Exploring Universal Design Learning And Intersectionality With Virtual Reality

This week I’ve been learning about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Intersectionality. UDL is a framework that helps instructors create “learning environments that are equitable, beneficial, and meaningful for all learners” (UDL-IRN, 2018). It helps meet each student at their unique skill levels and to meet learning goals. Intersectionality refers to the unique cases created by considering the combined characteristics of a person and how they create a unique circumstance. For example, an African-American woman can be perceived differently than both an African-American man or a Caucasian woman (Crenshaw, 2016).

While reviewing lesson plans from peers through the lens of UDL and intersectionality it became concrete to me that these are not just academic concepts. They have important, real-world applications that affect our students.

Since I’ve been working with virtual reality, I thought this would be a great opportunity to put it into practice and see if I could demonstrate my learning with this technology. The virtual world I created contained gifted students who vary in skill levels in different areas. This asynchronous development is typical of gifted students, but it presents some challenges. Since the students may be extremely strong in some areas and weak in others so the class cannot be taught as a homogenous group. The world also explores intersectionality as some gifted students may have special needs because they have learning disabilities in addition to being gifted.

In my virtual world, the teacher learns from an experienced coworker that using a backward design process keeps the project experience focused on the learning goals. UDL can then be applied to make sure each student can meet those goals regardless of his or her strengths and weaknesses. UDL also helps keep students engaged even if they are at a much higher or lower skill level in the topic being taught.

References

Crenshaw, K. (2016). The Urgency of Intersectionality. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality

UDL-IRN (2018) UDL-IRN Beliefs and Mission. Retrieved from https://udl-irn.org/