{"id":1058,"date":"2025-01-13T11:28:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2025-01-23T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T21:03:06","slug":"crafting-space-for-student-belonging-a-cat-series-part-i-designing-courses-to-promote-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/edvice\/2025\/01\/13\/crafting-space-for-student-belonging-a-cat-series-part-i-designing-courses-to-promote-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting Space for Student Belonging, a CAT Series, Part I: Designing Courses to Promote Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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by Stephanie Laggini Fiore, Ph.D<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Anyone who has spent time with me has heard me say that I\u2019m bionic. I had my knees replaced in 2018 and now have titanium in my body that sets off alarms at the airport. I\u2019ll take it! The TSA can pat me down anytime they want if it means I can live without the chronic pain I experienced for decades. During that painful time, especially in the latter stages of my condition when climbing stairs was particularly difficult, curb cuts in sidewalks were a lifesaver. As was intended when they were created post-WWII to provide a more accessible environment for people with disabilities, curb cuts allowed me to maintain mobility, making it easier to cross streets while walking around town. But here\u2019s the thing: I still use curb cuts and I\u2019ll bet you do too. As Angela Glover Blackwell <\/span>explains<\/span><\/a>: \u201cT<\/span>hen a magnificent and unexpected thing happened. When the wall of exclusion came down, everybody benefited\u2014not only people in wheelchairs. Parents pushing strollers headed straight for curb cuts. So did workers pushing heavy carts, business travelers wheeling luggage, even runners and skateboarders.\u201d Blackwell is describing universal design, which allows better access to people with a range of abilities and needs. Similarly, <\/span>Universal Design for Learning<\/b> (<\/span>UDL<\/span><\/a>) is an educational framework that provides better access to learning for people with a wide variety of abilities and needs. For 40 years, <\/span>CAST<\/span><\/a> has been working to educate faculty on the power of UDL to create more inclusive learning environments, ones where courses are designed to value every learner, thereby catalyzing student belonging. <\/span><\/p>\n

Why is belonging important? <\/span>Studies report<\/span><\/a> a variety of benefits that a sense of belonging provides for students, including academic engagement and motivation, academic achievement, retention, and positive effects on well-being, among others. Our pedagogical practices play a very real role in improving student belonging, which is why we have created <\/span>Crafting Space for Student Belonging: A CAT Series<\/span><\/i>. We have chosen UDL to begin this series because belonging starts with course design. By eschewing a one-size-fits-all approach and instead following UDL principles in designing your course, you will lower barriers to learning, allow students to have greater agency in their learning, and increase students\u2019 sense of belonging. <\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>UDL 3.0 guidelines<\/span><\/a> encourage us to design our courses by considering how we can provide multiple means of engagement, representation and action & expression. Much as with UDL in the built environment, a UDL-designed course will provide support to students with a range of abilities and needs. For instance, many consider captions of video content to be a necessity for students with hearing impairments. But other students may use captions to move through a video more quickly or slow down, repeat, and listen again. And some may use captions because they are watching the video in a space that is not private, where they cannot turn on the sound. I\u2019m guessing you\u2019ve used captions when you watch TV for greater clarity of dialogue. (For me, the Scottish English in <\/span>Shetland<\/span><\/i> is hard to decipher, but I love that show – so captions it is!) Here are a few ideas for beginning to design a course according to UDL principles: <\/span><\/p>\n

Multiple Means of Engagement\u2014 the \u201cwhy\u201d of learning<\/h3>\n

Welcoming Interests & Identities:<\/b><\/p>\n