When Good Design Is Invisible: Four UMBC Faculty Share How UDL Supports Student Learning

Students in Sarah Bass’s chemistry courses who use the course-grounded AI assistant say it feels like talking to their professor. Many of their classmates, though, don’t know the assistant exists or aren’t sure what it’s for.

That gap between a well-designed support and the student who actually uses it was the focus of “When Good Design Is Invisible: Helping Students Recognize UDL,” a National Distance Learning Week panel on November 2. Four UMBC faculty from social work, chemistry, modern languages, and dance shared how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) shapes their courses, and how they help students see and use the choices built into them.

Panelists: Sarah Bass, Jill Vasbinder Morrison, Milvia Hernández, and Tiffany Banks

1. Building a Structure Students Can Predict

With more than 300 students in each chemistry lecture section, Bass relies on consistency. Deadlines follow a predictable pattern and appear everywhere students look: Blackboard, their calendars, and the slides posted after class. After a deadline passes, the material reopens so students can keep practicing. Bass tells students why the course runs this way. 

Predictable organization means less energy spent figuring out what to do and more spent on chemistry. She also explains the purpose of each kind of practice, from reviewing foundational concepts to taking practice exams. The goal isn't simply to help students navigate chemistry, but to help them recognize what they need and develop strategies for managing their own learning.

2. Counting More Than One Kind of Participation

In dance courses, participation is essential, and Jill Vasbinder Morrison grades it. She doesn’t define it as raising a hand. Students can talk in pairs, add to shared slides and spreadsheets, serve as class scribe, or join an optional discussion board after a missed class. When she explains this on the first day, she can see the relief. She repeats it in the Start Here folder, the syllabus, every slide deck, and VoiceThread. 

A syllabus quiz with multiple attempts reinforces these expectations and helps students locate important course information. When a student still isn’t using any of the options, she reaches out one-on-one to remind them that the choices are real and that they count. By making participation options explicit and reinforcing them throughout the semester, Morrison helps students recognize that contributing to learning doesn't have to look the same for everyone.

3. Explaining the Small Routines

Some of the most effective supports in Milvia Hernández’s asynchronous Spanish courses look almost too simple. Students copy each chapter’s vocabulary by hand, even though it’s in the ebook, and a short video explains why handwriting helps language learning. For a student who can’t handwrite, recording the words aloud serves the same purpose. 

Projects unfold in connected stages with feedback along the way, so the final product gathers work students have already done. Students rarely see the point at first, but by the end they say it’s what helped most. In the first week, instead of handing out study tips, Hernández has students find strategies for learning a language online, share them in a forum, and pick one or two to try. Whether students are practicing vocabulary, building a project, or choosing study strategies, Hernández helps them understand why they're doing the work and how those routines support their learning.

4. Making It Safe to Ask

Tiffany Banks opens each semester in her social work courses by telling students what it means to her to be a neuroaffirming educator. Students can ask her for flexibility, such as an extension, even without a diagnosis or formal accommodation. When she can’t say yes, usually because grades are due, she tells them why. In class, she makes it clear that not every activity is graded. A quick thumbs up, sideways, or down tells her whether to slow down or try another approach. 

Some of those new approaches last: a visual that one cohort created to understand a difficult concept now appears in her slides for the next class. As Banks emphasized, there's never a perfect solution. UDL is an ongoing process of listening, adjusting, and recognizing that students may need different kinds of support at different times.

Across four very different disciplines, the panelists demonstrated that UDL doesn't require redesigning an entire course. It starts with noticing where students encounter barriers, making one purposeful change, and helping students understand how that change supports their learning. Sometimes the most meaningful improvement isn't adding another activity or resource. It's helping students recognize and use the thoughtful design already built into their learning experience.

Explore UDL in Your Teaching

Interested in applying Universal Design for Learning to your courses? UMBC's Instructional Technology team can help you identify barriers, explore practical strategies, and make purposeful changes that support student learning.