Design
Providing learning that is authentic, meaningful and relevant by recognising the needs and perspectives of all learners, and designing for all
The Cardiff University Inclusive Education Enhancement Model has a series of key targets for enhancing design which draw on research and sector recommendations.
Enhancement Model Targets for Design:
- Learning and assessment is student-centred and interactive, promoting on-going opportunities for students to make choices about the curriculum, teaching approaches and assessment practices.
- There are learning opportunities on all modules and assessments on the programme where students bring their own experiences to learning related to diversity and inclusion issues or local or international communities
There are two approaches which can enable us to develop inclusive education: Universal Design for Learning and Culturally-Sustaining Pedagogy.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Moriarty (2016) suggests that the principles of UDL prompt institutions to embed anticipatory adjustments in the design of curricula that are flexible, adaptable to multiple forms of engagement and therefore facilitate all student learning. These anticipatory adjustments, by their very nature, apply to ALL students: ‘What is essential for some students is beneficial for all’.
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
The students in our classrooms arrive with a diverse set of learning needs and a range of cultural experiences and identities. Learning must be looked at within the context and the culture in which they occur. Culture has been defined in many ways, for example, ‘shared patterns of behaviours and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group’ (Hanesworth et al. 2019: 1)
Multiple levels of awareness are necessary for teachers to be culturally responsive. This includes knowledge of personal biases, students’ backgrounds/strengths, how the learning environment should build from students’ strengths; and how to bring about change in education systems.
Instructional planning using UDL is further enhanced when acknowledging how race, cultural, and linguistic differences could affect students’ learning (Kieran and Anderson 2019). The new Universal Design for Learning guidelines (2024), version 3.0, incorporate culturally sustaining pedagogies.
You can read more about these concepts on the Universal Design for Learning and Developing Inclusive Mindsets pages.
How can YOU use Inclusive Design and Universal Design for learning?
Session Design: Reflect on the student experience of learning and teaching
Go to the detailed UDL guidelines by reading them on the CAST website and identify aspects of your teaching or organisation of teaching that you would re-design to ensure you are employing universal design for learning, for each of the three areas of engagement, representation, and action and expression. You may wish to click on each bullet point for ideas which might resonate for your teaching.
Complete this Reflective Session Plan Activity:
Activity: Reflective Session Plan: Designing your teaching inclusively
Reflective Session Plan Activity
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Write a plan for a session you might deliver.
Identify the teaching strategies used in the session, alongside the formative assessment task you will employ to demonstrate students have met the learning outcomes (this might be a quiz, feedback from discussion, or completion of practical task).
You might like to use this template:
| Title: | Duration: | |||||
| Aim: | Learning Outcomes: By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to: |
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| Notes for inclusive practice and diversity: |
Location: | |||||
| Duration/Time | Teaching strategy and content |
Resource | Student Activity |
Tutor Notes |
Assessment | |
| Introduction | ||||||
| Conclusion | ||||||
2. Identify barriers to learning: Task Analysis
In order to remove barriers and inequalities in education, we firstly need to identify the barriers to learning we create in our teaching strategies, and the students who might be excluded by these practices, in order to make the changes needed to our educational practice to ensure social justice and equality. Every task we ask students to perform can create potential barriers for some students.
In the left-hand column, list the teaching activities for a session you might teach. Then in the next columns identify the student activity involved, thinking carefully about what students are actually required to do. Then list the barriers to learning that may be created, and the students who may be impacted.
An example of a face-to-face lecture is given below.
| Teaching strategy | Student activity | Barriers to learning | Students who may be impacted | Solutions |
| Face to face lectures | Listening | Cognitive processing | Students with cognitive processing issues or who are deaf | |
| Taking notes | Writing skills and speed
Large social space |
Dyslexic student. Students with English as an additional language.
Students with hypersensitivity or anxiety |
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| Sitting for an hour | Sitting comfortably for an hour | Students with health conditions | ||
| Small group discussion with peers | Social interaction in groups | Students with autism or anxiety. |
3. Access these personas
These were created in a Cardiff University whole school inclusive education workshop. Select one or more personas to act as examples. For the persona(s) selected, identify any additional barriers to learning for these students, which have been created by the teaching strategies and assessment you have written.
4. Identify the solutions
Using the principles of UDL, identify some potential solutions to the barriers you identified in the previous reflection, by suggesting some changes to your practice.
Here is an example of some solutions to the barriers to learning identified in face-to-face lectures:
- Recording with captions provided after the session (Representation)
Recording and summary slides, videos or audio explanations of complex topics covered (Representation) - Recording or asynchronous resources provided, quiet pauses for reflection or tasks (Engagement)
Reassurance that movement or leaving the session is allowed (Engagement)
Clear instructions for group tasks, choice in who and how feed back is given, and working alone allowed (Action and expression)
5. Re-write your session plan
Apply your solutions for your personas to your plan, and note any additional considerations identified in the Tutor Notes and Notes for inclusive practice and diversity sections.
While consideration of one persona might not result in a vast number of changes, consideration of all 6 in the document might suggest a suite of changes. When applied, together these will ensure you have designed an inclusive, culturally sensitive session.
Where Next?
Map of Topics
Below is a map of the toolkit and workshop topics, to aid your navigation. These will be developed and added to in future iterations of this toolkit.
You’re on page 4 of 9 Inclusivity theme pages. Explore the others here:
1.Inclusivity and the CU Inclusive Education Framework
2.Introduction to Inclusive Education
3.Fostering a sense of belonging for all students
4.Empowering students to fulfil their potential
5.Developing inclusive mindsets
6.Universal Design for Learning