UDL: The WHY, WHAT, and HOW of Learning

The Goal: Learner Agency

According to CAST, the goal of Universal Design for Learning is learner agency: the capacity to actively participate in making choices in service of learning goals.

Learner agency is not simply about giving students options. It is about designing learning environments that actively develop students' capacity to direct their own learning. In UDL 3.0, learner agency is described as being:

Purposeful and reflective: Students are self-aware and can identify internal motivations and external influences that support their learning and make adjustments when necessary.
Resourceful and authentic: Students understand and apply their own assets, strengths, and linguistic and cultural capital to deepen understanding in genuine ways.
Strategic and action-oriented: Students set meaningful goals, monitor their learning with intentionality, and take self-directed action in pursuit of those goals.

This goal shapes everything about how we think about UDL. We are not just removing barriers so students can access content. We are designing learning environments that help students become more capable, confident, and self-directed learners.

Learn more: The Goal of UDL: Learner Agency from CAST

The Three Principles of UDL

The UDL framework is organized around three principles, each addressing a different dimension of how humans learn. These principles are sometimes described as the WHY, the WHAT, and the HOW of learning.

One size does not fit all. Each of your students brings a unique combination of strengths, challenges, prior knowledge, cultural context, and motivation. These three principles help you design learning that works for the full range of human learning, not just the students who happen to learn the way you do.

The WHY: Multiple Means of Engagement

Engagement addresses the why of learning. It asks: what motivates your students? What sparks their interest, sustains their effort, and supports their emotional capacity to learn?

What excites one student may bore or overwhelm another. Students vary enormously in what captures their attention, what feels relevant to their lives, and what helps them persist through difficulty. UDL invites you to build flexibility and choice into how students engage with learning.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

How do I welcome the interests and identities of all of my students into this learning experience?
How do I help students understand why this learning matters and connect it to their own goals?
How do I support students in developing the emotional capacity and self-awareness to persist through challenges?
Am I addressing biases, threats, or distractions that might prevent some students from fully engaging?

What This Looks Like in Practice

In a face-to-face course: A history instructor begins each unit with a question that connects the historical content to a current event students are likely to have opinions about. Students choose which aspect of the topic to research for their first assignment. The instructor explicitly names the purpose of each learning activity so students understand why they are doing it, not just what they are doing.

In an online course: A biology instructor includes a brief module introduction that explains how the week's content connects to real-world careers and everyday life. Students can choose between two different types of discussion prompts based on their interests. The instructor provides a clear rubric and a worked example so students know what success looks like before they begin.

UDL 3.0 Guidelines for Engagement

Guideline 7: Welcoming Interests and Identities
Guideline 8: Sustaining Effort and Persistence
Guideline 9: Emotional Capacity

The WHAT: Multiple Means of Representation

Representation addresses the what of learning. It asks: how do you present information so that every student can perceive, understand, and make meaning from it?

Students differ in how they best perceive and understand information. Some learn more effectively from text. Others benefit from visuals, audio, or hands-on experience. Students who are learning in a second language, students with visual or auditory disabilities, and students with different cultural backgrounds may all experience the same content very differently depending on how it is presented.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

Am I presenting key information in more than one format so that all students have a way to access it?
Am I connecting new learning to what students already know?
Am I representing a diversity of perspectives and identities in the materials and examples I use?
Am I addressing biases in the language and symbols I use in my course?

What This Looks Like in Practice

In a face-to-face course: A nursing instructor presents new concepts both verbally and visually using diagrams and models. Key vocabulary is defined clearly and displayed on the board throughout the lesson. The instructor uses real patient scenarios drawn from diverse cultural and demographic contexts so students can see the content applied in ways that reflect the communities they will serve.

In an online course: A communications instructor builds Canvas pages with clear heading structure, short paragraphs, and embedded videos that reinforce the written content. Transcripts are provided for all videos. Complex concepts are illustrated through multiple examples drawn from different industries and cultural contexts. Students can use Canvas Immersive Reader to have the text read aloud if that supports their learning.

UDL 3.0 Guidelines for Representation

The HOW: Multiple Means of Action and Expression

Action and expression addresses the how of learning. It asks: how do your students demonstrate what they know, and are you giving them enough options and support to do that well?

Students differ in how they best express their learning. Some excel at written work. Others are stronger in verbal communication, visual expression, or hands-on demonstration. Some students need more scaffolding and support before they can perform independently. Others are ready to work strategically with minimal guidance. UDL invites you to provide multiple pathways for students to show what they know.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

Am I giving students options for how they interact with and respond to course content?
Am I offering multiple ways for students to express and communicate their learning?
Am I providing the scaffolding, models, and feedback students need to develop their skills?
Am I helping students set goals, monitor their progress, and develop as strategic learners?
Am I challenging exclusionary practices that may prevent some students from demonstrating their full capabilities?

What This Looks Like in Practice

In a face-to-face course: A business instructor offers students a choice between a written report, a recorded presentation, or a live pitch for their final project. All options are held to the same learning objectives and evaluated with the same rubric. Students receive a project outline, a sample of strong work from a previous semester, and two rounds of instructor feedback before the final submission.

In an online course: A psychology instructor breaks a large research assignment into smaller milestones with feedback at each stage. Students submit a topic proposal, an annotated bibliography, a draft, and a final paper. This structure helps students plan, anticipate challenges, and monitor their own progress rather than attempting everything at once. Students who need additional support can access optional scaffolding resources at each stage.

UDL 3.0 Guidelines for Action and Expression

Guideline 4: Interaction
Guideline 5: Expression and Communication
Guideline 6: Strategy Development

A Scenario: UDL Thinking in Practice

Consider this situation. A sociology instructor is designing a unit on social inequality. She has always assigned a traditional research paper as the culminating assessment. Most students do reasonably well, but she notices that some of her strongest thinkers, the students who ask the most insightful questions in class and make the most connections during discussions, consistently struggle with the written paper format. She also notices that her course materials draw primarily from Western academic sources and do not reflect the cultural backgrounds of many of her students.

Applying UDL thinking, she makes several changes:

Engagement: She adds a brief activity at the start of the unit where students identify a real-world example of social inequality from their own community or lived experience. This connects the academic content to what students already know and care about.
Representation: She diversifies her reading list to include perspectives from scholars of different cultural backgrounds. She adds a short video that illustrates a key concept for students who find the academic text dense, and she provides a glossary of key terms.
Action and Expression: She offers students a choice between a written paper, a recorded video essay, or a visual presentation with a written reflection. All three options require the same depth of analysis and are evaluated with the same rubric.

None of these changes lower expectations. The learning goals remain the same. What changes is how students can access the content, connect with it, and demonstrate their understanding. The result is a more equitable and effective learning experience for a wider range of students.

Your Tool: The CAST UDL Guidelines

The CAST UDL Guidelines are an interactive graphic organizer that helps you identify specific opportunities to apply UDL in your courses. The Guidelines are organized around the three principles and include nine guidelines with associated considerations, which are specific, research-based suggestions for reducing barriers and supporting all learners.

The Guidelines are not a checklist. You do not need to implement every consideration in every course. They are a menu of possibilities, a tool for generating ideas and identifying where your course design might be creating unnecessary barriers.

How to use the Guidelines:

You can also download a PDF version of the graphic organizer from the CAST UDL Guidelines Downloads page. The Guidelines are available in more than 20 languages.

Learn more about how to navigate and use the Guidelines: About the UDL Guidelines Graphic Organizer from CAST

UDL and Accessible Design: Better Together

UDL and accessible design are not competing frameworks. They are complementary. Accessible design ensures that students with disabilities can access your content using assistive technologies. UDL ensures that all students, regardless of disability status, background, language, or learning preference, have a genuine opportunity to engage with, understand, and demonstrate their learning.

A course that is technically accessible but not designed with UDL in mind may still present significant barriers for many learners. A course that applies UDL principles but is not technically accessible fails students who depend on assistive technologies. Both matter. Together, they create learning environments that are truly inclusive.

The accessible design skills you will build in Module 3 are the technical foundation. UDL is the broader design philosophy that guides how you use those skills to create learning experiences that work for everyone.

Curated Resources for Further Learning

If you want to go deeper with UDL, here are five high-quality resources to explore:

CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0 — The primary source for the UDL framework. Explore the interactive guidelines, read the research behind each consideration, and download the graphic organizer.
UDL Guidelines 3.0 Frequently Asked Questions from CAST — Answers to common questions about what changed in version 3.0 and how to apply the updated framework.
UDL on Campus from CAST — A resource specifically for higher education faculty with examples, case studies, and guidance for applying UDL in college and university settings.
CAST Postsecondary Professional Development — Online courses and professional development opportunities from CAST specifically designed for postsecondary educators.
About the UDL Guidelines 3.0 Update from CAST — A detailed explanation of what changed in the 2024 update and why, including the stronger focus on biases and systems of exclusion.

Coming Up Next

The next page in this module is the optional Discussion: UDL and You. This is your opportunity to reflect on how UDL connects to your own teaching practice and share ideas with colleagues.

After the discussion, you will take the UDL Quiz to complete Module 2.

If you have questions about UDL or about applying these principles in your courses, reach out to the Distance Education Coordinator or the Instructional Designer.