Universal Design for Learning: how to plan a class that works for all brains

Introduction: Why plan for brain variability and not for the average student

Student variability should be the starting point of instructional design, not an afterthought. Differences in disability, language, culture, prior experience, family responsibilities, and forms of participation render a lesson designed for an average student inadequate (Basham & Lowrey, 2025) . Universal Design for Learning (UDL) proposes anticipating these differences through curricular decisions that reduce barriers before they arise. This perspective shifts the question from how to modify a lesson for some students to how to design it with multiple opportunities for access, participation, and demonstration of learning.

Recent research links UDL with improvements in engagement, participation, and performance, although the strength of these findings depends on the quality of implementation and study designs (Guo & Wang, 2025; Zhang et al., 2024) . Planning for variability does not mean lowering goals, but rather separating essential learning from the accidental obstacles imposed by a single way of teaching or assessing.

The fundamentals of UDL: accessibility, flexibility, and participation from the start

Accessibility and usability as prerequisites for learning.

Accessibility allows learners to perceive, understand, and use materials; usability refers to the effective use of those materials and activities in a specific experience. Choi and Seo argue that both dimensions should be analyzed together because an interface or instruction designed for the dominant group may exclude those who do not fit its assumed use (Choi & Seo, 2024) . From this perspective, UDL is not simply adding individual adjustments after preparing the lesson. It involves reviewing in advance the text format, readability, navigation, instructional language, technological access, and conditions for participation.

Accessibility also has a conceptual dimension. When disability is interpreted exclusively from a medical model, students appear as recipients of assistance and not as users with the right to participate in educational design (Choi & Seo, 2024) . Planning includes asking what barrier the activity creates and what alternative allows the objective to be maintained. The outcome should maintain a common cognitive demand, even if the supports, resources, or response methods vary.

Commitment, representation, and action-expression as responses to diversity

The framework organizes design around three principles: commitment , representation , and action and expression . Commitment addresses the reasons and conditions that underpin participation; representation diversifies how information is presented; and action and expression expands the ways of acting, communicating, and demonstrating learning (Basham & Lowrey, 2025) . These principles are not rigid stages, because a single decision can reduce motivational, perceptual, and executive barriers simultaneously. Their usefulness lies in guiding specific questions during the planning process.

Evidence from inclusive classrooms shows that the three principles frequently appear in combination with other teaching strategies, rather than functioning as an isolated intervention (Lee, 2026) . This integration allows for linking oral explanations with visual supports, offering choices between equivalent tasks, and permitting written, oral, or practical products when the objective does not require a specific format. Flexibility, therefore, must be linked to explicit objectives and not become an accumulation of options without direction.

Beyond individual adaptations: design for students with and without disabilities

Reducing UDL to a strategy for students with disabilities limits its pedagogical scope. A review of teacher training identified precisely the dominant association between UDL, disability, and learning difficulties as a narrow understanding that restricts its application (De la Fuente-González et al., 2025) . The voices of students with and without disabilities in physical education also reveal shared barriers, such as negative experiences, limited participation options, and inflexible performance standards (Lieberman et al., 2024) . Designing for variability benefits those who require formal support and those who face linguistic, cultural, economic, or time management barriers.

The universal principle does not eliminate the need for individualized support. Some people will still require assistive technology, specific adjustments, or specialized intervention. UDL reduces reliance on improvised responses and reserves intensive personalization for needs that cannot be addressed through standard design.

How is UDL implemented in different educational contexts and teaching modalities?

Applications in primary, secondary and teacher training education

The implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has been documented from elementary to secondary school, although secondary research remains concentrated in North America and frequently employs intervention designs (Phelan et al., 2025) . A review of inclusive secondary classrooms found generally positive results across academic and affective variables, with the presence of all three principles and their common combination with other strategies (Lee, 2026) . In elementary school, a writing experience with 16 fourth-grade students showed a 15-percentage-point increase in average achievement after introducing options for participation, representation, and expression (Sfetkopoulos, 2025) . This result is promising, but it comes from a single classroom and evaluative reflection study, and therefore does not allow for generalization of the effect.

Teacher training determines whether principles translate into observable decisions. A review of 88 articles on initial and ongoing teacher training identified diverse conceptions and a tendency to restrict UDL to students with disabilities (De la Fuente-González et al., 2025) . In South Papua, the availability of facilities and administrative support were associated with the effectiveness of implementation in primary and secondary schools (Wea et al., 2025) . Therefore, training should include barrier analysis, materials design, and evidence review, along with institutional conditions that enable collaborative planning.

Higher education, hybrid learning, and inclusive online environments

In higher education, UDL is applied in face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses, but doubts persist about its operationalization and learning outcomes (Ren et al., 2026) . In a hybrid postgraduate course, students particularly valued flexibility, clarity, and rigor, and noted that instructor presence remained necessary even when physical attendance decreased (Altowairiki, 2024) . The review of online education identifies barriers related to student diversity, instructor decisions, and technological conditions, while also gathering design strategies aimed at expanding inclusion (Yang et al., 2024) .

Non-traditional university students demonstrate that flexibility must respond to specific circumstances. In an institution serving the Hispanic population, challenges include online learning, course content, financial constraints, family responsibilities, accessibility, and health disruptions (Chick et al., 2025) . In that study, flexible methods and materials predicted academic performance, while general UDL factors had limited direct associations with GPA. Inclusive design, therefore, needs to combine pedagogical options with differentiated institutional supports.

Implementation barriers in low and middle income contexts

In low- and middle-income countries, evidence remains scarce and unevenly concentrated in certain regions (McKenzie et al., 2024) . The corresponding review identifies recurring conditions such as teacher training, technology levels, family and community involvement, systemic inequality, and regulatory support. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) cannot be implemented as an identical package when connectivity, accessible materials, or institutional time for planning are lacking.

The availability of resources alone does not explain implementation. In South Papua, school infrastructure and administrative support were factors associated with implementation (Wea et al., 2025) , while the international review of physical education linked training and resource limitations to persistent exclusions, especially outside of high-income contexts (Lourenço et al., 2025) . Contextual adaptation should preserve the principles but employ sustainable resources, community knowledge, and forms of participation compatible with local conditions.

What effects does UDL produce: learning, engagement, belonging, and independence

Academic results and participation in writing, physical education and inclusive classrooms

The published effects encompass performance, engagement, motor participation, and belonging, but they come from heterogeneous populations and designs. In a longitudinal study of 2,473 students from 87 schools, institutions that implemented all three principles reported a 37.4% increase in overall performance and a 42.8% increase among initially disengaged students (Guo & Wang, 2025) . The association between implementation and positive differences was statistically significant, with p < 0.001, although the authors caution that generalizability depends on institutional support and context. In elementary writing, a classroom experience will see a 15 percentage point increase in average achievement (Sfetkopoulos, 2025) .

Physical education yields specific outcomes that should not be confused with overall academic performance. A systematic review of 13 articles reported improvements in motor skill progression, with η² = 0.67, and participation increases of up to 50% in OECD contexts; collaborative tasks were associated with a 30% increase in peer interaction (Lourenço et al., 2025) . The same review identified hidden exclusion in non-OECD contexts, linked to stigma and infrastructure deficits. These findings suggest that Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can expand participation, but its effects depend on the material and social environment.

Voices and needs of students with disabilities and other diverse learners

Qualitative evidence shows that the value of UDL is not limited to measurable outcomes. In focus groups with university students with disabilities, UDL practices were associated with seven themes related to learning experiences and educational needs, although the published summary does not detail the magnitude of each theme (Li et al., 2026) . Among deafblind students, teachers who received training designed for independence-oriented classes reported difficulties implementing student-directed guidelines (Brandt, 2024) . Student participation in support decisions therefore requires professional knowledge and design time.

The experiences of non-traditional learners also challenge deficit-based explanations. At an institution serving a Hispanic population, students with conventionally recognized barriers achieved high average rates, while first-generation students had the lowest proportion of high averages, at 53.2% (Chick et al., 2025) . This finding does not justify attributing performance to a single characteristic, but it does show that demographic categories do not simply predict educational needs. Planning must incorporate real voices, responsibilities, and resources, rather than inferring support from a label.

Motivation, self-determination, and satisfaction of psychological needs.

Engagement can be understood through self-determination theory , especially when the design offers meaningful choice, graduated support, and opportunities to experience competence. In a survey of 109 university students, UDL had an indirect effect on deep learning through autonomy and competence satisfaction, but not through relationship satisfaction (Rosa et al., 2025) . The result links certain design decisions to specific psychological mechanisms, although the cross-sectional, self-report-based measurement limits causal inferences. Autonomy is not about abandoning the student, but about offering understandable choices within shared goals and criteria.

Belonging and independence also require social interaction and effective access. Collaborative tasks improved peer interaction in the physical education review (Lourenço et al., 2025) , while experience with deafblind students linked the design of student-centered guidelines with the development of independence (Brandt, 2024) . Thus, an inclusive classroom must simultaneously examine performance, participation, perceived support, and control over one’s own learning.

From evidence to lesson design: objectives, options, and assessment without barriers

Define common goals and anticipate barriers in materials, instructions, and activities.

Planning based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) begins with the learning objective , not the typical task format. The teacher must distinguish the knowledge or performance to be assessed from the barriers created by inaccessible text, ambiguous instructions, a single sensory modality, or inflexible time constraints. A review of implementation studies shows that many works do not explicitly address the relationship between UDL checkpoints, intervention design, and learning theories (Zhang et al., 2024) . This lack of alignment makes it difficult to determine which component produced the outcome.

The analysis can be organized as a sequence of decisions:

Anticipation should include materials, instructions, interaction, and assessment. In a hybrid course, for example, the clarity of the organization and the teacher’s presence influence the student experience (Altowairiki, 2024) . In contexts with limited resources, the options must be technically sustainable and not depend on tools that some students cannot use (McKenzie et al., 2024) .

Offer multiple avenues for engagement, representation, and action or expression.

The options should address foreseeable barriers and maintain their relevance to the objective. For engagement, they may include choices between equivalent problems, connections to interests, and support for organizing work. For representation, it is advisable to combine oral explanation, accessible text, images, demonstrations, or examples, without turning each class into a collection of disconnected resources. For action and expression, the student can demonstrate competence through writing, presentation, audiovisual production, practical performance, or assistive tools when the objective does not require a specific modality (Choi & Seo, 2024) .

Flexibility must also consider who participates and under what conditions. Experiences from non-traditional students indicate that flexible methods and materials can be related to performance, but they do not replace support in the face of economic constraints, family responsibilities, or health disruptions (Chick et al., 2025) . In physical education, adapted equipment, multimodal instruction, and collaborative tasks have increased participation and interaction (Lourenço et al., 2025) . Teachers should limit the options to those that are understandable, accessible, and manageable.

Align assessment with learning and maintain high expectations.

The assessment should measure the common goal, not the ability to overcome an irrelevant barrier. If argumentation is being assessed, requiring only handwriting may introduce a difficulty unrelated to the construct; if a specific motor technique is being assessed, the response modality can indeed be part of the objective. This distinction allows for offering alternatives without diluting the requirement. A review of secondary interventions shows that UDL is often combined with additional pedagogical strategies, so the assessment should document which decision corresponds to each component (Lee, 2026) .

High expectations require explicit criteria, accessible feedback, and opportunities for revision. Flexibility does not mean that all outputs are equivalent in quality, but rather that different pathways can lead to comparable evidence of learning. The positive results observed in performance and engagement justify testing this design, but subsequent review should examine both the achievements and the choices each student actually made.

Fidelity, viability and limits of UDL: open debates and research gaps

The tension between pedagogical flexibility, teaching load, and fidelity to the framework.

The fidelity of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) requires that decisions be implemented in a way that involves commitment, representation, action, and expression, but does not prescribe a single activity. Guo and Wang’s longitudinal study linked the combined application of the three principles to better outcomes and identified five enabling conditions: administrative support, ongoing professional development, technology, collaborative pedagogy, and flexible use of data (Guo & Wang, 2025) . These conditions demonstrate that fidelity does not depend solely on the individual will of the teacher. It also involves time, coordination, and resources.

The burden increases when teachers must interpret unclear guidelines, produce alternative materials, and evaluate multiple responses. A review of 32 studies identified uneven coverage of checkpoints, overlapping guidelines, and a lack of sufficient theoretical guidance for designing interventions (Zhang et al., 2024) . The solution is not to apply all options in every class, but rather to justify which ones reduce barriers to the specific objective.

Differences between the inclusive promise and the strength of the available evidence

The literature presents a consistent promise of inclusivity, but its evidence is not uniform. Many studies report improvements in engagement or perceptions, while fewer employ comparable learning and measurement designs capable of isolating the effect of UDL (Ren et al., 2026) . In higher education, a review of 113 studies identified methodological, outcome, and contextual gaps (Ren et al., 2026) . In secondary education, some articles apply UDL-compatible practices without explicitly identifying them as stories, making it difficult to estimate their actual dissemination (Phelan et al., 2025) .

The results must be interpreted within the context of each design. A classroom study, a cross-sectional survey, a systematic review, and a longitudinal study do not allow for the same inferences. The association between implementation and performance may also reflect institutions with more support, better technology, or greater planning capacity (Guo & Wang, 2025) . Therefore, UDL should be presented as a design framework supported by promising evidence, not as an intervention with guaranteed effects in any context.

Need for more longitudinal, comparative studies focused on student experiences.

The future agenda requires operational definitions, documentation of applied guidelines, and measures aligned with academic objectives, participation, belonging, and independence (Zhang et al., 2024) . It also requires longitudinal and comparative studies that include primary, secondary, and higher education, as well as low- and middle-income countries, where the empirical base remains limited (McKenzie et al., 2024) . Research should inform what options were offered, who was able to use them, and what teaching costs they generated.

Students should participate as sources of evidence and as stakeholders in the design process. Qualitative studies with students with disabilities and deafblind individuals reveal needs that are not reflected in average performance (Brandt, 2024; Li et al., 2026) . Incorporating these experiences would allow us to assess whether flexibility leads to genuine autonomy, shared participation, and sustained access, rather than simply listing available activities.

Conclusion: Plan with variability, review with evidence, and expand learning opportunities

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers a planning approach that acknowledges brain and contextual variability before it leads to exclusion. Its implementation requires shared goals, accessible materials, justified participation options, and assessment aligned with learning. Available evidence links these conditions to improvements in performance, engagement, participation, and independence, but also shows that outcomes depend on training, infrastructure, institutional support, and documented fidelity (Guo & Wang, 2025; Zhang et al., 2024) . An inclusive classroom is not defined by the number of alternatives, but by the ability to reduce barriers without lowering expectations.

Planning with variability must be accompanied by systematic review. Teachers can observe which options were used, which students were left out, what evidence demonstrated the objective, and what adjustments the materials require. This review transforms UDL into a design process informed by data and learner feedback, with broader learning opportunities for all.

References

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