Session Design Submission Review

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This interactive workshop introduces Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a research-based framework for designing flexible learning environments that empower everyone to have agency over their own learning. It allows educators and learners to set clear goals, anticipate environmental barriers, create meaningful options, and fully embrace human variability to accommodate individual learning differences. The principles of UDL are easily transferable to any kind of teaching and learning scenario, including patient and physician interactions. 

Of note, traditional surgical education can inadvertently create barriers for learners with varied backgrounds, learning needs, and cognitive profiles. UDL provides a proactive framework to design curriculum that works for all learners from the start, rather than retrofitting accommodations later. This design results in higher educational outcomes for all learners in the surgical learning environment, regardless of need.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the core principles of UDL and their direct application to surgical teaching both inside and outside the operating room. This interactive workshop is designed for all surgical educators teaching medical students and surgical residents. 

Principle I: Provide Multiple Means of Engagement.
During the workshop, the participants will learn and apply strategies to motivate and sustain learner interest in complex surgical concepts and long training pathways. This includes fostering collaboration, self-regulation, and connecting learning activities to real-world surgical significance.

Principle II: Provide Multiple Means of Representation.
Participants will explore techniques for presenting surgical knowledge, such as anatomy, pathophysiology, and procedural steps, in varied formats. We’ll move beyond text and standard slides to incorporate diverse media, conceptual mapping, surgical simulation demonstrations, and visual supports that illuminate expert thinking.

Principle III: Provide Multiple Means of Action & Expression.
Participants will also learn how to apply different methods that allow learners to demonstrate their surgical understanding in flexible ways. This involves designing diverse assessment options beyond the standard oral presentation or multiple-choice exam, such as procedural video analysis, annotated intraoperative photographs, narrative reflections on critical cases, and structured deliberate practice sessions.

After exploring the main principles of UDL, participants will work in small groups to redesign a surgical teaching session to make it more inclusive and accessible using the concepts learned. Groups will then share their redesigned activities and receive feedback from the larger group.

Finally, participants will begin developing a personalized action plan to pilot at least one UDL informed modification to a specific teaching session or assessment at their home institution, noting how the modification will make the session or assessment more accessible to all participants.

Participants will leave the workshop equipped with immediately applicable tools and strategies to enhance their teaching, improve learner outcomes, and foster an inclusive educational climate that benefits all learners, especially those needing diverse support.

90-minute workshop

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Define the three core principles of Universal Design for Learning

Explain how the framework addresses specific barriers to learning commonly found in traditional surgical education settings

Analyze an existing surgical teaching activity to identify areas where learning flexibility and accessibility can be improved

Apply the principles of UDL to create more relevant, equitable, valuable, and self-regulated learning opportunities for medical students and surgery residents

Create a personalized action plan to implement at least one UDL informed modification to a specific teaching session or assessment in your home surgical education program