Designing this blended course felt very natural to me in many ways. I teach in a fully synchronous virtual environment every day. My students attend live lessons, and their independent work is often completed asynchronously. Because of that, structuring a blended learning experience did not feel overwhelming or unfamiliar. It felt like something already in my wheelhouse.

However, creating a course specifically for adult learners was something I had never done before. I intentionally chose adult educators as my audience because I wanted to challenge myself. While I regularly design instruction for middle school students, designing for teachers required a different lens. At the same time, the focus on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) made the project exciting. UDL is something I am deeply passionate about, and I genuinely hope to become a UDL leader in my district one day. This assignment felt like a step in that direction.

One of the biggest challenges I encountered was slowing down my own thinking. I am used to designing lessons quickly because I live in a blended environment daily. Many of my instructional decisions feel automatic. But when creating a course for adult educators, especially one grounded in UDL, I had to clearly articulate why I chose certain tools, how they supported learner variability, and how each activity aligned with UDL principles. Writing those rationales out required deeper reflection than I expected.

Another area that stretched me was designing Lesson 2, where participants intentionally created common student mistakes. For experienced educators, this activity builds empathy and strengthens instructional decision-making. But I realized that if this course were offered to brand-new teachers, that task might feel intimidating. New educators may not yet have enough classroom experience to confidently predict misconceptions. If I were redesigning this for pre-service teachers, I would include more modeling, sample student work, and guided prompts before asking them to generate their own examples.

If this course were developed for an audience unfamiliar with UDL terminology, I would also provide more frontloading of foundational concepts. In this version, I assumed participants had at least some exposure to UDL language. A different audience might need mini-lessons explaining UDL checkpoints, learner variability, and the distinctions between engagement, representation, and expression before applying those ideas.

I would also scaffold technology use more intentionally. While I am comfortable with tools like Kami, Schoology, and Teams, not all educators use these platforms regularly. For a broader audience, I would include optional tutorials or structured walkthroughs to reduce anxiety about the tools themselves. The focus should remain on instructional thinking, not technical frustration

What this process reinforced for me is that designing for adults requires the same intentionality as designing for students. Clarity, modeling, flexibility, and feedback matter at every level. Expertise can sometimes create blind spots. What feels obvious to one educator may be brand new to another.

Overall, this experience confirmed that blended learning is not just about mixing synchronous and asynchronous elements. It is about designing learning experiences that honor flexibility while maintaining structure. If I revise this course in the future, my biggest shift would not be in the format it would be in the scaffolding provided for different types of learners.

And in many ways, that is exactly what UDL calls us to do.