Access for All: Universal Design in Community College Classrooms

I launched a pilot study, over the course of three semesters, that intended to measure the impact of an assignment built on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in my Writing about Literature course. I designed the assignment to offer students multiple means of demonstrating their mastery of course material and to enhance their perceptions of their own ability to excel on it. I hoped that students’ increased sense of their own ability to excel on the assignment would boost their confidence and impact their success on the assignment and in the course. My findings suggest that some of my instincts were correct, but that there were also other UDL-inspired factors that impacted students’ feelings of success in the course. I gathered data through three surveys distributed at various points during the semester.