Faculty Insights: Designing Classrooms for Success with UDL
By Staci Forgey, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Faculty Fellow Center for Teaching Excellence, Science and Mathematics Pathway, Tidewater Community College
Are you looking for practical ways to make your teaching more inclusive and effective without overhauling your entire course?
Watch this brief video from a faculty fellow and biology instructor. She shares her personal journey of adopting Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accessibility principles—and the surprising impact it had on all her students, not just those with accommodations.
This video offers concrete examples of how simple changes, like:
- Enlarging fonts
- Adding alt text to images
- Providing clear expectations and example assignments
- Chunking content
…helped her entire class achieve higher quality learning outcomes.
The key takeaway? Designing for accessibility is simply designing for better learning.