Universal Design for Learning for Clinical Educators

Abstract

As the diversity of students continues to increase in institutions of higher education, so does the need for faculty to provide equitable learning experiences for all students. Clinical practice experiences are an integral component of healthcare education programs' curricula. Credentialed practitioners in the clinical settings become extensions of didactic faculty and serve a crucial role in building students' competency in practical skills and translating didactic learning to clinical reasoning. In this chapter, the authors describe how to leverage the universal design for learning (UDL) framework as a tool for designing clinical experiences in ways that address student diversity and the continuum of student variability in motivation, knowledge, resourcefulness, and self-direction. Steps in a UDL-aligned design thinking cycle will be presented and applied to analyze three clinical educator-student vignettes. Within each, examples of common barriers to learning will be identified and UDL-based solutions will be proposed.