Universal Design for Learning: An Interactive ExplorationMaster ClassIn-Person
Together, we will explore the vibrant crossing of active learning and accessible learning through UDL. UDL (Universal Design for Learning) is a framework for teaching based on scientific insights about how humans learn. And while the philosophies and practices of UDL really can’t ever be universal (a critique we’ll explore), its goals are “founded on, and committed to, the fight for educational equity, until learning has no limits.” How can we use these tools for our teaching, for our students? In this master class, we’ll look at ways in which UDL maps onto our own teaching and learning, and then explore how it might work best for our students.
Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Brenda Jo Brueggemann is a professor of English, American Studies, and Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut, where she also serves as the Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing. In the glorious summers, she teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. She has been deaf (genetic) from birth. After college, she taught high school in her rural Kansas community for five years before going back to graduate school. In the mid-1990s, bolstered by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, she helped conceptualize the new field of Disability Studies. She has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited sixteen books, including nine memoirs in the Deaf Lives series she created for Gallaudet University Press, and more than seventy essays and articles at the intersections of Deaf/Disability Studies and writing/art. Her current research centers on disability and deafness in the visual, literary, and performance arts. She has been an ardent fan of active learning, accessible learning, and related teaching practices (UDL) for two decades now.