Team-Based Learning is most effective when learners bring diverse backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives to the team’s work. Yet prework is often designed as though one size fits all.

Prework plays a critical role in preparing learners for Readiness Assurance Tests and meaningful application exercises. When it is designed to support a wide range of learners, more students arrive ready to engage, contribute, and succeed.

In this interactive workshop, participants will assess a TBL prework assignment for potential barriers and apply Universal Design for Learning principles to redesign it— in teams, of course! Together, we will explore practical strategies to reduce barriers, support learner agency, and provide multiple ways for students to access, engage with, and make sense of essential content—without creating an unsustainable workload for instructors or compromising shared learning outcomes.

Participants will leave with an adaptable framework for identifying barriers in their own prework and designing more accessible, engaging, and effective learning experiences that prepare all learners to arrive ready to contribute to individual and team success.