ADCET UDL Symposium: Developing an inclusive curriculum and teaching team culture using UDL

In-person presentation

This presentation focused on creating an inclusive curriculum using the principles of UDL. Involving adjunct academics in the design and development stages, not just the implementation stages, promotes an academic team culture and shared vision of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and ensures that all learners in the course experience an inclusive learning environment.

Helen together with a very passionate team of adjunct academics, are making inclusivity explicit in the learning environment, as a common goal, and together are committed to doing better for their students.

Stripping back the existing and traditional curriculum to its core learning objectives allowed a rebuild taking care to scaffold only relevant topics with a universal design framework to minimise barriers to access and engagement. Active learning and student reflection on their own learning was incorporated into the process and has provided a feedback loop to the teaching team. In addition, the teaching team keep reflective journals to help identify any remaining barriers to continue to improve in real time.

Having identified, and removed, unconscious bias and hidden curriculum in subject content and structures, using UDL principles has removed barriers to learning, engagement, and developed a deliberately inclusive curriculum.

It has built an academic team culture of inclusivity, accountability, and continuous improvement.

There is motivation and confidence but there are still some challenges, such as some university and professional body assessment policies, balancing academic integrity with flexibility and timely feedback, and the potential to overwhelm some learners with choice. Some accounting content has been more challenging to make fully inclusive and they are yet to gain buy-in of other academics to adopt authentic inclusive practices. It is hoped that when there are solid results to showcase, it will be persuasive and support others to embrace UDL and be more inclusive.

Presenter

Dr Helen Black is a Lecturer and accounting discipline lead for AACSB Assurance of Learning (AoL) in the School of Business at Western Sydney University.  Helen has 17 years in academia and currently coordinates large undergraduate accounting subjects. Helen is and passionate about equity, diversity and inclusion, and incorporates UDL principles in building inclusive curriculum and developing an inclusive team culture within her teaching teams.  

(June 2024)