Welcome to Ep 166: Choose Your Own Biology Assessment with Mike Widjaja and Osu Lilje. Mike Widjaja and Osu Lilje are both Education Focused Academics in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. Mike teaches in large first-year biology units, with a focus on inclusive, student-centred assessment design. His work explores how structured choice, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and authentic assessment can enhance student engagement, belonging, and agency at scale. Mike has led the development of innovative approaches such as “Choose Your Own Assessments” and integrates educational technology to support student learning. Osu Lilje coordinates large first-year biology units serving 1,500+ students annually, focusing on AI-enhanced feedback, academic integrity, and equitable learning support. Her work explores how custom-built AI tools and rubric-aligned feedback can support scientific writing development and reduce barriers to help-seeking for international students. Osu co-founded the Science Educators Community of Practice (SECoP) and has led development of the Scientific Writing Assessment bot. She was recently awarded the Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. In today’s conversation, we discuss how Mike and Osu updated an entry level biology assignment in a large enrollment course to offer students choice and flexibility in topics and delivery. And when they presented this topic at ADCET’s UDL Symposium (which I highly, highly recommend), during the actual session they offered to the group if their work should be presented as a podcast or poster or in some other fashion and then did exactly what the group wanted. It was an excellent way to demonstrate how engaged participants can be when given ownership of a task. You’ll learn quite a few ways to make your assessments better and how to improve group work from this conversation.

Welcome to Ep 165: Drama in Education with Louise Heeran Flynn. Dr Louise Heeran Flynn is an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. She has recently published an article in the journal IJUDUDL which stands for International Journal of Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning. The article, “Breaking the Code – Using the (In)CLUDE framework to support the implementation of Universal Design for Learning 3.0 in the classroom through the use of Drama in Education,” delineates easy to use and creative ways to use principles learned in drama education that can be applied to any course whether in the humanities, arts and sciences or social sciences. And what I really appreciated in the article, which is linked in the resource section of this episode, is a helpful color coordinated chart of the UDL guidelines with a co-listed drama in education technique that correlates to each UDL consideration. And then she provides a useful acronym (In)CLUDE which asks each instructor to consider the Where, Who, What, Why and How of each learning environment and learning goal to implement these strategies. Start with the C=Context (Where and who?), L=Learning outcomes, U=UDL Guidelines, D=Drama in Education, E=Enact or put into action. Louise is also a fabulous storyteller and truly it is the stories that carry this conversation so I know you will enjoy this chat and be able to take away at least one more strategy in your teaching repertoire after hearing what is possible.

Welcome to Ep 164: Creative and Expressive Learning Pathways with Jill Weidknecht Van Horne. Jill Weidknecht Van Horne, PhD, is my friend and colleague and is an Associate Professor and the Program Director of the Professional School Counseling Program at Appalachian State University. She is also the past president of the European Branch of the American Counseling Association and past vice-president of the North Carolina Association for Play Therapy. Her equine therapy class has been featured on our local PBS affiliate UNC-TV and I have a link to that video and her newly released book for which she is an editor writing under the name Jill Weidknecht in the resources. The book is Treatment Planning, Writing, and Documentation in Creative and Expressive Arts Therapies: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals. In our conversation, we discuss the connections between UDL and expressive and creative arts therapies and consider how her work in play therapy and equine-assisted therapy provides an empathetic lens for her to better understand learner variability and the various pathways for learning in her students. Thank you for listening to the Think UDL podcast!