9th annual CAST UDL Symposium 2023

Diversity and intersectionality collectively drive change and innovation.

Nicole Tucker-Smith set the scene with a powerful keynote speech on designing from diverse perspectives, noting that the power of intersectionality is required to solve problems on a large scale. Among her references was a study showing the impact of diversity on the scientific community and how it resulted in improved problem-solving, specialization, objectivity, and more.

To conclude her speech, Nicole shared some concrete ideas about how to design learning environments free from limits:

• We embrace and showcase learner variability when we give learners a wide range of options, including aspirational ones.
• Diverse strategies make learning more effective. Consider storytelling, holistic thinking, systems approach, and analogies. 
• Be proactive in setting learning outcomes, and ensure the design of your learning programs empowers participants to meet them. Designing for learner variability takes into account individual and cultural characteristics.

Learners thrive when we prioritize their strengths.

Cathleen Stocktill-Beachboard’s session was centred around the science of hope and how it impacts learning. In particular, she focused on positive framing: Learning shouldn’t be something to endure; rather, it should be a positive experience that empowers learners to enhance their capabilities and gain confidence in their learning journeys.

Cathleen highlighted that the onus for learning is not just on the learner—education and training experts can do a lot to set learners up for success. In order to make learning more effective, she suggested strategies like enabling reflection, feedback, and goal setting, as well as: 

• making the subject matter relatable to the learner’s perspective and objectives
• providing additional resources and a community of practice to give learners a path forward when they run into challenges
• empowering learners with agency and choice so they can take ownership of their learning journey

Continuous improvement is a key ingredient to successful learning programs.

Whether you’re running onboarding programs or employee training, continuous improvement in learning and development can be a valuable practice in building learning tools and pathways to help learners bridge theory to practice.

 But how do you implement continuous improvement and ensure your learning programs continue to meet the desired levels of impact across the organization? 

In a continuous improvement activity with Alia Latorre, we practiced answering three questions to assess and drive continuous improvement: 

1. What problem are we trying to solve?
2. What change might we introduce and why?
3. How will we know that a change is actually an improvement?

There’s more to inclusive training than accommodations.

In his talk about facilitating inclusive teaching, Humberto Hernandez pointed out the barriers disenfranchised learners experience in programs across the United States. 

For instance, the term “inclusivity” is often associated with accommodations and “making room” for others, but it’s more than that. Inclusivity, especially in learning environments, involves welcoming users through language, design, and engagement. We can achieve this outcome through a deliberate and proactive process that not only designs for but also designs with diverse users.

Another barrier is that learning programs are mostly facilitated by subject matter experts who have limited experience in instructional design and learning science, and therefore can face challenges in applying inclusive practices in a learning environment.

The solution to these barriers mirrors our approach to course design, which includes:

• challenging traditional methods of learning by reviewing educational foundations and processes
• bringing subject matter experts and learning experts together to combine their expertise in building effective learning programs
• making digital learning environments more human by including options to engage with other learners and providing opportunities for learners to apply and contextualize courses in relation to their work and lives

The CAST UDL Symposium 2023 was an excellent opportunity to explore UDL best practices and other evidence-based frameworks that empower learners to move from theory to practice.

We look forward to next year’s symposium and the chance to connect with more of you as we continue to work to advance the goals of UDL.

Interested in learning more about how UDL can help you reach your organization’s training goals?

Over the years, we have set new standards of learning through projects that prioritize the UDL principles of Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression.

Learn how we helped George Brown College build UDL capacity at scale across Ontario institutions.

The post CAST UDL Symposium 2023 Recap appeared first on Say Yeah!.

This symposium offers the opportunity to take a deeper dive into Universal Design for Learning best practices and consider connections between UDL and education topics like learner empowerment, social justice, and community building. 

The 2023 edition of the CAST UDL Symposium will highlight UDL case studies and explore strategies to make UDL a common and prevalent practice in education. As eLearning innovators dedicated to prioritizing learner variability, we’re excited to share our perspective on practices that complement and advance the goals of UDL.

Catch these exciting talks at the CAST UDL Symposium:

• Cultivating Brave Spaces by Designing from Diverse Perspectives with Nicole Tucker-Smith 
• From Single Vision to Transition Lenses: UDL Is Maturing with Loui Lord Nelson
• UDL at work with James Mckenna
• Empowering Learners and Minimizing Barriers with iPad Accessibility Tools with Tolulope, (Tolu) Noah

Explore the event schedule

Save your seat!

You don’t want to miss this chance to explore the potential benefits of UDL in your higher education and professional learning programs. 

Get tickets for virtual access starting at $399 USD and in-person tickets at $799 USD.

Register today!

Looking to develop and deliver eLearning programs that meet the needs of all your learners?

Using our variable learning model, we can help you deliver flexible and engaging online courses that account for learner diversity and variability.

Get in touch

The post CAST UDL Symposium, July 31-August 1, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

Tune in to The Journey of Inclusive Design, a one-hour online event that will be held by Sketch on June 9, 2022.

Don’t miss this talk by Sarrah Solomon, UX Designer at Oracle, and Dr. Shadeequa (Dee) Miller, Head of Inclusive Design & Product Equity at Visa.

This talk will explore how to make your designs more inclusive and accessible, uncovering the myths around inclusive design, and explaining the difference between universal design, accessibility, and inclusive design.

View the full event details

Don’t miss out

Join this virtual event for free.

Register here

Need help getting started with an inclusive design process?

At Say Yeah, inclusivity and accessibility are top of mind when it comes to design. Not only does inclusive design yield products and services that are easier to use for everyone, but it’s also the key to reaching and engaging with your entire market. Check out our approach to inclusive design and reach out to see how we can help.

Get in touch

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The three main philosophies or methodologies that focus on extending access and inclusion for products and services are universal design, accessibility, and inclusive design.

Let’s break down where these processes overlap and how they differ in approach and implementation.

What do these terms mean?

Universal design

Universal design is a method of designing—based on seven universal design principles (as described below)—that works to make environments, services, and products, usable by the highest number of people. Some universal design principles include flexible use, simple use, and tolerances for error. Oriented around all of these principles is the goal of removing barriers for all users.

When using this design philosophy, designers create a single solution designed to reach the most people, without the need to supplement the solution in order to accommodate for people with different needs.

Universal design has its origins in architecture and industrial design but has recently expanded to include digital products and services.

Accessibility

Accessibility is focused on ensuring that there are no barriers to serving someone, through creating accommodations that solve a technical, design, physical, or cognitive barrier to engaging with a product or service.

Accessibility also includes testing the usability of products for different groups and implementing changes that help all users. This includes factors like environment, behaviour, contexts, and more. Strong accessibility processes use ongoing evaluation and user testing to maintain and expand use of accessible products and services. And true accessibility not only goes beyond serving people who are often commonly referred to as ‘disabled’ but helps improve access for everyone.

Accessibility advocates often describe inclusive design as providing access to product and services for people with recognized disabilities, but inclusive design is so much more than serving people of different abilities.

Inclusive design

Inclusive design is a method or philosophy of designing that means welcoming diverse people to engage authentically with your organization, products, and services. It considers cultural, social, and other needs, which extend past those of the perceived ‘average’ or ‘typical’ user. It complies with legal accessibility codes, considers content itself (clear language and non-exclusionary language), and takes into account usability.

Inclusive design is about engaging authentically with the diverse people who make up markets and audiences, it is not only about accessible accommodations and serving individual edge cases.

Inclusive design helps us understand complex intersectional needs, and provides diverse segments of the market access to products and services. The outcomes of following an inclusive design process include reaching more of your current market, opening up new markets, and reducing the risk of alienating potential markets and users.

Universal design vs inclusive design

Inclusive design focuses on exploring ways of serving a full spectrum of people who make up a diverse market. This may involve different solutions or processes for different groups of people, rather than a one size fits all approach.

In comparison, universal design serves the broadest range of users possible, rather than trying to address individual accessibility or inclusion objectives. Typically, universal design doesn’t provide additional support for ‘edge cases’, instead, providing a single solution that serves the most extensive possible user base, without added accommodations.

Additionally, universal design has historically focused on places and architecture and recently been applied to products. Whereas inclusive design can be applied to each of these areas as well as systems and services.

The principles of universal design: equitable use, flexibility in use,  simple and intuitive use, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, size and space for approach and use. From the Interaction Design Foundation. © Center for Universal Design, NC State, 2011. All rights reserved.

Inclusive design vs accessibility

Accessibility primarily takes into account making an equivalent experience in physical or digital space for those with disabilities, usually through accommodations like keyboard navigation, curb cuts, captions, and many other methods. For the web, this involves following different standards for accessibility, including keyboard navigation, screen reader accessibility, and more, while user testing these solutions to make sure they provide an equivalent experience for all users.

Inclusive design extends solutions to all users who have a broad spectrum of intersectional needs, perspectives, and behaviours, rather than solely creating accommodations for specific disabilities. It focuses on a more holistic group of solutions and processes, taking into account identities, culture, and diverse perspectives in a design process of research and co-design.

Accessibility doesn’t necessarily take into account different identities, cultures, or perspectives, and focuses more on adapting content to support different modes of interaction and engagement.

The three dimensions of inclusive design. From the Inclusive Design Institute.

Considering universal design, inclusive design, and accessibility is key to making products and services that are not only functional, but delightful for all.

Because inclusive design considers accessibility and serves a broader spectrum of people with more intention than universal design, we are proponents of an approach to product and service design that is lead by inclusive design processes.

Not sure how to get started with inclusive design?

Check out our recommended approach to inclusive design, or get in touch to explore how we can work together.

Get in touch

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