About this Module
Learning Objectives
- Discover the intersection of UDL and Open Educational Practices (OEP)
- Evaluate course content from an OEP-informed UDL perspective
Activities
- Review the Accessible Syllabus Project, focusing on the Rhetoric and Policy sections
- Watch our video exploring Open UDL and course activities
- Choose one OEP teaching/learning activity to explore
- Reflect on your course’s activities or low-stakes assessments using the Open UDL Planning Tool
- Discuss your thoughts by sharing and responding to others on the discussion board
Module Summary
In Module 4, UDL, OEP, and Your Teaching, we’ll go beyond the technical accessibility you investigated in Module 3 to explore how Open UDL practices can help you create accessibility and inclusivity in a broader sense in your everyday teaching. We’ll start with the course syllabus, considering ways that Open UDL can promote inclusion, belonging, and greater engagement from the beginning of a course with this tone-setting document. Then, we’ll look at open practices that can be incorporated into weekly learning activities or as low-stakes assessments, such as social annotation or co-created annotated bibliographies.
For this investigation, you’ll start by reading the Rhetoric and Policy tabs on the Accessible Syllabus Project to consider how language and policies can open and close learning. Then you’ll watch a video to consider a few Open Educational Practices that can increase accessibility on a unit-to-unit basis in your course. After that, you’ll choose an OER/Open Pedagogy assignment to explore, focusing on how open assignments can reduce barriers for students. Hopefully, these materials will give you fresh eyes with which to review the activities and low-stakes assessments in your course as you complete the Teaching and Learning section of the Open UDL Planning Tool. Finally, you’ll bring your insights or questions to the module’s discussion.
Image adapted from Handicap Vectors by Vecteezy
Course Activities
Review
The Rhetoric and Policy sections of the Accessible Syllabus Project (opens in new tab).
Watch
Open Pedagogy in Learning Activities
Note: The video in the link above is available for download even without a Panopto account. In the top right corner of the screen, click the vertical ellipsis ( ⋮ ) , then click “Download Podcast”.
Explore
Explore any one of these Open UDL activities or low-stakes assessments:
- Social annotations at Rutger’s nursing program
- Wikipedia assignments from instructors around the world (pdf)
- An open annotated bibliography about immigration and refugees
Or explore one of these assessments from the Module 2 list, which could be adapted as or considered low-stakes assessment:
- Student-generated test bank questions for a psychology course.
- Student-edited WikiPedia articles to demonstrate their writing skills while improving the representation of Alaskan content by native authors in the world’s most used OER.
- Environmental Science Bites, an openly licensed collection of student articles and posters.
Reflect
For this module, fill in the Teaching and Learning Activities or Lower-Stakes Assessments section of your Open UDL Planning Tool.
Discuss
Reflect on UDL and Open Pedagogy teaching and learning activities by answering any of the following questions:
- How does the Open Pedagogy activity in the optional resource you explored take advantage of UDL/OEP? Be sure to provide context, as workshop participants may have explored different assessments.
- What activities in your own course seem ripe for a more Open Pedagogy approach?
- What barriers do your current activities pose? And what UDL or open practices could remove some of those barriers?
Add any questions about the topics covered in this module, too, so we can discuss them together. Remember that you are welcome to respond by typing or by recording audio or video.
Submit your initial discussion post by Friday. If you’d like, check back in and reply to your colleagues’ posts as well.
