Month: May 2023

Dear faculty,

As the semester winds down, I want to take this opportunity to share some resources that were developed this year within programs we offered in Faculty Development. Our hope was to collect all resources in one place to facilitate access and navigation and to allow for easy sharing even after the programs end. For each program listed below we created a webpage and, even more importantly, we built a “one-stop-shop” schedule where all information and resources associated to each workshop are posted. As you can tell if you explore these links, we also tried to diversify the formats of the resources to satisfy different learning and engagement preferences.

UDL Faculty Learning Community: schedule

EDI Teaching Series: webpage and schedule

HSI Professional Development Initiative: webpage and schedule

I hope you will take some time, possibly after finals, to check out these resources, because there are a lot of tools, templates, and tips for best practices that you can apply to your courses, even if you ddi not have a chance to complete these programs.

Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.

Faculty Development Director

Sent on behalf of Dr. Jamie Gunderson, Assistant Professor in the School or Education and READI Equity Fellow

Hello, Fellow Faculty! 

If you are anything like me, the winding down of one semester serves as a sort of cue to begin planning for the next semester. This planning normally begins with a review of the scope and goals of the courses I am preparing to teach as well as reflection of my previous experience with teaching the courses’ content. During my reflection, I think about any lessons and/or activities that students engaged with and responded favorably too. Next, and this part is my favorite, I take a look at The UDL Guidelines to identify any areas in which my lessons and activities align to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). From there, I can pinpoint any areas that I may want to focus on or increase my implementation. Here is an example; In the fall I am teaching a ChicoFlex course that I will be facilitating via Canvas. In my previous teaching of this content, I noticed that students appreciated the opportunity to review and provide feedback on each others’ work as this practice fosters collaboration and community (UDL Checkpoint 8.3). As this course is new to the Canvas platform, I am currently working on creating a module and assignment in Canvas wherein students can submit their work for peer review and feedback. This module, launching in the coming semester, uses the Canvas platform to facilitate the peer review and because I promote the use of Kurzweil in all my courses to support reading and writing, I am now using multimedia for communication (UDL Checkpoint 5.1) and multiple tools for composition and construction (UDL Checkpoint 5.2). As my example suggests, the implementation of UDL begins with reflection and recognition – consider what it is that you do in your teaching that works and review the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints to determine where those practices align with UDL. From there, challenge yourself to select an additional principle, guideline, or checkpoint to focus on for future implementation. 

Interested in implementing UDL within your teaching? In true UDL fashion, here are three options for you to start your UDL journey:

1. Adapt and apply the above example to your own teaching practice and review the UDL Guidelines.
2. Check out the UDL Teaching Guide on the FDEV website for tips, ideas, and more UDL-focused resources.
3. Recommended Option – Join us on Thursday, 5/11/23, in Colusa 100A from 12:30 – 2:00 PM, to see examples of UDL implementation and chat with faculty who are participating in the UDL Faculty Learning Community!

For more tips, resources, or to geek out on all things UDL, please contact Jamie Linn Gunderson: jlgunderson@csuchico.edu.