I have been meaning to get my UDL (Universal Design for Learning) badge for some time now, but was always too busy or some other priority took its place. Finally, during the summer break of 2026 my UDL badge time has come. While I considered myself familiar with the concepts of inclusivity and digital accessibility in learning, I simply wanted the badge, and kill two birds with one stone by redesigning assessment for a module that I will lead for the second time in the autumn semester ahead.
Following my first run of leading the module in AY2025/6, I have been thinking about how the assessment might better reflect the knowledge, skills, behaviours, and values that project managers need in practice, in other words how it might be more authentic than say, a 100% exam. While an exam might offer an efficient way to assess individual knowledge, it offers limited opportunities (and that’s being generous!) for students to demonstrate collaboration, professional judgement, stakeholder awareness, or behavioural competencies. Having reduced the exam component to 80%, with practical work making up the other 20%, my goal for the year ahead, AY2026/7, is to reduce the exam weighting further. In terms of how best to achieve this goal I figured I would get some ideas at this year’s Assessment in Higher Education conference and in the meantime made a start on applying some principles of UDL as part of my badge work.
Assessment choices and more choices
CAST (the Center for Applied Social Technology – I had to look it up!), is a non-profit organisation in the area of education research and development, whose vision is ‘a world where all learning experiences in school, the workplace, and life are intentionally designed to elevate strengths and eliminate barriers so everyone has the opportunity to grow and thrive.‘ The three core principles of UDL established by CAST are multiple means of 1) engagement; 2) representation and 3) action & expression. The goal of UDL according to CAST is ‘learner agency that is that is purposeful & reflective, resourceful & authentic, strategic & action-oriented.‘
For the assessment redesign I plan to reduce the weighting for the module end exam from the current 80% to 50% and consider UDL in the design of practical group work making up 40% of the module weight. The final 10% is an individual reflection that considers Black Box Assessment in its design since reflection is considered ‘the most vulnerable form of evidence’ (Winstone & Elkington at AHE2026). With a lot to consider across the principles of UDL I mapped the assessment elements in the Table 1 that follows:
| UDL Principle: | Multiple means of Engagement | Multiple means of Representation | Multiple means of Action & Expression |
| End of module exam: | Limited autonomy and choice. Emphasis is on performance rather than learning. | Predominantly text-based (Section 1) with limited access to multiple formats (Section 2). | In Section 1 students may choose from one of two parts on which to answer 3 of 4 short questions. In Section 2, no choice is currently offered. |
| Practice-based group work: | Students self-select their groups and choose one from three practice-based projects focused on: chemical engineering; digital transformation; a community project. | Multiple project artefacts including plans, diagrams, matrices, represent different project management tools and techniques across the life cycle. | Groups may choose submission format to explain their project artefacts from: written commentary; audio commentary. |
| Individual reflection on group work: | While the group project supports engagement through collaboration and authentic tasks, the reflection supports engagement by helping students connect personally with their learning experience. | Gibbs’ reflective cycle provides multiple lenses of reflection. The Black Box Assessment window, ‘Reflection and metacognitive processes’, offers structured learning narratives for students. | Students may choose submission format from: written narrative; audio narrative. |
I like to think that in my teaching practice to date I have given consideration to the principles of UDL without actually knowing what they were. PowerPoint slides with notes made available to students ahead of class, PDFs long since forgotten, Sans Serif fonts of an appropriate size, colour contrast that works, Word document resources that have left-aligned text, not justified. These are the little things that I have picked up over the years and encourage my students themselves to follow when submitting their assessment work.
Together, my learnings from undertaking the UDL Badge and participating in the Black Box Assessment workshop have given me a deeper understanding of the pedagogical principles underpinning many of these practices. I now feel better equipped to design assessments that are intentionally inclusive, authentic, and evidence-based. As I continue to review and redesign modules, I hope to create learning experiences that provide students with meaningful choice, make their thinking and learning processes more visible, and generate richer evidence of the knowledge, skills, behaviours, and values they develop throughout their studies.
Until next time, Sandra
Featured image courtesy of WordPress ‘Generate with AI’
Declaration: I used my University of Limerick Microsoft Copilot account to assist with the mapping of the UDL principles to the proposed assessment redesign in Table 1.
References:
Gibbs, G. (1998) Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford Brooks University, Oxford.
Winstone, N. E., Gravett, K., & Elkington, S. (2026). Black Box Assessment: rethinking integrity and learning for a time of Generative AI. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2026.2661365
Sandra Flynn 