Designing for Welcoming Interests and Identities (Guideline 7)
Learners engage more deeply when their unique interests and identities—including race, culture, gender, language, disability, and other intersecting dimensions—are acknowledged and valued. A learning environment that affirms dignity and belonging helps students invest in their learning. Because interests and identities evolve over time, courses benefit from flexibility to sustain engagement. Designing for interests and identities helps create spaces where students can bring their whole selves into learning and feel validated in doing so.
Strategy Library: Designing for Welcoming Interests and Identities
This strategy library focuses on interests and identities, with four key areas that reduce barriers and support learner variability. Each strategy comes from the UDL Guidelines 3.0 and is paired with practical approaches you can apply right away using U of T’s Academic Toolbox.
Optimize choice and autonomy (7.1)
CAST 7.1 definition: Offering authentic choices aligned with learning outcomes can enhance engagement, foster agency, and strengthen students’ sense of ownership. Because learners vary in how much choice they prefer, supports and clear structures can help optimize autonomy.
Examples using U of T's Academic Toolbox
- Library Resources: Provide students with a range of sources to choose from when engaging with readings or research.
- Microsoft OneDrive Collaborations: Co-create shared documents where students design goals, activities, or outputs together.
- Quercus Announcements: Present optional resources or activities, giving students choice in how they extend their learning.
- Quercus Assignment Groups: Allow students to select among different assignment topics or pathways.
- Quercus Assignments: Accept submissions in multiple formats (text, video, audio, file).
- Quercus Discussions: Create separate boards by topic so students can choose where to participate.
- Quercus ePortfolios: Invite learners to select and showcase work that reflects their identities and interests.
- Quercus Groups: Let students self-select into groups or collaborate in instructor-assigned diverse teams.
- Quercus Modules: Use prerequisites, requirements, and lock until features to scaffold progression while allowing students to navigate optional resources at their own pace.
Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity (7.2)
CAST 7.2 definition: Learners are most engaged when activities feel meaningful, culturally relevant, and authentic. Tasks that connect to personal, disciplinary, or community goals help make learning purposeful and sustaining.
Examples using U of T's Academic Toolbox
- Library Reading List: Curate culturally relevant and authentic scholarly sources that reflect diverse perspectives.
- Microsoft Forms: Invite personal responses or self-reflection prompts to connect learning to students’ lived experiences.
- Microsoft OneDrive Collaborations: Support authentic teamwork by co-authoring documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.
- Microsoft Teams and Zoom: Bring in authentic voices from communities or professions to strengthen relevance.
- Microsoft Whiteboard: Facilitate collaborative brainstorming, visual mapping, or problem-solving activities that foster imagination and exploration.
- Quercus Announcements: Highlight the real-world value of assignments, or share timely connections to current events and emerging issues.
- Quercus Discussions: Connect prompts to real-world cases, disciplinary practice, or community challenges.
- Quercus Quizzes: Use scenario-based or case-based questions that simulate authentic problem-solving.
Nurture joy and play (7.3)
CAST 7.3 definition: Joy and play spark curiosity, imagination, and pride in accomplishment. Playful approaches can also affirm the experiences of historically marginalized learners, where joy serves as an act of resistance and validation.
Examples using U of T's Academic Toolbox
- iClicker: Use polls, games, or live competitions for playful engagement.
- Microsoft Stream and Clipchamp and Stream: Encourage students to create and share playful video projects with captions and transcripts for accessibility.
- Microsoft Forms: Design low-stakes quizzes or surveys that invite exploration and experimentation.
- Microsoft Whiteboard: Support collaborative brainstorming, sketching, and creative mapping.
- Quercus Announcements: Share timely discoveries or model curiosity to foster a sense of wonder.
- Quercus Course Card Image: Choose visuals that signal creativity and spark interest.
- Quercus Discussions: Create boards where students can share playful discoveries, experiments, or creative interpretations.
- Quercus Quizzes: Offer low-stakes, repeatable quizzes that encourage experimentation and practice without penalty.
- Snagit: Invite students to produce playful screencasts or annotated visuals to demonstrate learning in creative ways.
Address biases, threats, and distractions (7.4)
CAST 7.4 definition: Environments that foster psychological safety can reduce threats and distractions so learners focus on growth. Instructors can surface and respond to bias, while encouraging cultures where mistakes are understood as part of the learning process.
Examples using U of T's Academic Toolbox
- Hypothesis: Encourage respectful dialogue that surfaces and reflects on bias in texts.
- Microsoft Forms: Gather anonymous feedback from students about course climate, distractions, or inclusion.
- Microsoft Word: Co-create community agreements or shared expectations with students using collaborative documents.
- Quercus Announcements: Build predictability and transparency by sharing schedules, milestones, and reminders clearly.
- Quercus Calendar and To-Do List: Help learners manage deadlines and reduce anxiety through structured time management.
- Quercus Discussions (Pinned): Keep community agreement discussions visible.
- Quercus Gradebook: Provide timely, transparent grading information to reduce uncertainty and stress.
- Quercus Notifications: Encourage students to customize alerts so they can manage communications without distraction.
- Quercus Profile Settings: Invite students to represent themselves authentically to strengthen belonging.
- Quercus Rubrics: Make expectations explicit and inclusive to reduce bias in evaluation.
Try One Thing
UDL doesn’t mean redesigning everything at once. Start small: pick one strategy from the lists above and try it out in your teaching or staff-facing context. Even a single simplification, added option, or reduced barrier can have a meaningful impact.
If you’re looking for more structured guidance, explore Universal Design for Learning Foundations (UDLF)—a self-paced program that guides you through course design dimensions, learner scaffolds, and the UDL Guidelines 3.0 menu to help you connect small adjustments to your broader teaching goals.
Need support? CTSI offers consultations to help you adapt strategies for your context. Reach out to us to start a conversation.
U Design Learning | Teaching and Universal Design for Learning at U of T