Hidden Treasure: Universal Design Practices in Post-Pandemic Engineering Education

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused drastic change in the way post-secondary educational institutions deliver instruction. Schools and their faculty have been compelled to acknowledge their students’ individual challenges when designing instruction, or else face steep drops in enrollment.  Many of the instructional adaptations that make it possible for students to continue their learning amid the isolation of social distancing, the disruption of quarantines, and the increased burdens of caregiving can be considered universal design practices—they take into account a spectrum of variability in a student’s ability to access learning.  In this webinar, we will identify some “hidden treasure” among the wreckage of the pandemic:  universal design practices that benefit students who face a variety of challenges, including stereotype threat, social capital deficits, and neurological differences.  Specifically, we will examine the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and identify practices that broaden access to engineering education.