Beyond Novelty

Abstract

This chapter examines how fully accessible teaching and learning, and particularly Universal Design for Learning (UDL), currently attracts much attention in higher education (HE) as an innovative pedagogical approach. Having highlighted all the dimensions of UDL that currently qualify it as “innovative”, the chapter further examines the concept of pedagogical innovation and what constitutes such a perception within the field. It is argued that far from being new, the notion of accessible teaching and learning draws from other pedagogical concepts and schools of thought that are well established in the literature and very much traditional and readily accepted. The chapter discusses that despite this recent “framing” or branding, UDL is not so much a novelty as a return to a fundamental questioning on the part of educators and instructional designers around engagement and social justice and their place in pedagogy.

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