top of page
thisforcoursetop.jpg

Universal Design and Beyond: Designing for Human Variability

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides a powerful framework for creating inclusive environments that anticipate and embrace learner variability. This course introduces UDL principles while also exploring complementary practices that extend inclusive design beyond access—toward equity, agency, and transformation. Participants will learn to plan proactively, reduce barriers, and offer flexible pathways for success that honour the diverse ways students learn and thrive.

Start Here

Welcome to the course! This learning experience is designed to help you explore inclusive education through a blend of practical strategies and powerful storytelling. Before diving into the course content, your first step is to choose the story that will guide your learning.

 

About This Course

This course supports you in building inclusive, flexible learning environments that recognize and amplify the strengths of every learner. While you’ll deepen your understanding through interactive learning interludes, everything begins with story.

​

Each course is anchored in a set of narrative case studies—realistic, practice-based stories that illuminate inclusive strategies in action. These stories will help you reflect, connect, and see how the course concepts apply in real school contexts.

​

Choose Your Story

Each story features:

  • A Prologue to set the scene

  • Four Chapters that trace growth, tension, and change

  • An Epilogue to reflect on learning and impact

​​

Choose one story to follow throughout the course. Pick the one that most closely matches your role, context, or interests. This story will provide a consistent lens as you move through the learning interludes and activities.

​

Not sure which to choose? No problem. You can always return to this page to explore other stories. Many learners choose to follow more than one story to see how inclusive practices come to life in different settings.

​

What Happens Next?

Once you’ve chosen your story:

  • If you're learning independently, head to the Course Content section and begin with Learning Interlude 1.

  • If you're learning with a facilitator, they’ll guide you through the journey using the facilitation materials provided.

 

You're ready to begin. Scroll down to explore the stories and pick the one that will guide your path through the course.

Designing for Belonging: Marnie’s Shift Toward Inclusive Practice

Meet Marnie, a Grade 3/4 teacher navigating the daily realities of a split 3/4 classroom at Riverstone Elementary School. Pressured to cover curriculum and meet diverse student needs, she often finds herself overwhelmed, exhausted by constant one-off adaptations that fail to reach every learner. But a growing discomfort nudges her to question: What if the problem isn’t the students—but the design?

​

As Marnie begins to explore Universal Design for Learning, she shifts her focus from reacting to deficits to proactively designing for strengths. Through moments of vulnerability, trial and error, and collaboration with colleagues, Marnie begins to create choice-based, multimodal learning experiences that invite all students into the heart of the classroom.

​

Her journey reflects the messiness and joy of inclusive practice: students who once disengaged begin to re-enter learning; assessments become celebrations of growth; and the classroom moves from survival mode to a space where everyone belongs, including the teacher.

​

This story is for any educator who has ever felt stuck in the pressure to do it all and is ready to design differently.

​

  • Prologue - Caught in the Currents ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 1 - The Blur of Expectations ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 2 - Starting from the Edges ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 3 - What They Need to See ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 4 - Evidence of Learning, Differently ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Epilogue - A Classroom Transformed ( 📖 Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Walking In: Olivia’s Story of Voice and Visibility

Meet Olivia, a thoughtful and creative high school student navigating the daily challenges of ADHD and anxiety at Summit Grove Secondary School. For years, she masked her struggles behind perfectionism, silence, and avoidance, quietly slipping through the cracks of a fast-paced, high-demand school system. But when one teacher shifts the classroom approach to prioritize flexible deadlines, multimodal expression, and emotional safety, Olivia’s story begins to change.

​

This is a story about what happens when dignity is designed into learning. As Olivia is given space to show up as she is, not just as a student, but as a person, she begins to reclaim her voice and agency. Her journey highlights the power of inclusive practice to interrupt cycles of shame and invisibility and to open new pathways for success.

​

  • Prologue - The Quiet Collapse ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 1 - The Weight of the Bell ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 2 - Choice Without Shame ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 3 - Finding the Thread ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 4 - This Counts Too ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Epilogue - Still Walking In ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Leading for All: Rhonda’s Shift from Fixing to Designing

Meet Rhonda, a junior high vice principal at Wayfinder Middle School who began to notice a troubling pattern: accommodations were piling up, but barriers remained. Students were being “supported” but still excluded. In a school where IEP binders were growing thicker and teacher burnout rising, Rhonda asked a bold question: What if we planned differently from the start?

​

This story follows Rhonda’s journey from reactive systems to inclusive design, where supports are embedded into how teaching and learning happen for everyone. As she engages staff in rethinking the role of planning, language, and leadership, the culture begins to shift from “how do we fix this student?” to “how do we change the environment?”

​

It’s a story about designing with, not for, students, and about how leadership can quietly, steadily transform practice from the inside out.

​

  • Prologue - Beneath the Surface ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 1 - Another Red Folder ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 2 - If One, Then Many ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 3 - Planning for the Invisible ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 4 - The Culture of a Lesson Plan ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Epilogue - A New Lens for Leadership ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

Beyond the Tool: Luis and the Design of Access

Meet Luis, a central office technology lead with Unity Pathways School Division tasked with rolling out digital tools to support learning. For years, Luis focused on the logistics - devices, platforms, licenses. But no matter how many tools he introduced, teachers kept saying the same thing: “It doesn’t work for our kids.”

​

This story follows Luis as he shifts from a tech-forward to a design-forward approach. By anchoring his work in UDL and inclusive design, Luis begins to understand that technology isn’t the solution—it’s the amplifier. When used meaningfully, tech becomes a bridge to engagement, representation, and expression. But when layered on top of exclusion, it only deepens the divide.

​

Luis’s journey invites us to consider: What happens when we stop leading with tools and start leading with purpose?

​

  • Prologue - Not Another Platform ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 1 - The Tool Isn’t the Design ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 2 - Tech as Invitation ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 3 - Signals and Supports ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 4 - Choice Isn’t a Menu ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Epilogue - Seeing the Impact ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

simran.jpg

Designing Belonging at Summit Grove Secondary School

At Summit Grove Secondary School, a team of high school science teachers began to notice a pattern: their curriculum was rigorous, but rigid—and it wasn’t reaching many of their students. Attendance was dropping, engagement was low, and failure rates were climbing. Something had to change.

​

This story follows their collective journey as they reimagine science instruction through the lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). By embedding flexibility, multimodality, and relevance into the core of their teaching, not just the margins, they transformed not only student outcomes, but their own sense of purpose.

​

From passive content delivery to dynamic inquiry, the Summit Grove team moves from teaching science to designing for learning. This story offers a vivid example of what it means to build belonging through design, even in the most traditionally content-heavy subjects.

​

  • Prologue - When Rigor Isn’t Reaching ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 1 - Not Built for Everyone ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 2 - Finding the Hook ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 3 - Access for All ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Chapter 4 - Inquiry as Expression ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

  • Epilogue - Belonging by Design ( ðŸ“– Read | 🎧 Listen | 🎬 Watch )

© 2025 by The Belonging Project. Website created with Wix.com

© 2025 by The Belonging Project. Website created with Wix.com

bottom of page