Designing Inclusive and Adaptive Content in Moodle: A Framework and a Case Study from Jordanian Higher Education

Abstract

Blended learning has introduced a more accessible and flexible teaching environment in higher education. However, ensuring that content is inclusive, particularly for students with learning difficulties, remains a challenge. This paper explores how Moodle, a widely adopted learning management system (LMS), can support inclusive and adaptive learning based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. A 16-week descriptive exploratory study was conducted with 70 undergraduate students during a software engineering fundamentals course at Philadelphia University in Jordan. The research combined weekly iterative focus groups, teaching reflections, and interviews with 16 educators to identify and address inclusion barriers. The findings highlight that the students responded positively to features such as conditional activities, flexible quizzes, and multimodal content. A UDL-based framework was developed to guide the design of inclusive Moodle content, and it was validated by experienced educators. To our knowledge, this is the first UDL-based framework designed for Moodle in Middle Eastern computing and engineering education. The findings indicate that Moodle features, such as conditional activities and flexible deadlines, can facilitate inclusive practices, but adoption remains hindered by institutional and workload constraints. This study contributes a replicable design model for inclusive blended learning and emphasizes the need for structured training, intentional course planning, and technological support for implementing inclusivity in blended learning environments. Moreover, this study provides a novel weekly iterative focus group methodology, which enables continuous course refinement based on evolving students’ feedback. Future work will look into generalizing the research findings and transferring the findings to other contexts. It will also explore AI-driven adaptive learning pathways within LMS platforms. This is an empirical study grounded in weekly student focus groups, educator interviews, and reflective teaching practice, offering evidence-based insights on the application of UDL in a real-world higher education setting.