ADCET UDL Symposium: Growth of UDL Implementation among faculty - Understanding the risks that lead to instructors losing momentum
In-person workshop
UDL had rapidly gained momentum in the tertiary sector over the last decade. In Australia, specifically, it has become more widely relevant to many instructors during the period of the COVID pandemic and the online pivot, and implementation efforts have vastly accelerated.
Despite this enthusiasm, there are also - globally - concerns that the growth of UDL across institutions may not be as linear and predictable as originally hoped. There is anecdotal evidence of communities of practice flourishing but then disappearing, and of campus UDL initiatives receiving wide exposure but never becoming sustainable.
This interactive workshop led participants on an exploration of some of the factors which may impact an instructors’ journey with UDL, beyond their initial exposure to professional development (PD).
The workshop was supported by findings from a recent two-year study completed within the Irish tertiary landscape, carried out in collaboration with AHEAD, and funded by a Canadian SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant. Ireland was selected for the study as it is the only jurisdiction worldwide that offers a national UDL PD program. The study explored the perceptions and lived professional experiences of 40 tertiary instructors and analysed the key concerns emerging from these narratives.
These findings were woven throughout each of the debriefs from the three consecutive round-table activity discussions, in order to support the participants reflections about their own contexts, without being prescriptive or didactic.
Participants were able to:
- Reflect on factors that impact an instructors’ journey with UDL implementation
- Examine which of these variables are most pertinent to their own institutional context
- Consider implications in terms of developing sustainable UDL growth strategies across institutions
Presenter
Dr Frederic Fovet is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers University. He has previously held faculty positions at the University of Prince Edward Island and Royal Roads University. He has also been Head of Accessibility Services at McGill University for a period of four years, for the duration of his PhD. He was responsible, in this role, for the campus wide roll out of Universal Design for Learning strategies Frederic acts as a UDL and Inclusion consultant, domestically and internationally, in the K-12 and post-secondary sectors. Frederic was the instigator of and the Program Chair for the three first Pan-Canadian Conferences on UDL which took place in Montreal, Charlottetown, and Victoria, in 2015, 2017, and 2019 respectively. He has been a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Disability and Social Justice (IJDSJ) since 2020 and has been invited to join the Editorial Executive in 2023.
(June 2025)