ADCET UDL Symposium: A Programmatic Approach to Universal Design for Learning in Postgraduate Health Promotion
Online presentation
The Masters of Health Promotion has a changing demographic of their online, asynchronous cohort of post-graduate students. The team turned to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to ensure the program of courses were designed with inclusive online learning pathways. The program utilised UDL to promote further equitable engagement of future student cohorts towards achieving program learning outcomes and readiness for the health promotion workforce.
This presentation showcased how the team programmatically designed for learner variability with an innovative Canvas (Learning Management System) template. The design of this template for all courses meant UDL and optimised learning was embedded in the initial design and learning barriers were proactively removed. An online postgraduate course template for use in Canvas, developed in collaboration with three Academics and an Educational Designer was presented. The team aimed for the innovative template to promote a programmatic approach to course design, enabling consistency across courses so the learning experience was equitable for a diverse student population. The template provided a structure for all public health courses, prompting each module in a course to include key concept video/s, concept reading/s, applied concept activities and assessment practice activities.
Post-graduate learners now experience a consistent yet flexible presentation of content with multiple modalities with a reduced cognitive load. For academic staff, the use of the template means UniSC public health teaching team can remain focused on our value of creating educational experiences. They can redesign their content with a focus on students learning the threshold and key learning concepts with the template supporting them to flesh this out in a scaffolded, accessible, and inclusive way. The template has supported our goal of creating equitable learning experiences for online postgraduate students. It is being viewed for greater institutional-wide adoption.
Presenters
Nick Yates is an Academic Developer within the Centre for Learning and Teaching at the University of the Sunshine Coast. His extensive international higher education experience helps him guide, advise, and shape programs and courses to enhance the student experience. Nick collaborates with educators to develop transformational curriculum and innovative pedagogical approaches respond to the growing and diverse UniSC community. He is an active collaborator in SoTL within curriculum design, inclusive and learning-centred pedagogies, and teacher recognition and Fellowships programs.
Dr Bridie Kean is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health and the Program Lead of the Master of Health Promotion (MHP) program at UniSC. Bridie’s teaches foundation public health research and evidence courses to public health and health undergraduate students and has taught across public health courses for over 12 years at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Bridie is passionate about inclusive curricula design which is learning centred and constructively aligned at the program, course and assessment level. As program coordinator of a fully asynchronous degree, Bridie is passionate about enhancing the online experience for students.
(June 2026)