ABSTRACT
College courses increasingly enroll diverse populations of students, including adult learners who return to college mid-career to learn new skills, students who come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, students with disabilities, and first generation learners. Based on their diverse background, experiences, and needs, students may experience common challenges and encounter instructional barriers when enrolled in college courses. Instructors can address learner variability in the college classroom by proactively designing courses that support varied student needs and preferences. This chapter describes how instructors can undertake an instructional design process, taking UDL into consideration, as they develop and implement their instructional practices. Using UDL, instructors can integrate supports and scaffolds that take into account the needs of diverse groups of students in the classroom, facilitating student persistence, engagement, and mastery of course objectives.
