UDL Day Schedule

8:00 to 8:15 a.m. Welcome

Presenters:

Mark Nichols, Senior Director of Universal Design and Accessible Technologies, TLOS
Beth Valentine, Director of ADA & Accessibility Services, ADA/504 Coordinator, Office for Civil Rights Compliance and Prevention Education

8:15 to 8:45 a.m. UDL and Academic Accommodations: How They Work Together

Presenters:

Pearl Xie, Director of Universal Design for Learning & Accessibility Services, TLOS
Ashley Bray, Director of Services for Students with Disabilities, Student Affairs

Description: Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and academic accommodations are sometimes seen as separate approaches to accessibility, but they are most effective when they work together. This session introduces the fundamentals of UDL and examines how proactive course design can support accessibility while complementing the accommodation process. Participants will explore practical strategies for designing courses that reduce barriers for diverse learners while maintaining the flexibility needed to support individual student needs.

8:50 to 9:50 a.m. Desirable Difficulty in an Age of Effortless AI

Presenter:

Dale Pike, Associate Vice Provost for Technology-enhanced Learning, TLOS

Description: AI can now implement Universal Design for Learning at a scale that was unimaginable five years ago. Real-time content adaptation, multimodal representation, personalized scaffolding, and dynamic accessibility are becoming routine. For UDL practitioners, this looks like the arrival of everything we have been working toward. But UDL’s purpose has never been to optimize learning environments. UD’s purpose is to develop expert learners: people who are purposeful, resourceful, and strategic. Cognitive scientists have known for decades that durable learning requires effortful retrieval, elaboration, and integration. AI is exceptionally good at removing effort. In education, some of that effort is the thing we are trying to produce.

This session grounds the AI-and-UDL conversation in learning science, starting with Bjork's desirable difficulties research and connecting it to UDL’s stated goal of developing expert learners. For every place you consider integrating AI in your course, one question clarifies the design choice: “Is this removing a barrier to learning, or is this removing the learning itself?” We will walk through discipline-specific examples, explore co-agency as a design pattern where AI scaffolding fades as learner competence grows, and examine the permission divide that AI policies create for students. Faculty will leave with a concrete, applicable decision lens for integrating AI and UDL in ways that develop capable, independent learners.

9:50 to 10:05 a.m. Morning Break

10:05 to 11:05 a.m. Keynote - The Future Won’t Wait: Strategies for Leaders, Educators, and Curriculum for the Age of AI   

Presenters:

Kiran Budhrani, Director for Teaching and Learning Innovation at UNC Charlotte
Jordan T. Register, Instructional Designer and Technologist at UNC Charlotte

Description: The future does not fit in containers of the past – and the future won’t wait. We invite you to reimagine how higher education can evolve while staying human in the age of AI. AI is rapidly transforming how knowledge is created, accessed, and applied. For educators and institutions, the challenge is no longer whether AI will influence teaching and learning, but how we adapt thoughtfully and responsibly. While AI technologies are advancing quickly, many academic structures, policies, and pedagogical practices were designed for a different era. This keynote explores how campuses can support educators in developing AI literacy and integrating AI meaningfully into the curriculum. Institutions must build intentional strategies that empower faculty to rethink learning design, assessment, research, and student engagement for an AI-enabled workforce. Drawing on emerging campus practices, the session highlights practical approaches for fostering faculty experimentation, curriculum integration, student support, teaching communities, and aligning AI integration with institutional values such as academic integrity, critical thinking, and ethical responsibility.

11:10 to 11:40 a.m. Faculty Panel Discussion on Building Universal Design for Learning Community of Practice at the College of Science

Panelists:

Elijah Carter, Assistant Director for Instructional Support, Center for Advancing Undergraduate Science Education, College of Science
Kelli Karcher, Advanced Instructor, Director of Undergraduate Academics, College of Science
Anja Whittington, Collegiate Associate Professor, College of Natural Resources and Environment
Anne R. Driscoll, Collegiate Professor, Department of Statistics, College of Science

Description: Following the proven UDL faculty fellow model established by Virginia Tech's successful UDL Innovation Group, TLOS and CAUSE are partnering to establish a research-informed UDL Community of Practice, aiming to transform STEM education through evidence-based pedagogical approaches. This session will share strategies, highlights, and challenges of developing a UDL community of practice within the College of Science. The session will focus on community development, workshops, and efforts made to support UDL training within the college, and the challenges of implementation. It will also offer suggestions for future directions.

11:45 to 12:15 p.m.  Panel Discussion on What Students Want You To Know About AI Use in Your Course 

Panelists:

Michele Deramo, Community and Belonging Specialist, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Xiaohan Ding, Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science, College of Engineering
Beyza Nur Guler, Ph.D. candidate in Engineering Education, College of Engineering
Emma Roshioru, Senior in Political Science and Public Relations, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences 

Description: This session features a panel of advanced undergraduate and graduate students sharing their insights and research on how the thoughtful use of AI can support the learning of all students. We invite participants to engage with us in hearing more about students’ experiences and raising the questions you still have about the intersection of UDL and AI.

12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Lunch break (Lunch is provided)

1:15 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Generating Accessible Materials with Generative AI

Presenter:

Scott Mutchler, Associate Professor of Practice, Academy of Data Science at Virginia Tech

Description: This session introduces faculty to agentic AI tools for creating and converting accessible course materials. Participants will explore the large language models (LLMs) available through ARC, which power the [OpenCode] agentic AI tool, and learn how to use an AI skill available for download from a GitHub repository to both generate new instructional materials and convert existing materials into fully accessible formats.

2:00 to 2:15 p.m. Afternoon Break & Snacks

2:15 to 2:45 p.m. Access by Design: AI Strategies for Inclusive Course Design

Presenters:

Kim Loeffert, Assistant Professor, School of Performing Arts
Donna Fortune, Associate Professor of Practice, Program Coordinator for Elementary Education and Undergraduate Licensure Programs, School of Education
Pearl Xie, Director of Universal Design for Learning & Accessibility Services, TLOS

Description: This session examines how artificial intelligence can support proactive, inclusive course design and highlights practical strategies for aligning course materials with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Participants will explore targeted prompts and structured workflows that integrate accessibility into course planning, instructional materials, and assessment design from the outset. Emphasis is placed on leveraging AI to reduce barriers and expand equitable access for diverse learners.

2:45 to 3:30 p.m. Designing for Every Learner: How GenAI Can Expand Your Instructional Design Toolkit

Presenters:

Daron Williams, Director of Instructional Design, TLOS
Ginny Clark, Learning Technologies Specialist, TLOS

Description: Generative AI is reshaping how instructional designers approach their work, but what does that mean for the learners we serve? This session invites instructional designers and educators to step back from the hype and ask a more grounded question: how might these tools help us better meet the diverse needs of our students? Using UDL principles as a lens, we’ll explore how GenAI can support more flexible, responsive, and inclusive course design from generating varied representations of content to scaffolding materials for learners with different entry points. Rather than a how-to walkthrough, this session is designed to spark reflection: Where are the gaps in your current practice? Where might AI meaningfully fill them? Attendees will leave with new ways of thinking about GenAI’s role in instructional design and a clearer sense of where these tools align  and where they fall short with the goal of designing for every learner.

3:30 to 4:20 p.m. Q&A Working Session

Description: This interactive session offers participants dedicated time to translate ideas from the day into action. Bring your course materials or teaching ideas, and work alongside TLOS specialists and UDL experts to explore strategies for designing flexible, accessible learning experiences and for thoughtfully incorporating AI tools to support student success.

4:30 p.m. Closing