UDL Beyond the Classroom

Have you ever thought, “Why is this designed this way?”

Think about the last time you encountered a frustrating process at work. Maybe you couldn't figure out where to find something. Maybe the instructions made sense only if you already knew the system. Maybe you had to click through three places to complete a task that should have taken one.

You probably didn't immediately think, I'm the problem here. You were more likely to think, Why is this designed this way?

That's one of the shifts we're going to make in this course.

When people hear Universal Design for Learning, they often jump straight to the classroom: accessible course materials, assignment choices, captions, flexible participation, or different ways students can demonstrate learning. Those practices matter. But students do not experience a college one classroom at a time. They register, navigate websites, read emails, use technology, meet with advisors, complete forms, attend orientation, interpret policies, and seek support.

That's where scaling UDL becomes important. This course is going to help you notice those connections and turn them into practical action.

What the evidence adds: The research base for UDL is encouraging but not uniform. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis found positive effects across 13 empirical studies while also reporting considerable heterogeneity, and a 2024 systematic review emphasized implementation challenges and the importance of theoretical alignment (Almeqdad et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2024). That is why this course treats UDL as an evidence-informed framework for iterative design rather than a promise that one strategy will produce the same result in every setting.

First, what are we actually scaling?

If you already know UDL, you may be tempted to move quickly through this part. Stay with me for a few minutes because the framework changed in 2024, and those changes matter for the way we're going to think about institutional practice.

CAST's UDL Guidelines 3.0 still organize design around Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression. The stated goal is learner agency: learners becoming more purposeful and reflective, resourceful and authentic, and strategic and action-oriented (CAST, 2024b).

Version 3.0 also gives greater attention to identity, belonging, bias, and barriers rooted in systems of exclusion. CAST explains that the update responded to calls from researchers and practitioners to address those barriers more directly.

Prefer to see UDL applied?

This Mohawk College video is used in the openly licensed UDL for IDEA courseware. As you watch, don't try to memorize a list. Listen for one design idea that could apply somewhere other than a course.

If the embedded player is blocked: open the OER page containing the video and activity ↗. The Read Aloud control above can read all course text.

UDL doesn't have to stop at the classroom door.

Here's where this gets interesting. CAST now has a higher-education UDL Campus Implementation Criteria framework specifically focused on moving from isolated practices toward coordinated institutional implementation. It organizes campus implementation around four domains: Culture and Environment, Teaching and Learning, Leadership and Management, and Professional Learning.

Notice what that does to the conversation. We're no longer asking only, Does this instructor provide multiple ways to engage with the material? We can also ask whether professional learning is flexible, whether leaders model UDL in meetings and communications, whether policies and processes anticipate variability, and whether institutional systems make inclusive design easier or harder.

CAST's framework also describes implementation as a progression from Explore to Implementation, Scale-up, and ultimately Systems and Culture Change. That's useful because it acknowledges something important: institutional change is not a switch you flip.

So, does the research prove UDL works?

This is a good place to be careful. You will see strong claims about UDL online, but the evidence base is more complicated than a slogan.

A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized 13 empirical studies published from 2015–2021 across K–12 and higher-education settings. The authors reported positive aggregate effects, but they also found considerable heterogeneity across the studies. In plain language, the studies differed substantially, so we should not treat one pooled result as proof that every UDL practice will produce the same outcome everywhere (Almeqdad et al., 2023).

A systematic review published online in 2025 and appearing in a 2026 journal issue focused specifically on factors influencing faculty implementation in higher education. Across 24 publications, the authors identified faculty knowledge, attitudes, technological-pedagogical skills, student characteristics and feedback, and institutional supports such as learning-management systems and professional development as factors affecting implementation (Muzdalifah et al., 2026).

What does that mean for us? We can use UDL as a research-informed design framework without pretending every implementation has guaranteed effects. Throughout this course, we'll be specific about the barrier, the design decision, the context, and the evidence we use to decide whether something is helping.

What does application look like when we stop speaking in generalities?

Maybe it's asking students to test an orientation process. Maybe it's reviewing advising communications with the people who receive them. Maybe it's gathering faculty feedback before scaling a new course template. The specific method can change. The habit of designing with evidence from the people experiencing the system is what transfers.