Artist Tariku gankisi interview

During the last twenty years, Europe has systematically focused on the development of inclusive effective strategies to guarantee access to underrepresented groups in it. With an increasingly diverse student population that enters higher education, the term "non-traditional students" has been coined, referring to students who differ from their colleagues in some way. Many students will be "non-traditional" in one way or another:

Students who are different with respect to sociodemographic characteristics, for example, older students;

Students who have different circumstances of life, for example, students who have non-spouse, are single parents, do not have a higher education income rating;

Students with disabilities, for example, sensory, physical or cognitive disabilities;

Students with different social background, for example, students without a history of higher education, migrant students and low socio-economic background students.

To develop the awareness of this diversity of students in higher education, it is important to develop an inclusive that uses a universal design for the learning perspective (UDL), in order to effectively meet the needs of each student. Universal Design is a concept that originated in architecture and referred to universally built environments, for example, buildings and parks that are created with flexibility in mind. He anticipated the need for alternatives and adaptations to face the challenge of diversity (Rose & Gravel, 2010). Like the universal design, which initially conceived to meet the needs of people with disabilities, but proved to make buildings more accessible and functional for all, the UDL framework emphasizes the idea of ​​designing learning environments to encourage knowledge and learning skills for all. In addition, within UDL, this implies that all means for learning, objectives, methods, materials and pedagogical evaluation of learning, are designed with respect to accessibility and inclusion. Add the power and flexibility of modern technologies, and the goal of satisfying the needs and requests of the wider range of students is no longer utopia.