Universal Design for Learning at WAB: Building Agency for Every Learner

This week, the Western Academy of Beijing welcomed Beth Stark, an international expert in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), to work with teachers across our middle and high schools. Beth began her career supporting learners with visual impairments and discovered UDL as a powerful framework for removing barriers to learning. Over the years, she has helped educators around the world design classrooms where all students can thrive, not by chance, but by design. 

At its heart, UDL is about creating inclusive learning environments that give every student equitable access to rich, challenging learning experiences. Rather than a set of fixed rules, it’s a flexible framework that guides teachers in anticipating barriers and designing options for engagement, representation, and expression so that all learners can succeed. 

Beth explains that all learners share common needs, but each brings their own strengths, preferences, and ways of showing understanding. A UDL-informed classroom celebrates variability and builds structures that allow everyone to participate fully. 

Beth emphasizes that the goal of UDL isn’t UDL, it’s agency. Learner agency means that students understand themselves as capable, intentional, and empowered to make decisions about their own learning. “Agency is something we’re all born with,” Beth notes. “The question is whether our learning experiences foster or diminish it over time.” When education becomes too prescriptive, when students are told exactly what to do, how to think, and how to respond, the deeper joy and ownership of learning can fade. 

Through UDL, students learn to reflect on how they learn, advocate for what they need, and see themselves as contributors to their community. This sense of autonomy and belonging is essential in today’s world, where adaptability, critical thinking, and self-direction matter more than memorizing content. As Beth puts it, “We want every learner to walk through the door and feel I belong here. I’m valued for all that makes me unique.” 

Across WAB, teachers are working with Beth to integrate UDL through practical, manageable steps. Using what’s called the “Plus One” approach, teachers identify one barrier to learning at a time and make one small, intentional change to remove it. Over time, these continuous refinements create powerful shifts in classroom culture. 

Teachers are also exploring instructional routines that build shared responsibility and student voice. These routines help ensure that everyone participates meaningfully in discussions, reflections, and problem-solving, democratizing learning so that all voices are heard. 

Beth is also co-developer of LUDIA, an AI-powered chat partner designed to support educators in applying UDL principles. The name combines “UDL” and “AI” and fittingly, it also rooted in the Latin “ludus”, or “play.” LUDIA helps teachers generate ideas for reducing barriers, designing inclusive lessons, and making UDL accessible for everyone. WAB is among the schools piloting this tool to enhance professional learning and innovation. 

UDL connects closely to WAB’s Definition of Learning, learning that is transformative, intentional, iterative, challenging, and joyful. Beth highlights how these principles align: “Inclusive experiences can happen by chance, but we know we have the power to make them happen by design.”  

When asked what a truly UDL-informed school might look like five years from now, Beth describes a community where belonging and value are felt everywhere: “Each and every student would walk through the door and experience, not just in fits and starts, but throughout the day, interactions that inspire them to say: I belong here. No learner would feel like a liability, everyone would be seen as an asset.” It’s a future WAB continues to build toward—where learning is truly for everyone, everywhere, every day. 

This year, through our Innovation Series, in collaboration with Stephen Taylor, our Director of Innovation, we’ll be sharing stories and examples of what innovation looks like across WAB. We’ll share stories from classrooms, examples from alumni, and insights from global partners. Our hope is that together, we can build a clearer picture of how innovation at WAB helps our students become better learners and prepared for life beyond WAB.