Abstract:

Diversity of our students is increasing. In fact, most of our students are non-traditional and they have the right to receive an inclusive education. For this reason, we have considered the universal design for learning (UDL), which is not only helpful to non-traditional students, but also benefits “conventional” students. For its implementation, the UDL Guidelines (CAST 2018) have been followed, together with suggestions made by UDL Guidelines 3.0. Experiences following UDL in a mathematical subject at university are very scarce. In particular, we focus on a Statistics subject of Industrial Design Engineering at Jaume I University (Spain). It is a compulsory first-year subject.

The main aspects of our implementation are providing different options for:
1) Perceiving information: recorded videos of classes were uploaded to YouTube. This is especially useful for students who have not been able to attend a class. Furthermore, automatic subtitles (in any language) are available for students who do not speak Spanish.
2) Language, mathematical expressions and symbols: we created concept maps, glossaries of key terms, and word lists in other languages (English) since the laboratory software is in English, but our students are not native English speakers.
3) Comprehension: reviews of units are included, together with diagrams, symbols that link concepts or highlight important points and difficult points.
4) Physical interaction: some students have difficulties with computers in laboratory classes, therefore, we provided a list of the keyboard commands.
5) Expression and communication: we introduced the calculator not only in descriptive statistics, but also in probability distributions units as an alternative to printed tables, etc.
6) Executive functions: students have solved examples of problems, projects, etc.
7) Capturing interest: students developed a project about a topic chosen individually to analyze data of their interest; we propose statistical activities on current social problems, such as sustainable development goals; we use weekly alerts and weekly planning work calendars, etc.
8) Maintaining effort and persistence: we consider collaborative group tasks to encourage interaction between equals.
9) Self-regulation: we posed questionnaires for self-regulation and self-reflection in each thematic block.

As regards emphasizing the role of belonging (UDL 3.0.), we followed the guidelines of “Guide of Mathematics to mainstreaming gender in university teaching”. We also invited Algorace group to give a conference on algorithmic discrimination with AI.

We have compared the performance in this subject between course 2022/23 and 2023/24, when UDL was implemented. The number of enrolled students was similar: 169 and 166, respectively. Teachers were the same in both courses. We obtained better pass rates ang higher qualifications in 2023/24. Furthermore, we carried out a survey on the questionnaires mentioned in item 9, and 93% of students found them useful.

These results highlight the benefits of implementing UDL in mathematics university teaching. This conclusion agrees with literature, since previous work in other areas has shown improvements in training and learning with the UDL. We conclude that student performance and satisfaction has been improved. UDL will be implemented in other subjects.

Acknowledgments:
This work has been supported by the grant 50441 from Unitat de Formació i Innovació Educativa of the Universitat Jaume I.

Keywords:

Universal design, inclusive education, diversity, higher education, mathematics, statistics.