Abstract From workshop to impact - Experiences from university teachers 2-3 years after attending workshops on UDL

To quote Bob Dylan “The times they a changing”. The diverse student population of 2020 and of the future, require higher education nationwide to find new ways of developing teaching and learning in higher education. The European Commission's Eurydice Report (2014) stated six years ago that it is not enough to increase widening recruitment to universities. We also need to improve our work with widening participation. The following year Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, 2015) put student centered learning as one of the standards to work towards. As Burgstahler (2015) claims we are in the midst of a paradigm shift, and the concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), (CAST, 2011; Meyer, Rose & Gordon, 2014) can be one way to meet these changing times. In recent years the interest in UDL is picking up pace in higher education (Al- Azawei, Serenelli & Lundqvist, 2016). We know about UDL by now. The question is how do we walk the talk?

This paper concentrates on higher education development in the form of a series of workshops on UDL for university teachers in Sweden. The experiences from these workshops are gathered in a book (Häggblom, 2019) which guides the individual teacher in how he or she can use the concept of UDL, and it guides the educational developer in how he or she can plan and execute workshops on UDL. The workshop series also resulted in a Master thesis, The impact of Universal Design for Learning in higher education. Experiences of university teachers two or three years after attending a workshop series on UDL. (Häggblom, 2020). A qualitative method (Cohen, 2011) was used interviewing eight of the university teachers who partook in the workshop series two or three years earlier. The results of the thesis will be given at the presentation. After the presentation there will be time for discussion.

Literature

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Cohen, L., Manion L., & Morrison, K (2011). Research methods in education. (7^th edition.). Routledge. CPI Group Ltd, Croydon

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Häggblom, P (2020) The impact of Universal Design for Learning in higher education. Experiences of university teachers two or three years after attending a workshop series on UDL. (in press). Malmo University

 Häggblom, P (2019). Universell design för lärande, UDL, – ett inkluderande förhållningssätt. [Universal Design for Learning, UDL,- an inclusive mindset]. Lund: Studentlitteratur

Meyer, A., Rose., D. H., & Gordon, D. (2014) Universal design for learning- theory and practice . Wakefiled, MA: CAST Professional Publishing

Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). (2015). Brussels, Belgium.