If you’ve ever sat through a course that felt like it wasn’t designed with you in mind, you’re not imagining it. Most educational design quietly assumes there’s a “typical” student on the other end. Someone who absorbs information from a lecture, meets every deadline without issue, and does well on a written exam. That assumption shows up everywhere, and most of the time, nobody questions it.
You see it in how courses are assessed. One exam at the end, one submission format, one way to show what you know. That doesn’t work for everyone. Some people freeze up on timed tests. Some express what they know way better through doing something than writing about it. Some are dealing with things outside of school that affect how and when they can engage. Designing around one type of learner means everyone else is just expected to adapt.
The more interesting shift is to ask what happens when we treat variability as the norm rather than the exception. That’s the core idea behind UDL. Rather than adding accommodations as an afterthought, you build flexibility in from the start. For the learning resource my group is working on about password security and hashing, we can’t just drop a block of technical text and call it a lesson. Some people will want a visual, some will want to actually try something a little more different, and others will need the foundational concepts explained before the technical stuff even makes sense.
What I found most useful from the readings this week is that designing for a wider range of learners doesn’t make things easier in a bad way. It just makes things work better overall. Captions help people who aren’t native English speakers. A clear structure helps anyone tired or distracted. Flexible pacing helps people who have a lot going on. Once you stop designing for a stereotypical average student and start designing for real people, the whole thing gets better for everyone.
Reference
CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning guidelines version 2.2. http://udlguidelines.cast.org
Comments
Trevor
15 June 2026 — 3:50 pm
Great Post! I completely agree that relying on the myth of the ‘average learner’ leaves too many people behind, especially when tackling technical subjects. Your point about using hands-on activities and visuals instead of just walls of text is spot on for making concepts like password hashing actually stick. Building that flexibility in from the start definitely makes the entire learning experience stronger and more accessible for everyone.
btre
15 June 2026 — 3:56 pm
Great Post! I completely agree that relying on the myth of the ‘average learner’ leaves too many people behind, especially when tackling technical subjects. Your point about using hands-on activities and visuals instead of just walls of text is spot on for making concepts like password hashing actually click. Building that flexibility in from the start definitely makes the entire learning experience stronger and more accessible for everyone.
jd1000
25 June 2026 — 1:47 am
Hi Sneh! I really appreciated your analysis of how the concept of the ‘average learner’ distorts modern educational systems. Your point about how standardized metrics fail to capture true student diversity completely aligns with the hurdles I found while constructing my design on the Diameters of the Planets in our Solar System. Traditional planetary curricula implicitly assume an ‘average reader’ who possesses uniform spatial reasoning skills, entirely shutting out students who struggle with abstract ideas, like astronomical data. As with your insights, I am designing a Google Sites page that will hopefully successfully integrate Universal Design for Learning by providing multiple paths of representation (like text, audio, and visual formats). Building systemic flexibility upfront honors learner variability from day one, rather than trying to fix rigid instruction through awkward retroactive modifications. Thank you for a thought-provoking post!
jd1000
25 June 2026 — 1:49 am
Building systemic flexibility upfront honours learner variability from day one, rather than trying to fix rigid instruction through awkward retroactive modifications. ***
Sorry, typo.