Bonni: [00:00:00] It can happen without us ever intending it. Something about the way we teach is leaving some of our students behind. In today’s episode, Mark Hofer shares how he implements Universal Design for Learning in his teaching so that all students have the opportunity to learn.

Production Credit: [00:00:18] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:26] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:55] I’m thrilled today to have Mark Hofer on the show and he is going to be introducing us and me to something called Universal Design for Learning. He is an associate professor of educational technology in the School of Education at the College of William and Mary. He is also the associate dean for teacher education and professional services. And welcome to the show.

Mark: [00:01:17] Oh thank you Bonni I’m so excited to be with you today. I enjoyed listening to your podcast for long time and it’s exciting to be a guest. Love having conversations about teaching and learning. Don’t get nothing of an opportunity to do that I think.

Bonni: [00:01:30] I just absolutely get so energized by having these conversations. And one of the other things I’m actually realizing is very unique about you as an addition to teaching. All three levels at the higher ed level. You taught high school.

Mark: [00:01:43] That’s right. Yeah I was a high school. I actually started out as a theology teacher. Believe it or not. But primarily I taught history and U.S. and world history as a high school teacher. And that’s actually what I still do a lot of my research and development work on in my career now is in social studies and technology that intersection so really enjoy that and miss those days but not enough to leave my gig now.

Bonni: [00:02:08] Is there anything that comes to mind that you would want to tell people who don’t teach all those varied ages and types of students that you think we’re missing. Because we don’t have that perspective.

Mark: [00:02:21] I guess the way I approach it and actually it’s connected with our topic today a little bit is the idea that you kind of have to meet the learners where they are and you know like our undergraduate population here at William and Mary they kind of fit a particular profile.

Mark: [00:02:36] You know they’re very academically distinguished. They’re very service minded very global minded. I try to keep those things in my head as I’m planning course experiences preparing for discussions and so forth.

Mark: [00:02:49] Whereas you know a lot of times where I’m working with masters and doctoral students that are experienced practitioners. They bring so much professional knowledge to the table that you know you have to kind of plan with that in mind. It’s really important to think about sort of the experiences they bring their orientation and even in some ways like their developmental level. Kind of what they’re prepared for what they’re ready for. I guess that’s the I enjoy all levels but it’s very different teaching an undergrad course in a doctoral course you can imagine and it’s not just the content.

Bonni: [00:03:18] Actually before we start to talk about Universal Design for Learning I cannot resist in your bio I have to read a few more things. You are a Seinfeld aficionado yes a rabid fan of all things Notre Dame the proud owner of a miniature poodle and you have a knack for identifying the voice of narrators in movies television shows and commercials.

Bonni: [00:03:41] Well let’s say we love starting out on the show talking about failures when you share about a failure in your teaching that sort of sparked the idea for you that you needed something like Universal Design for Learning.

Mark: [00:03:55] I feel like I learned so much more about how to be more effective in my teaching from things that go wrong and I try to you know I work with a lot of times future teachers. So I try to teach them that look you know if you’re not taking chances and mess things up or fail once in a while you’re not trying hard enough.

Mark: [00:04:11] And as long as you’re able to learn from those experiences you know you’re going to be better for it. And so for me it was definitely a few years into teaching high school. I was teaching a U.S. History class and there was a student in the class named Tony who I had heard from previous teachers that oh boy this kid is a handful.

Mark: [00:04:29] And you know it was going to be a struggle and you know sure enough it was that way you know he was disengaged to a lot of the time head down on the desk or disruptive or you know I mean just everything but kind of what we hope and expect our students to be in the classroom.

Mark: [00:04:46] And you know I tried to kind of reach out to him. He was involved in some outside of school activities. I tried to kind of show some interest in all of the things that you do to try to connect with students but nothing really was working because I think he knew what I was trying to do. He’d had a bad experience in school not because he wasn’t bright not because he wasn’t smart but he didn’t really fit in our kind of our traditional notion of school. So you know it was a struggle.

Mark: [00:05:10] One day I happened to walk by his desk right before we lit up class and I had delivered a scintillating lecture on westward expansion. I believe if memory serves. No. Just like every day he had been doing in his book or you know staring out the window or whatever.

Mark: [00:05:26] And I was struck as I walked by I noticed his notebook trying tried to close it really quick before you had to do as I’m walking by and realize he had been drawing this really elaborate almost like a mural in his notebook across both pages of a spiral notebook and it was amazing.

Mark: [00:05:41] And I said Tony can I take a look at that. And I looked at it and he had been drawing doodles and pictures related to what we were studying related to westward expansion. And he had captured a lot of the ideas that we had talked about in probably a whole lot better depth and understanding than many of the students that were furiously taking notes as they were going.

Mark: [00:06:05] He just did it in a totally different format. I was stunned. I talked with him. I said Wow you are so talented. You know I talked with him about. You know this is like the first time you’ve done this and he started looking through his notebook showing me previous drawings he’d done. And so you know I realized it was such a lightbulb moment like I had totally missed the boat with this kid. He has been listening.

Mark: [00:06:28] He’s been engaged probably again to a greater level of depth than most other students in the class and we’re maybe getting A’s in the class but I have no idea how to reach him. I had no idea kind of what his talents were and what barriers I’d put into place knowing way to sort of honor his strengths and instead he felt like a failure and I felt like a failure in extension.

Bonni: [00:06:53] Well tell us a little bit about the definition of Universal Design for Learning and how that brings you back to your memories of that experience you had teaching Tony.

Mark: [00:07:03] After that experience I really tried to make efforts to get to know you know the kids in my class and what their strengths were what their challenges were. Tony produced a number of murals that I reproduced for every kid in the class. When it came time to study for the union exams because you know I wanted to again to sort of honor his talent but also help you to have the other kids in the class benefit from his way of conceptualizing the information.

Mark: [00:07:31] So from that point forward I really tried to in whatever way I could try to connect with kids and honor what they were good at and give them options for how they could express their understanding or engage with the material and years later I came across the Universal Design for Learning or UDL framework.

Mark: [00:07:51] And that just articulated so clearly for me what I had sort of learned through practice about the importance of trying to connect with learners because we know with functional MRI testing now that you know people respond to information at a neurological level very differently from one another.

Mark: [00:08:13] The you know scientists have described it as people’s learning patterns and and experience and strengths and challenges are unique to that individual as their fingerprints. So that notion really struck with me.

Mark: [00:08:26] And so now I really you yogis gives me a framework to to think about that really systematically in my teaching. It’s basically it’s connected to the idea of universal design for architecture which is the idea that you design a building with people’s needs in mind from the outset whether they’re maybe in a wheelchair or whether they need Braille signage you know throughout the building or they need wide hallways you know whatever the case may be.

Mark: [00:08:55] If you design the building with those ideas in mind you’re going to have a much more functional space more aesthetically pleasing space than if you retrofit an existing building with ramps. And you know elevators that are connected to the stairwells and so forth.

Mark: [00:09:10] So the idea with Universal Design for Learning is if you try to strategically think about learner differences as you’re designing learning experiences and assignments it’s going to be much better than trying to retrofit those experiences for kids like Tony or students with different needs so if you strategically think of the three different principals how to represent the content in multiple ways give kids multiple opport give students multiple options for accessing the material beyond the textbook perhaps beyond lecture perhaps if you give them multiple ways to express their understanding.

Mark: [00:09:44] Again beyond just the traditional essay or paper or or you know multiple choice true false exam and then multiple ways to recruit and sustain their interest in the material so making it as authentic as possible connecting it to other real world sort of scenarios or other disciplines but finding ways to make that very engaging and interesting to them.

Mark: [00:10:09] If you think about those as you’re designing your syllabus for a course and building opportunities to diverse learners needs in all those different areas you end up with a much stronger course and a better learning experience for all your students.

Bonni: [00:10:24] Some of the time the reaction to something like this can be. Are we coddling our students too much and or are we lowering the expectations or not really preparing them well or giving them the skills they need.

Bonni: [00:10:38] How do you address concerns like that. I mean have you ever had those concerns yourself actually as you explore.

Mark: [00:10:44] It’s funny you ask that question because that is the first question always get from my preservice teachers every semester literally. And it’s a very legitimate one because our idea is that we want to challenge students past where they are right now to help them to grow in all different ways.

Mark: [00:11:01] You know whether it’s skills or understanding your connections et cetera. So the way that I answer that question is that we can certainly do as teachers has put up barriers to what it is we want our students to to develop or come away with.

Mark: [00:11:17] So for example what I might be interested in is students comparing and contrasting concepts I just did a blog post about this recently. What I’m really interested in them doing is identifying those key features of those different concepts understand and applying a very deliberate systematic way to compare and contrast those concepts to developing new understanding that might be my overarching learning goal for a particular class session or project.

Mark: [00:11:47] But if I put unnecessary constraints around that like I might only introduce the two topics of exploration through a textbook reading that’s an unnecessary constraint relative to my learning goal. If that makes sense or if the only way they can demonstrate their understanding of these two concepts in their relations to one another is through a five paragraph essay I’ve created an unnecessary constraint to that learning goal.

Mark: [00:12:18] So the way I’m able to answer that question is that you really need to to have a primary focus on what it is you want students to come away from that experience with and you certainly don’t want to mollycoddle them relative to that you want to challenge them.

Mark: [00:12:35] And if that means removing some of the barriers that might get in their way then I’m all for that. Now that said students still need to know how to do formal research papers students still need to do you know be able to work with a textbook and do close reading and so forth.

Mark: [00:12:51] So I wouldn’t call it an either or situation. I would say that rather than having an entire core set up with textbook lecture papers to think about how can I vary that over the course of a semester where there’s still maybe writing a term paper at the end or perhaps they’re doing that for their midterm but in conjunction with that there might be other assignments where they have options for how they’re going to express or understanding. Does that make sense.

Bonni: [00:13:17] It does. One of the things that you’re you’re really honing in on to me is how much we have to think about learning outcomes and what really is it that we are trying to measure. How else do you see Universal Design for Learning coming into play as it relates to learning outcomes assessment and also the course materials and activities.

Mark: [00:13:40] I agree with you 100 percent about the focus on learning outcomes. I wonder you know we’re so tied to our disciplinary knowledge you know and we know what concepts and topics we introduce our students to but sometimes we don’t take that next step to say well what what I want them to do with those ideas are those that new information.

Mark: [00:13:59] And so that’s where the outcomes come in. And in terms of the Universal Design for Learning and the way I approach it and I can share with you a little bit I’m redesigning one course really with this as a central focus of what I’m trying to do in the class is I’m really trying to unpack those and say OK if these are the topics and then I figured out my learning goals relative to theirs.

Mark: [00:14:19] Then what I try to do is I try to think about what what do I know that students struggle with related to this whether it’s that the topic itself or the way I want them to understand it and then I try to think about well then what kind of actions could I include to help them with that.

Mark: [00:14:37] So you know for example if we’re doing something with looking at educational research you know I might I’m still going to have them read some you know published peer reviewed journal article studies but I’m also maybe going to have them look at some visual representations of data as well because that’s a very different way to look at that and it often isn’t included in our you know professional journals so it might be helping them to look at it from different angles.

Mark: [00:15:03] And then I think for me the bigger thing I try to challenge myself with is how am I going to know whether they’ve mastered that learning goal at the end. And again thinking more broadly beyond just the you know the paper at the end of the class or whatever to think about what are some other alternatives that I can either suggest or would be open to students you know would make a proposal for a different way to demonstrate their understanding.

Mark: [00:15:30] And that is again it’s tied so closely to the learning objectives because if you can keep that in the forefront there might be multiple ways that students can demonstrate that. But it’s only when you are looking through what you want them to take away that that might become apparent to you.

Bonni: [00:15:46] If you’re giving me as your student choice when it relates to course materials or activities in terms of how that gets presented does that mean I’m skipping over parts of it. And is there ever that temptation to skip over all of it.

Bonni: [00:16:01] Because there are certainly those students who just give me the bottom line. What’s the definition you want me to memorize and sort of fighting against their desire to think that that learning is about memorizing definitions and regurgitating them back.

Mark: [00:16:13] It’s increasingly difficult I think I’ve been teaching in higher ed for 12 years and then a few years before that as a teaching graduate assistant and I haven’t noticed a difference and I think it’s you know as an education person I think it’s related to the emphasis on the standardized testing.

Mark: [00:16:32] You know increasingly using standardized testing in schools from early grades all the way up. I think we’ve conditioned kids to want to know what the right answer is because that’s how they’ve been trained. Essentially that can be a real challenge and it does take some time for students to get away from that idea that you know hey there might be multiple ways to do this.

Mark: [00:16:56] I have to try to do it with some modeling and to provide them with some choices and some of them still are going to go for the traditional approaches and that’s fine if that you know if that’s going to help them demonstrate their learning. And that’s where they’re strong. Great.

Mark: [00:17:10] I just want to make sure that I give students that have different ways of expressing themselves that opportunity too. But at a concrete level what I’ll do is I’m a big believer in assessment rubrics tied back to the learning goals of course.

Mark: [00:17:23] And so what I do is before I think about what options are is really try to carefully articulate what it is I want students to know and be able to then create the rubric based on those learning goals.

Mark: [00:17:35] One of the particular facets of critical thinking I want to look for more analytical thinking or whenever that case may be before I start to think about how can students demonstrate this then I’ll think about OK what might be some possible options here.

Mark: [00:17:50] You know the papers typically are going to be on the table and maybe an example of my my classes tend to be more theory to practice so it’s more of an application kind of assignment.

Mark: [00:18:00] So I try to think about what are some ways that can demonstrate that. But it is interesting. No this is regardless of how they choose to do their work they’re going to be assessed using the same rubric.

Bonni: [00:18:13] There’s options in assessment. There’s also options that sounds like in course materials I might read part of the textbook and or I might watch a video and or I might go through some sort of interactive website that emphasizes those same things that I am get in the first piece of it there.

Mark: [00:18:33] Absolutely.

Bonni: [00:18:34] And then with the learning outcomes I’m really considering how I can directly hone in on what’s most crucial and leave out the rest does that does that because there’s not as much choice when it comes to the learning outcomes I would assume.

Mark: [00:18:48] Right absolutely yes. You’re exactly right.

Bonni: [00:18:51] Well let’s look at the three areas and you talked about Universal Design for Learning helps us with in game two men how to engage our students that helps us with having varied ways of representing things. And then for action and expression let’s let’s look at those three things the Universal Design for Learning with engagement, universal design with consideration of representation, and Universal Design for action and expression. And maybe it might help us if you thought of a specific class and how these things come alive.

Mark: [00:19:23] Yeah definitely I think maybe the best way to illustrate the redesigned class I’m going to offer this fall for the first time with was really trying to be particularly conscious of modeling good UDL design.

Mark: [00:19:38] And one thing I should say real quick is there the UDL center Youdale center dot org has some amazing resources. And Bonni I’ll point you to a few particular things that you might want to include in the show notes but they have these wonderful interactive ways to explore each principal in depth to you and where you can look at the research base behind that particular principle. Different strategies you can use so it’s a really really helpful resource that you can kind of drill down to whatever degree you want.

Mark: [00:20:09] But I’ll try to illustrate it with an example if that’s okay.

Bonni: [00:20:11] It sounds perfect.

Mark: [00:20:13] It’s one of the things that in terms of engagement the idea behind this is to try to make the learning as relevant and as interesting to the student as possible because it’s only through that sort of level of engagement that it will both recruit their interest you know and make them interested because you know especially if we teach a required course that might not be necessary you know the student’s passion but also to help them sustain that interest through some hard academic work.

Mark: [00:20:41] So you know it’s not just for them to have fun but it’s it’s a way to draw them in so that you can get more out of them in an academic sense as well. So one of the things I’m doing with this particular class is this is for teachers that are trained to be secondary school teachers so you know in one of the different disciplines and discourses on how you can integrate technology into your teaching.

Mark: [00:21:04] So one of the things that I’m trying to do is we know that what percentage of college students today either play videogames pretty seriously or are into you know like that even the games and Facebook you know where you get badges for different things or even you know if you use a band or some other activity tracker you get badges for different achievements.

Mark: [00:21:24] That’s such a part of our student’s culture that I’m going to try to build the quartz around badges and experiences that will both give them sort of it’s kind of a a fun and motivating way where they can kind of measure their progress compared to some of their classmates.

Mark: [00:21:43] But it also illustrates the idea that there are multiple ways to complete each assignment that you can still earn these achievements. I don’t know if that makes sense. So for example when they’re reading about universal design for learning for the first time I’ve put together a collection of materials that they can choose how they want to learn about that initially.

Mark: [00:22:07] So there’s some textbook readings there’s some web based interactive sort of hyperlinked readings with examples and video clips. There’s classroom simulator that they can they can interact with to try to sort of uncover some of these principles in more of a inquiry approach.

Mark: [00:22:25] There are video clips and other signs sort of values to each of them. They have to accumulate a certain number of points but they can choose whichever set of materials that they want to based on their own interest. I know because I selected them very purposefully that they’re going to come away with the same understandings.

Mark: [00:22:42] They’re just going to be able to choose how they want to do that. So it’s engagement from that sort of game like gamification kind of process. But it’s also engagement based on choice so that they feel like they’re in control of how they’re going to interact with that content they’re going to be more likely to engage with the material itself.

Bonni: [00:22:59] One of the things you just turn on a light bulb for me that I am sure another concern. Oh that sounds like a lot of work and work not just in building it of course but also work in managing the class but I’m I use three different learning management systems and all three of the ones that I know of have the built in ability to have this badge like experience moodle and blackboard and canvas. All three have badges. I can’t imagine that the other ones probably don’t do. So we could build it where we have some thought process around how to track this as we go.

Mark: [00:23:33] That’s exactly it exactly. You can set up a course an assignment basically with those different options that the learning management system or calculate the points. And they can only proceed to the next module or the next activity.

Mark: [00:23:49] Once they’ve accumulated that number of points and they can be a quiz at the end of that to make sure they really understood where it can be made you just want a track to make sure they’ve done it. You know you can set it up however you want.

Mark: [00:24:00] But actually in some ways I’ve found that when I’ve done this in small cases and different courses that they tend to do the work more that way I can see that they’re better prepared for class discussions or class activities so well and has more time and effort to select multiple kinds of materials or resources.

Mark: [00:24:19] To me it’s paid back to me as a as a faculty member when in class students are more prepared and we can get right to it and we can go into further debt. So there is a cost on the front end but I think it actually creates a better experience for me on the back end.

Bonni: [00:24:35] I can picture a desk or a whiteboard or all the sticky notes on it sort of designing this as a Choose Your Own Adventure sort of thing where you can kind of plan it. This is where everyone’s going to wind up but these are a couple of different paths that they can take on their way or something.

Mark: [00:24:50] Yeah exactly. And I developed this from going through a few different works and online courses myself and I kept thinking you know it’s like each module is set up the same way and the materials are always the same either it’s always video or it’s always reading you know.

Mark: [00:25:08] And I think Gosh I just find myself as a learner. I’d like some variation here and I’d do fine with it but just in terms of staying motivated and those courses are ones typically that are that are sort of the same way each module I. Those are the ones I don’t complete.

Mark: [00:25:24] And so I sort of extrapolated that to my own teaching thinking gosh you know if if I want to mix it up a little bit more for my students I bet they’d be better prepared. And so far anecdotally that’s how it’s worked out. That’s a study that I’ll be doing next year to see when I really design the entire course that way. To what degree does it really make a difference.

Bonni: [00:25:42] Tell us about representation and what that is and how it plays into your newly redesigned course.

Mark: [00:25:49] Yeah I mean that very simple. That’s kind of what I described in terms of pulling together for that first day on universal design. Is the you know Reading’s video interact is all those things were then you can choose. It’s all basically covers the same topics same content. They just have choices in the where they want to engage material.

Bonni: [00:26:10] So there’s engagement there’s representation and then there’s the. Is there anything you want to add about action and expression.

Mark: [00:26:16] Yeah. So at the end of each of our little modules I did basically what I described where I looked at the learning objectives what I wanted them to know or be able to do related. That created the rubric and then what I’ve done is in the course for each project I’ve given three different options all assessed with the same rubric. So you know there’s not redoing. You know I’m not doing separate assessments for each option that students have.

Mark: [00:26:42] Takes a little more time upfront again to sort of design those experiences. But again what I found in the past is that I see greater depth of work when students have some choice about how that they’re going to convey their understanding.

Mark: [00:26:56] Some students might do a detailed concept map where they’re connecting different concepts and different ideas or their things might prefer to you know to write a paper. I’ve had students do intimations of headstands do all different kinds of things. And when you open it up like that I think you get much better work and you get a better more accurate representation of what they really know.

Mark: [00:27:18] So it’s basically giving them three choices at the end of each module for how they want to do their work. Not even offer them the option to write a proposal for a different approach. And students don’t often take me up on that but sometimes they do they offer really great ideas that are I for the next time over the course. So I tried to give them those choices with how they can share what it is they know.

Bonni: [00:27:42] We’ve had people in the past who shared about teaching techniques the one that I’m thinking of is Peter Newberry who talked about peer instruction.

Bonni: [00:27:51] And as he described it it was very much you could start this today. Put up a multiple choice question and it seemed Shinsei it seemed he described it as you can start this right away. This is not something you have to really build a lot of scaffolding to make this happen.

Bonni: [00:28:07] And then there are some people who have described teaching approaches in the past where they say this is one of those things if you don’t do the whole thing you’re not you’re not going to have success with that I believe it was team learning although I should have looked this up in years for it.

Bonni: [00:28:21] Because there’s so many different nuanced titles for these things but I think it was team Larry was the one people are saying yeah don’t try this unless you do the whole thing. Is this something I can dip my toe into and just get started today with a small piece of a class or is it really one of those things that it’s going to work. It’s really only going to work if I look at my whole class as Universal Design for Learning.

Mark: [00:28:43] Absolutely it’s something you can dip your toes in. In fact this is what I teach my especially my novice teachers say look don’t try to do this with every lesson every day. I mean that that’s a recipe for burnout.

Mark: [00:28:55] But what you can do as a as you know a college or university professor is think about take a look at your syllabus and make sure for expression for example make sure if you have three major assignments make sure that they’re not all in the same format. So you might still keep your term paper at the end.

Mark: [00:29:11] You might keep a midterm exam in the beginning but try to think about what could that third option be. What could it be. And so maybe you’re not even giving students an option at the end of a unit of study but you’re giving options over the course of a semester.

Mark: [00:29:26] So maybe that third option is something maybe a little bit more creative or a little bit more applied or you know how you want to think about it but just try to think about what are the major grades going to be for this course and how can I make sure that there is some variation among those.

Mark: [00:29:41] So that’s a good way and you might take think about you’re looking at your concepts your topics through the course of a semester. Pick one that you know from past experience or you anticipate that students are going to struggle with and take that one and try to find a range of different materials just for that one topic and give students those materials and see if it makes a difference.

Mark: [00:30:04] And so I feel like absolutely. And that’s something the next semester you can go back and say wow this was really effective as an alternative assignment or it wasn’t. So maybe you keep it maybe you switch it off for something else or you know you you found it was successful to give students a multiple ways to access that one particular content topic.

Mark: [00:30:23] So now maybe I might pick a couple more during the course of the semester and really give you a multiple ways to get into that topic. So absolutely it’s the kind of thing you can kind of do by trial and error and do little by little looking at that semester long view is a much more accessible way to think about these things.

Bonni: [00:30:42] And I would recommend to people just as someone doing a lot of course redesign the summer let’s not all start at the beginning of our courses because in the beginning of our courses are great middle and end up suffering.

Bonni: [00:30:53] And even if you start at the middle of some of your course content or at the end of some of your course content you might find if you use that same technique whatever it is that you’re doing then you can get better at it so that than the earlier ones can be that much more of a shining star it sparks your course content creation goes.

Mark: [00:31:12] That’s a great idea and I’d tack on one additional reason not to start with the beginning of the course. Sometimes it’s helpful to establish a rapport with your class. You know what’s sort of the tried and true before you go to experimental a little bit. You know sometimes once you’ve established that relationship you things might be a little bit more forgiving or something doesn’t go quite as well as points. Sometimes I try to do innovations you know mid semester.

Bonni: [00:31:39] What have I not asked you about universal design for learning that we should make sure we talk about before we go on to recommendations.

Mark: [00:31:46] Well your questions have been excellent the only thing I can think of is that one common misconception is partly because universal design for learning was initially shared through the center for Applied special technology at either Harvard or MIT I can’t remember which but I know and in Boston there.

Mark: [00:32:07] And so a lot of people associate universal design with technology. Well technology helps you provide multiple representations you know like you can include video clips you can even include interesting elements on your slides if you’re using slides in class and represent concepts in different ways. But it’s not dependent upon and it’s not synonymous with technology.

Mark: [00:32:30] So you can do universal design for learning very well without any technology at all. So or you can use it and it does make it easier in many ways like you’re mentioning with the learning management system kind of keeping track of those experiences and badges and so forth. But it’s not necessary so it is an instructional approach. It’s a way of course design you can use without any technology or with any level of technology.

Bonni: [00:32:54] Now I’ve heard people talk about universal design before and universal design is normally associated with just what you’re describing where the online learning is something that can accommodate all learners so if you’ve got a video clip it has the text the CC I keep thinking.

Mark: [00:33:16] Closed captions.

Bonni: [00:33:17] Thank you. Well it’s captioning available to it so that’s different than universal design for learning. These are two two different things but it sounds like they’re somewhat related.

Mark: [00:33:27] Exactly that’s exactly how I’d characterize it so they are there. Those views are more like accessability kinds of concerns and issues but actually think about them if you apply the accessibility practices where there’s captions to images on web pages and there’s closed captioning to video. It really is going to benefit multiple learners just like offering choice in terms of readings or choice in terms of expression activities. So they’re related but I would characterize them a little bit differently.

Bonni: [00:34:02] This is the time in the show when we go on to recommendations and I’m considering in the future maybe doing an episode entirely on using music in the classroom even though I’m a business and management professor and it could hypothetically have nothing to do with my class.

Bonni: [00:34:15] But I’ve had some really good experience with how music can change the tone of a classroom in a really unique way. So that’s something I’m thinking about in the back of my mind but I’m not ready to go there completely but I did want to recommend if any of you are thinking about entering the world of Apple Music which is the streaming music service just put out by Apple.

Bonni: [00:34:35] Now if you have a Mac will be on your iTunes on your Mac it’ll be on your iPhone. If you have an iPhone or your iPad as soon as you upgrade there are definitely some confusing things to entering this world that were made a lot less confusing to me by the MAC power user.

Bonni: [00:34:51] So I’m going to recommend this week listening to Episode 265 of the Mac Power Users that was all about Apple Music and I am actually going to recommend that my mom listen to it a mom if you’re listening you have to click on like they did just the show is called the Mac power users.

Bonni: [00:35:07] But this is one of those ones that could be the Mac non power users and you could just find out how to use the service. And I’m really amazed at how I’ve been just hanging on my phone for a couple of days.

Bonni: [00:35:19] How it’s gotten to know me and my music taste because of some of the techniques I implemented from that show. And it’s reintroducing me to music. I already have that I didn’t even remember I had. And then all these curated playlists from people out there that have a lot in common with me with my musical taste is just so much fun.

Bonni: [00:35:36] So I’m going to recommend listening to that and that all of everything that Marc and I have talked about in the links will be available at teachinginhighered.com/58 including that link to the Mac power users episode two sixty five on Apple Music. Mark what do you recommend today.

Mark: [00:35:51] It’s a great tip I. I’d love that show and I have heard that episode some dive into that. Thanks. I guess I would recommend if you’re interested in learning more about Universal Design for Learning going to the UDLcenter.org. Great resources there.

Mark: [00:36:05] And now they have a branch of that site called UDLoncampus which is designed specifically for higher ed faculty and wanting to integrate UDL principals in their teaching so that’s a great great resource.

Mark: [00:36:18] All different kinds of case studies and experiences you can use and then just one other shameless plug. I’d love for folks if you’re interested in reading more and listening more about teaching and learning in higher ed to visit my blog luminaris.link.

Bonni: [00:36:37] Wonderful. My autocorrect.

Mark: [00:36:39] Thats where you can listen to Bonni on my show.

Bonni: [00:36:41] My auto correct keeps wanting to change that word but I will fix that in the show notes. Darn you autocorrect. And it’s a wonderful blog. I’m now subscribed to it on RSS. And every time you post I think another good one.

Bonni: [00:36:55] So I’m glad that you suggested that and I’ll also post a link to your Twitter handle so people can connect with you there and just want to thank you so much for being on the show.

Mark: [00:37:04] It was a pleasure Bonni, thanks.

Bonni: [00:37:08] Thanks once again to Mark Hofer for being on today’s episode. It was a great conversation that I’m looking forward to revisiting. Some of my classes with the Universal Design for Learning in mind and just becoming more familiar. With the subject on all the. With all the references that you mentioned. Thanks so much.

Bonni: [00:37:26] And for those of you who would like to give feedback on the show you can do that always at teachinginhighered.com/feedback. And if they haven’t yet subscribed to the weekly newsletter where you get all the links that Mark and I talked about and you also get a an Article on teaching or productivity each week.

Bonni: [00:37:43] You can subscribe at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe which will also get you ed tech essentials the free guide with 19 tools you can use to increase your teaching effectiveness and productivity. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.