Webinar session as part of the AHEAD Ireland 2020 Online Conference

1. Mental Health and Higher Ed: Exploring the
relevance of UDL from a multidisciplinary
AHEAD Conference 2020, Dublin
Frederic Fovet, School of Education and Technology, RRU

2. Key issue discussed in this workshop
• Even UDL advocates shy away when comes the time to discuss the impact of
the design of the learning experience on Mental Health (MH) of students.
• Key issue: we globally revert to a medical model perspective when faced with
MH in higher education (HE)
• We will use Menti to carry out a poll. Please log into www.mentimeter.com

3. Interactive interlude
Menti Activity/ icebreaker. These represent various stages of awareness and action.
Choose the level that most applies to you
Option 1 - Who feels that MH issues in the classroom are sometimes caused or
exacerbated by the design of instruction or assessment?
Option 2 - Who feels campuses are aware of the impact of bad learning design on
student MH?
Option 3 - Who feels campuses are tackling the impact of bad design on student MH?
Option 4 - Who feels UDL is explicitly used on their campus to reduce MH issues
among students?
Option 5 - Who is actively using UDL to redesign instruction or assessment to reduce
MH issues in the class?
Indicate your choice by logging on to www.menti.com, and entering 62 76 89

5. How did this research emerge?
• Originates organically from an interactive workshop offered during the Third Pan-
Canadian Conference on UDL at Royal Roads University in 2019.
• I offered a workshop on this topic in collaboration with the Associate Director of
Instructional Design services (CTET) and the Director of Student Services
• We engaged with the audience from three distinct perspectives, and then reflected
on what we and the participants had learnt from the process.
• I decided to develop this initiative into a fully fledged research study involving
accessibility services personnel, faculty and instructional designers.
• Grant funded (RRU Internal Research Grant)

6. What does the Literature tell us?
• MH is generally absent from the UDL literature (Al-Azawei, Serenelli & Lundqvist,
2016)
• Relevance of UDL within CBT approaches with youth (Reid, Grills, Mian, Reid, Merson
& Langer, 2017)
• Hint that UDL is effective in eroding MH challenges, but no concrete illustrations
(Rao, Ok & Bryant, 2014)
• Paucity of work around UDL and MH
• Even among UDL advocates there tends to be a reluctance to engage around the
topic of MH
• Why?
• What do you think causes this state of affairs?

7. The accessibility services perspective on
MH in the classroom

8. Issues that are frequently mentioned by
students as triggers to MH
1. Timed assignments or exams
2. Participation grades
3. Team assignments
4. Assignment Deadlines
5. Lack of flexibility in assignment format
6. Tension in the relationship with the instructor
7. Unnecessary textbooks or disproportionate reading lists
8. Triggers present in course content
9. Learning outcomes that are not clear or easy to understand
10. Course schedules that are not clear or easy to understand
11. Course activities (field trips etc.) that are not accessible or viable for students with MH
issues
12. Content that is not accessible/ in itself creates stress, anxiety, frustration
13. Overreliance on leave as a way of addressing MH issues in the classroom – frustrating
response as of itself

9. Relevance of design
How many of these issues have roots in bad design?
• Timed assignments or exams
• Participation grades
• Team assignments
• Assignment Deadlines
• Lack of flexibility in assignment format
• Tension in the relationship with the instructor
• Unnecessary textbooks or disproportionate reading lists
• Triggers present in course content
• Learning outcomes that are not clear or easy to understand
• Course schedules that are not clear or easy to understand
• Course activities (field trips etc.) that are not accessible or viable for students with MH issues
• Content that is not accessible/ in itself creates stress, anxiety, frustration
• Overreliance on leave as a way of addressing MH issues in the classroom – frustrating
response as of itself

10. Further interactive question
• How often do accessibility services personnel have time to discuss the design
perspective of the challenges just highlighted?
• What pathways exist for disability service staff to engage authentically with
faculty on these design considerations?
• What are some of the obstacles in this relationship?
• The two solitudes?

11. The instructor perspective

12. Phenomenologicalexplorationofthetensionthatisexperiencedby
facultywithregardsto MH
• Points of tension identified are:
- Rote use of oral presentation in class as a form of assessment
- Class participation marks
- Overreliance on term paper format in assessment
- Arbitrary deadlines
- Intrusive requirements for explanations from student and for disclosure
- At times accommodations themselves create stress: exams away from a class
where prof interacts with other students during assessment
- How many of these issues can we eliminate with good design?

13. Snap shot of a UDL process around these
MH issues
• The UDL process is based on common sense and requires to specialist
knowledge regarding access
• It requires no insight into the student’s diagnostic information
• It requires no financial or staffing resources
• It allows the faculty member to feel empowered within their own classroom
(elimination of the ‘culture of referral’)
• So why is this not happening systematically in our departments?

14. Caveat: What are some of the variables that affect
faculty as they reflect on MH and course design
• Workload & their own mental health (impact of the increasing proportion of
contract faculty)
• Own MH issues may make faculty reticent to discuss these issues with
students
• Desire to remain inconspicuous even if they are sensitive to social justice
issues
• Expectations of department and departmental politics: do I fit in or rock the
boat?
• Unions: UDL is not sufficiently discussed with unions
• Institutional imperatives and mandated processes (extensions, resubmissions,
etc.)
• Feel threatened when staff comment on their pedagogy
• Letters of accommodations are disempowering, make little sense, and offer
no practical guidance

15. The instructional design perspective

16. The instructional designer perspective
• Good understanding and mastery of design thinking and of UDL
• Rarely called upon to seek solutions with regards to barriers experienced in the
classroom with regards to MH
• Their expertise is entirely overshadowed by campuses’ medical model processes
• Have few organizational opportunities for contact with accessibility services
personnel
• On most campuses are unable to trigger contact with faculty unless this contact is
instigated by the instructor
• Often constrained by faculty’s lack of time/ availability
• Walking on eggshells when it comes to ‘models’, instructional design theory,
specialized terminology, etc. Fear of pushback, faculty exhaustion, of reform
overload.
• Their work is rarely embedded into mission statement, even if campuses are
changing vocation and increasingly claiming to be teaching universities

17. Conclusions and take away
• UDL is relevant to MH in the classroom. When we fail to acknowledge this, it
probably means we have a personal reticence to handle MH issues. We prefer to
medicalize the situation because it shifts the onus on someone else (a therapist or a
medical professional)
• Instruction and assessment design have key impact on student MH
• A redesign of assessment and instruction can erode MH issues in the classroom, or
at least avoid exacerbating them.
• UDL allows instructors to put an end to the ‘culture of referral’ and to re-empower
themselves as designers of the learning experience.

18. Additional observations
• Interest of this presentation is also its multidisciplinary approach.
• It is essential for a shift to happen that the various stakeholders
(accessibility staff, instructors, and instructional designers) begin
to brainstorm together in the way it has been modelled today.
• It is indeed impossible to fully gauge the impact of bad design on
MH when one sticks to a ‘silo’ vision of the process of learning,
one that is limited to a specific profession.
• Strategic planning needs to occur as to the most efficient way of
redesigning communication between these three sets of
stakeholders

19. References
• Al-Azawei, A., Serenelli, F., & Lundqvist, K. (2016). Universal Design for Learning
(UDL): A content analysis of peer-reviewed journal papers from 2012 to 2015.
Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(3), 39–56
• Rao, K., Ok, M. W., & Bryant, B. R. (2014). A review of research on universal design
education models. Remedial and Special Education, 35, 153–166.
• Reid, G. M., Grills, A. E., Mian, N. D., Reid, A. A., Merson, R. A., & Langer, D. A. (2017).
Using Research-Informed Pedagogical Practices to Maximize Learning in Youth
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Evidence-based practice in child and adolescent mental
health, 2(2), 82–95
• Shackle, S. (2019, September 27) ‘The way universities are run is making us ill’: inside
the student mental health crisis. The Guardian. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/27/anxiety-mental-breakdowns-
depression-uk-students

20. Contact details
• Frederic Fovet (PhD.)
• Associate Professor, School of Education and Technology, Royal
Roads University
• Frederic.fovet@royalroads.ca
• @Ffovet
• www.implementudl.com