Free Webinar: Balancing the Tension between UDL and Digital Accessibility in the Online Classroom

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) encourages educators to provide students with multiple ways to engage with course content, access information, and demonstrate their learning. Title II accessibility requirements establish an equally important expectation: digital course experiences must be accessible to learners with disabilities. At the same time, generative AI is prompting educators to reconsider how assignments are designed and how students demonstrate authentic learning. How can institutions preserve the flexibility and choice central to UDL, meet accessibility requirements, and create meaningful assignments that remain resilient in an AI-enabled environment? 

Drawing on their institutional experiences, the panelists will explore where UDL, digital accessibility, and AI-resilient assessment reinforce one another -- and where tensions arise. The discussion will offer practical perspectives on designing flexible, accessible assignments that emphasize authentic application, reflection, process, and student agency without allowing compliance, academic integrity, or instructional innovation to become an afterthought.

Key Takeaways:

• Gain a clearer understanding of how UDL principles and Title II accessibility requirements intersect in online learning. 
• Explore how UDL can support AI-resilient assignments through authentic application, scaffolded work, reflection, student choice, and greater visibility into the learning process. 
• Consider how to provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate learning while maintaining accessibility, rigor, and clear learning outcomes. 
• Examine common tensions involving alternative assignments, multimedia, student-created content, emerging AI tools, and third-party technologies. 
• Learn how institutions can move from reactive remediation toward proactive, accessible, and AI-aware course design. 
• Identify practical ways to balance legal obligations, academic integrity, student needs, faculty capacity, and sound pedagogy. 
• Leave with strategies and conversation starters they can use with faculty colleagues, support teams, and institutional leaders.

Participants will gain a more integrated framework for advancing UDL, accessibility, and AI-resilient course design across their institutions. The discussion will help decision-makers develop clearer guidance, align cross-functional teams, allocate resources, and support the faculty and accessibility professionals responsible for putting these expectations into practice.

Register online with OLC

Please Note: While attending the webinar live is free for OLC members and non-members, on-demand recordings is only available for institutional members. Please use your UMBC.edu email address when registering to access these resources.