This document discusses applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to create more inclusive classrooms for international students. UDL is a framework that shifts away from deficit models of diversity by focusing on accessible instructional design. While UDL was originally developed for students with disabilities, its principles can also benefit international students. The document provides examples of how UDL's three principles - multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement - could be applied in practical classroom strategies like offering varied course readings and allowing flexible assignment formats. It argues UDL research should expand beyond disabilities to consider internationalization, and that faculty development is needed to help instructors design more inclusive pedagogy.

1. Exploring the relevance and potential of
Universal Design for Learning to create
inclusive classroom practices with
international students
Frederic Fovet, School of Education and Technology,
Roads to Research, Royal Roads University
December 18th, 2019

2. Context
• Over the last decade, the number of International Students on North American
campuses has exploded.
• The percentage of International Students on many campuses now reaches 25%
• This intense process of internationalization has had many benefits for our campuses:
- Financial sustainability
- Global lens added to the delivery of programs
- Decolonization of the curriculum
- Social capital gains on International scale
- Globalization of networks and experiential opportunities
• But it also gives rise to specific concerns regarding teaching and learning

3. Interactive activity
• Take a few minutes in tables or pairs to examine some of the tension that is
experienced in the classroom when attempting to create inclusive provisions
for International Students.
• What are some of the challenges you have observed or experienced?
• You will not be need to share the observations with the room but will return
to them as we unpack the relevance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

4. Personal introduction
• Personal background is important here as this work represents a
phenomenological exploration of my various professional roles within
this area.
• Currently Associate Professor within the School of Education an
Technology at Royal Roads University, in BC
• Spent three years as Assistant Professor at UPEI, and acted as Academic
Lead on an MEd with a prominent International intake
• Previously Director of the Office for Students with Disabilities at McGill
for 4 years
• Continue to act as consultant to colleges and universities on matters of
accessibility and Universal Design for Learning
• Have been able to transfer most of my UDL expertise from the context
of Disability to the ‘internationalized’ classroom.

5. Context: What is UDL?
• Universal Design for Learning is a sustainable, environment
focused framework to manage learner diversity in the classroom,
which shifts the focus away from the deficit model by bringing to
the forefront the notion of user-friendly design (instruction and
assessment). It translates the Social Model of Disability into
classroom practices.
• How does it do that? By offering to the instructor three
dimensions within which to reflect on how best eliminate barriers
and widen access: multiple means of representation, multiple
means of action and expression, and multiple mean of
engagement.

6. What is the Social Model of Disability
• The social model of disability argues that Disability is not an
inherent feature of a person, but instead is situated in the
interaction between a person’s embodiment and the expectations
of the environment.
• This interpretation of Disability is very powerful as it shifts the
focus away from any deficit view of the individual and instead
examines what barriers are created in the environment.
• Proactive action then becomes possible in the form of inclusive
design that erodes or eliminates these barriers.

7. The origins of UDL
• Historically, has emerged from the UD movement in architecture
• Transferred over to learning and the classroom in the 1980s by David Rose
who went on to create CAST
• Based on neuro-cognitive literature which examines learning in terms of three
dimensions: representation, action and expression, and engagement
• Instead of focusing on the individual neuro-cognitive differences of specific
learners, UDL researchers argue that all learners are diverse within these
three dimensions.
• The maximum degree of flexibility should therefore be afforded to all learners
within these three axes of learning.

8. Adapted from AHEAD resources

9. Literature on UDL in the internationalized
classroom
• There is a paucity of literature on the topic.
• There is an emerging body of literature on UDL and
multiculturalism
• However the literature is still very shy of proposing a direct
application of UDL in the context of the internationalized HE
classroom.
• This presentation seeks to challenge this and to encourage other
scholars to consider the application of UDL in this context.

10. The growing interest for UDL in Higher Ed
• Although when UDL was first formulated and coined by CAST, the focus was
on impairment (particularly neuro-diversity), UDL lends itself well to the
management of diversity generally.
• I have found it easy, as a practitioner working with a majority of International
Students for three years, to use similar methods and to carry out similar
reflections on my practice as when I was working in Disability.
• The main appeal of UDL is the shift it operates from the deficit model to a
proactive design mindset. The situation is the same when it comes to
International Students; the deficit model is - sadly – still routinely used in HE
to describe the challenges faced by instructors.
• UDL places the burden back on the instructor to design in an accessible way

11. The relevance of the deficit model in the current perceptionof
InternationalStudents in HE
• The deficit model is still very present in the way we frame our discourse around the
needs of International Students.

12. How can UDL be useful for the inclusion
of International Students?
• Shifts us away from a deficit model positioning
• Recognizes that the design of our teaching and learning is
inherently ethnocentric
• Acknowledges the implicit messaging often contained in our
curriculum
• Guides us on how to re-examine the design of our instruction and
assessment from a user perspective
• Provides us 3 axes to make this reflection a life long process.

13. How can UDL be useful for the inclusion
of International Students?
• Interactive activity
• Please return, as a pair or a table, to your original observations
about the challenges that exist in the classroom.
• Select one specific challenge (either delivery of instruction or
assessment)
• Use one of the three UDL principles to deconstruct the challenge
identified and offer a hands on solution that uses design thinking
to avoid a deficit model lens.
•

14. Examining the UDL principles in context
• For the sake of brevity and conciseness, I will only offer examples
of practices that can be adopted when embarking on a reflection
around the implementation of the three principles of UDL in the
context of an internationalized classroom:
• Multiple means of representation
• Multiple means of action and expression
• Multiple means of engagement

15. Multiple Means of representation
• Using the LMS to provide several pathways into the course
‘readings’
• Instead of just posting the assigned readings to Moodle for each
part of the course, I make sure there is an assortment of texts and
other media, offering a nice spectrum in terms of length and
complexity.
• Students are able to select the sources that suit their ability in the
language of instruction, their familiarity with the concepts and
their time frame.
• This creates multiple pathways into to material offered

16. Multiple Means of Action and Expression
• Allowing students to submit format in multiple formats
• UDL engages us as instructor into a rich reflection on what assessment should
consist of. We routinely assess tasks in HE that we don’t actually teach.
International Students are greatly penalized by this. We, in particular, place
an over-emphasis on papers and presentations – both of which present
challenges for International Students
• Unless an assignment is specifically the formative assessment of MEd writing
tasks, I allow students to present the work in whatever form they prefer:
video, podcast, PPT, PPT with voice-over, multimedia montage, animation.
• The rubrics are written in a way that can be easily transferred to the format
chosen by the student.

17. Multiple means of engagement
• Making sure students are genuinely engaged with the subject matter in a manner that is relevant
to them
• In the field of education, International Students are often asked to perform tasks, such as writing
a practitioner’s journal, or reflecting on their classroom practices, which present inherent
challenges: many International Students have no experience of the home country classroom.
They are lacking the context entirely.
• The film club idea: as a parallel to my course on Critical Pedagogy, I have launched the idea of a
weekly film club. The students are introduced to a dozen films that offer them a window into
the North American classroom and the perceptions the public has of them. As a result, issues
come up for discussion in class, students gain a better understanding of context, and they take
ownership over the tasks that are assigned the them – rather than resenting them because they
might fail to understand the gist of what we are after.

18. The strategic importance of this research
• The Disability movement has so far been viewed as a minority
discourse in Higher Education, and as a result has been for the
great part ignored. The same can be said about the voices of
International Students, despite the direct revenue they represent.
• Disability service providers in HE + services for International
Students & International Development + support staff for
Indigenous Students = no longer a ‘minority discourse’.
• There is strategic potential here for the quick, systemic adoption
of UDL on campuses.

19. Implications of this work
• What do we need to learn to do differently?
• Create osmosis between accessibility services, International Students
support and Indigenous services.
• Widen the current wording of PD around UDL so that International
Student support personnel might immediately feels its relevance
• Encourage International Student support services to widen their
discourse from multiculturalism to an active discussion on pedagogy
• Demonstrate to faculty that practices adopted for students with
Disability have great impact on the inclusion of International students.
•

20. Book chapter exploring this research in
detail
• Kate Novak & Sean Bracken (Eds.) (2019) Transforming Higher Education through
Universal Design for Learning: An International Perspective. Routledge, London.

21. Contact details
• Frederic Fovet
• Associate Professor, School of Education and Technology, Royal
Roads University
• Frederic.fovet@royalroads.ca
• @Ffovet
• www.implementudl.com