AHEAD is an independent non-profit organisation working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities. The main focus of our work is further education and training, higher education and graduate employment. AHEAD provides information to students and graduates with disabilities, teachers, guidance counsellors and parents on disability issues in education. We undertake national research relating to the inclusion of students with disabilities, contribute to national policy forums and provide professional development opportunities to develop the capacity of staff in FET and higher education to be more inclusive. AHEAD works with graduates and employers through the GET AHEAD Graduate Forum and the WAM Mentored Work Placement Programme. AHEAD is a partner of LINK, an action learning network of European organisations promoting the inclusion of students & graduates with disabilities in Higher Education.

CAST is a nonprofit education research and development organization that created the Universal Design for Learning framework and UDL Guidelines, now used the world over to make learning more inclusive. The acronym "CAST" derives from the original name of our organization, Center for Applied Special Technology. Now we're simply CAST. Our CAST of characters includes over 50 talented employees, including world-class educators, learning scientists, instructional designers, literacy experts, policy analysts, UX and graphic designers, software engineers, and a first-rate administrative and executive staff.

This digital badge was developed as part of the National Forum fro the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education's (NFETLHE's) Open Courses for Professional Development by AHEAD and UCD Access & Lifelong Learning. As part of UDL@MTU, a Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement 2020 (SATLE 2020) project funded by NFETLHE, this badge was delivered in Semester 1 2021/22 by a local group of MTU Facilitators. This badge has now been main-schemed and will be offered within MTU on an annual basis online via Canvas facilitated by Dr Marian Hurley.

Executive function (EF) describes a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals. The “executive functions,” as they’re known, include attentional control, working memory, inhibition, and problem-solving, many of which are thought to originate in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Many behaviours in which humans engage, such as breathing or stepping out of the way of an oncoming car, occur without conscious thought. Most others, however, rely on executive function. Any process or goal pursuit that requires time management, decision-making, and storing information in one’s memory makes use of executive function to some degree. Since much of college life is process-driven and demands that students set and meet goals, disruptions in executive function can make it challenging for students to succeed. This workshop examined how we, as lecturers, can support executive functions in our students through the way in which we organise our modules on Canvas.

Universal Design for Learning Co-Designing Your Classroom Dr Amanda Bastoni, Educational Research Scientist, CAST Dr Amanda Bastoni’s workshop introduced the concept of co-design and (using the UDL framework) highlighted how educators can increase creativity, collaboration, and learning in their classroom by designing learning with their students. In the workshop, we covered the why and how of co-design, including stories from the field, resources, and strategies educators can use immediately - in any learning environment. Timestamp 0:00 Introduction 9:15 What does it mean to Design Learning? 15:00 Reflect on UDL 19:07 Building Relationships 37:17 Ways to Co-Design your classroom 39:00 Co-Design rubrics 41:28 Reflection on Co-Designing 49:14 Co-Design with peers 54:47 Tools to support Co-Design

UDL-ifying a university and its people Prof Jo Rushworth National Teaching Fellow and Professor of Bioscience Education Dr Jo Rushworth draws on her experience as a UDL champion for her School as she outlins a range of options and starting points for colleagues who are starting out on their Universal Design journey. This work focussed on providing students with flexible learning resources, flexible ways to engage with their learning and flexible ways to demonstrate knowledge and skills, that impacted both learning and teaching and institutional policy. In an interactive presentation, Jo tells us about how the UDL guidelines were brought to life and implemented across DMU and leads us in a discussion of early steps toward achieving UDL compliance in teaching practice and of options for continuing development and enhancement. Jo’s work on co-creation with students was among the highlights from her case study. Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 4:13 Overview 9:54 Getting started: UDL Champions 12:31 6 UDL ideas: Quick wins and bigger ideas 13:10 Ideas 1 & 2 13:43 Ideas 3 & 4 14:00 Ideas 5 & 6 14:40 Moving forward: Staff UDL guidance & Training 16:51 UDL staff guidance 17:57 UDL self-assessment & development tool 19:16 Flexible study resources 23:05 Flexible ways to learn 27:03 Flexible ways to show learning 30:36 Co-creation 37:03 UDL-ify a module 56:22 Thank you!

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) aims to eliminate barriers in the design of the learning environment to make the curriculum accessible for all. COVID-19 has, if anything, highlighted the need for higher and further education providers to fully embrace UDL principles and practice so as to ensure high-quality education for all students and allow for full active participation by all learners. This session will outline the principles of UDL, examine what these principles look like in action and provide advice on how these principles can be applied, even when at distance or online. In addition, it will demonstrate how, with the correct mindset at the creation stage, we can ensure resources created for students are accessible and how students can be offered flexibility through engagement, representation, action and expression. To conclude, the core tenets of inclusive assessment and feedback practice will be outlined, and how this practice can be developed at programme and individual level will be demonstrated. Drawing on research from the National Forum, UDL and practical case studies as examples, specific assessment methodologies will be examined and consideration will be given as to how these might be transformed, through the lens of universal design, to ensure inclusion of the full student population. Facilitated By: • Dr Lisa Padden, Project Lead - University for All, UCD • Trevor Boland, Digital Media and eLearning Officer, AHEAD (Ireland) • Lorraine Gallagher, Information & Training Officer, AHEAD (Ireland)

In June 2021, a project entitled “UDL@MTU – Towards Embedding UDL Practices and Principles at MTU” received funding under MTU’s allocation of the Strategic Alignment of Teaching & Learning Enhancement Fund 2020. As part of this project, in semester 1 of the 2021/22 academic year, a local MTU iteration of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s (NFETLHE) Digital Badge “Universal Design in Teaching and Learning” was rolled out with twelve colleagues participating from across MTU. In order to complete the badge, participants learnt about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), reflected on their own practice and redesigned some aspects of a teaching activity they were delivering in line with the principles of UDL. They then had to implement and deliver the redesigned activity, collect some feedback from students in terms of their experience of the redesigned activity and submit a short ‘Redesign Activity Report’. Catherine O’Mahony, a lecturer in Tourism in Hospitality, was one of the twelve MTU badge participants.

As part of the UDL@MTU project, 12 colleagues from across MTU participated in a local MTU-wide rollout of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning’s Universal Design in Teaching and Learning Digital Badge and were awarded their badges, To complete this badge, participants are required to complete a redesign activity where they take an element of their own practice and apply UDL principles to redesign it and make it more accessible. We have developed a podcast series, where we showcase some of the excellent practice demonstrated by these colleagues while completing the above badge, which we will be releasing over the coming months:

Are you involved in new programme development and about to starting to create new modules? Or are involved in programmatic review and revising some existing modules? If so, the following is a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Module Guide developed by our colleague Ann Toebes, Curriculum Development Facilitator, provides suggestions for how UDL can be embedded in the curriculum via the module descriptor.

Executive function (EF) describes a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals. The “executive functions,” as they’re known, include attentional control, working memory, inhibition, and problem-solving, many of which are thought to originate in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Many behaviours in which humans engage, such as breathing or stepping out of the way of an oncoming car, occur without conscious thought. Most others, however, rely on executive function. Any process or goal pursuit that requires time management, decision-making, and storing information in one’s memory makes use of executive function to some degree. Since much of college life is process-driven and demands that students set and meet goals, disruptions in executive function can make it challenging for students to succeed. To support executive functions in students, we developed a prototype accessible Canvas Template to help you organise your module on Canvas.

Do you wonder is there anything you can do from UDL perspective when you’re setting up your modules on Canvas? If so, you might find the following checklist useful:

MTU Teaching & Learning Unit

Are you putting together a slide deck for teaching purposes? You might consider using one of MTU’s new branded accessible templates! You can access these templates very easily. When you are creating a new PowerPoint presentation, you will see a new tab called Munster Technological University. Here you will find 6 possible templates - 3 black and grey and 3 colour that you can use to ensure that your slide decks are accessible. In each case, there is: - An accessible and sustainable version where the MTU logo only appears on the title slide - An accessible version with the MTU logo in the top RHS for those who might be creating a recording with Screencast-o-matic - An accessible version with the MTU logo in the top LHS for those who might be creating a recording with Zoom