UDL Conversations: Engagement Design
Learn how reflective and transparent teaching practices can strengthen student engagement. In these UDL Conversations, instructors discuss practical ways to help learners enter into and sustain their learning:
Design for access, inclusion, and belonging
Use reflection and transparency to strengthen engagement
Design assessments for learner variability and meaningful learning
Explore how AI can reduce and introduce learning barriers
Designing Practical Tools for Learning
Using simple, accessible course tools to support planning, organization, and engagement.
Sheila Batacharya
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, UTM
What did we talk about?
- Practical course tools for planning: Designing clear, accessible tools to help students track assignments and deadlines in ISP100 Writing for University and Beyond.
- Accessible formats over complex visuals: Replacing PDFs and infographics with a simple, downloadable Excel timeline to map assessments, due dates, and portfolio milestones.
- Practicality as accessibility: Recognizing that Word and Excel files often work better with screen readers than more visually complex formats.
- Collaboration with campus partners: Working with a learning strategist from UTM’s Accessibility Office to introduce assistive technologies as everyday learning tools.
- Assistive technology for learning: Exploring text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and mind mapping to support editing, proofreading, and critical thinking.
- Integrating accessibility throughout the course: Connecting accessible design to linguistic diversity, positionality, and reflection on the writing process.
- Alignment across course materials: Ensuring consistency between the syllabus, Excel tracker, and Quercus modules to provide multiple entry points to essential information.
Strategies to Try
- Keep materials simple and screen-reader friendly
- Align information across course documents and platforms for consistency
- Collaborate with campus partners to embed accessible practices and technologies
- Start small: Identify one accessibility “pinch point” and address it in your next course offering
Resources
Building Reflection into Learning
Embedding reflection and transparency to help students enter, sustain, and deepen their learning.
Deborah Tihanyi
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream; Acting Director, Engineering Communication Program (ECP), Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP), Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, St. George
What did we talk about?
- Supporting engineering students to engage with communication and reflection—areas they may not initially recognize as core to their discipline.
- Embedding low-stakes, in-class reflections to help students enter, sustain, and deepen their learning.
- Using reflection as a bridge between individual preparation and group discussion to foster confidence and wider participation.
- Providing multimodal options for assignments and designing rubrics that value clarity and communication over preferred formats.
- Centering transparency—helping students understand why each activity matters and how it connects to learning goals.
- Viewing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) not as a single model, but as multiple designs that invite flexibility, engagement, and choice.
Strategies to Try
- Integrate brief reflection or “thinking time” before discussions to include more student voices.
- Use completion-based reflections to promote consistency without adding grading pressure.
- Offer multiple modes for assignments when appropriate, and evaluate work based on how well it meets the goals of the task rather than its modality.
- Share your rationale for tasks to build student trust and motivation.
Resources
U Design Learning | Teaching with Universal Design for Learning at U of T