The Center on Disability and Community Inclusion (CDCI), Universal Design for Learning

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Photo: College students learning outdoors.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for teaching and learning that addresses the widest possible variety of learning needs, styles, and preferences. It recognizes that each of us has preferred modes of receiving and processing information or demonstrating knowledge and abilities.

Universal Design at the University of Vermont

UDL@UVM Project seeks to create opportunities for success and meaningful learning for all students, including those with learning challenges and disabilities.
Founded on the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) Principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and aligned with our growing understanding of the three cognitive networks, UDL@UVM consultations are changing teaching and learning, one course at a time.
This video introduces a collaborative consultation model designed to assist faculty to design teaching strategies that are based on the neuroscience of learnig. Two students, Louise Contino and Anna Holland-Levine, a faculty member, Sheila Boland Chira, now using UDL practices, and UVM's president, Daniel Fogel, share their perspectives on UDL for UVM.

An introduction to the guiding philosophy of UDL as it pertains to students in higher education. Also, a look at the UDL @ UVM consultation model with remarks from former UVM President Dan Fogel and other UVM faculty.

Walk through the consultation of an English course with Professor Sheila Boland Chira as she describes what it was like for her to have a consult on her course with the UDL @ UVM Consultation Team. She discusses the steps she took and the tools she used to make her instruction more universal and engaging for her students.

Listen to UVM students as they talk about why more higher education faculty should consider Universal Design for Learning principles in their course instruction.

Two University of Vermont students speak out on what teaching strategies work best for them.

Inclusion within the physical environment sometimes requires us to shift our thinking. Deborah Lisi-Baker, long time universal design advocate and UVM Center for Disabilities and Community Inclusion staff member, tells us a story about a group of students waiting to enter a building that is blocked by snow. What do you shovel first, the ramp or the stairs?