Requirements
Long-term vs. Short-Term Views
Universal design looks at who a learner will be over time, recognizing learners will be different throughout their lives. Traditional instructional design approaches take only a current snapshot, or very short-term view, of the learner. With universal design, we begin to think in the long-term. There will be learners who are at different stages and different phases of life, all trying to access learning and better their prospects, selves, or lives.
With increasing awareness of diversity in the population, especially in classrooms – and diversity that’s beyond surface-level features – we’re beginning to search for useful frameworks that guide the design of barrier-free learning environments.
The first barriers we have to remove are our own mental mindsets of who can and cannot be successful learners, and what failure to learn is attributable to.
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