“Universal Design for Learning is founded on, and committed to, the fight for educational equity, until learning has no limits. At CAST, we believe true equity must involve the power of the voices of our learners. This year’s Symposium is designed to amplify those voices, particularly those who have been most marginalized by traditional educational systems. Learners’ voices must be lifted and made central to how we engage, teach, and assess learners, because each and every voice enriches learning for all.

Conference Goals

By engaging in virtual sessions that encourage innovative ideas, systemic thinking, and application of theory to practice, participants will:

• Imagine radical new ways to include learner voice in all aspects of their education across the lifespan.

• Explore how assessments, post-secondary planning, and UDL implementation could include learner voice.

• Be inspired to experiment with and implement new systems for empowering learners.

• Examine ways in which we may unconsciously support systems that disadvantage or exclude certain students, and learn how learner voice can build racial and cultural equity.

• Challenge their own assumptions about teaching, instruction, and learning.

• Imagine innovative policies and practices for lifting up student voice in their work (no matter the context), and understanding student voice as the most necessary foundation of positive educational systemic change.”