Design and Deliver

Planning and Teaching Using Universal Design for Learning

Excerpted from Design and Deliver: Planning

CONTENTS

• I Introducing Universal Design for Learning
  1. Introducing Universal Design for Learning
  2. The Vocabulary and Myths of Universal Design for Learning
• II The Principles of Universal Design for Learning
  3. Engagement
  4. Representation
  5. Action and Expression
• III From Planning to Practice
  6. Designing with Learning in Mind
  7. The Goal and the Lesson
• References
• Index

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Loui Lord Nelson, Ph.D., is a consultant specializing in universal design for learning (UDL). She recently completed a 1-year postdoctoral fellowship through Boston College and CAST. She has focused on K12 professional development and systems change design and is conducting research in both areas. Prior to this experience, she was the Coordinator of UDL in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, Indiana, for four years. Loui began her career as an eighth-grade collaborative teacher in Indiana and then expanded.

2 THE VOCABULARY AND MYTHS OF UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING

Using the UDL framework made it possible for me to do a better job at what I was doing, but to make it so that students could find a way to connect differently than they had before with their learning experience.

Using the UDL framework made it possible for me to do a better job at what I was doing, but to make it so that students could find a way to connect differently than they had before with their learning experience.
—Rhonda Laswell, former science teacher, middle school; Coordinator of UDL.
Sometimes we need language to define what we already know. Sometimes we need language to consider new things. Universal design for learning (UDL) does both. You have already been introduced to some of UDL’s vocabulary, such as principle, guideline, and checkpoint.

You have been introduced to the brain networks, and that those networks are called the affective networks, the recognition networks, and the strategic networks. I’ve referred to UDL as a framework, and there are additional terms that are often used with UDL that are worth defining. These terms bring together large concepts, so they can be challenging to understand if you don’t have some basic knowledge. When UDL is talked about, teachers will hear terms: access, barriers, and learner variability.

In the next section of this chapter, I list the terms, give descriptions, and provide some examples.

FRAMEWORK

UDL was not designed to be complex, but because it is a framework and not a checklist, some might find it overwhelming. In Chapter 1, I described the concept of a building framed by steel girders. It is on that frame that the roof will sit and the materials for the walls will hang. If the framework is not solid and shifts, then the roof could fall in or the wall materials could crack. That building’s framework is tested over and over by gravity and the use of the building.
The framework of UDL, designed by researchers at CAST, was conceived using brain research (Rose & Meyer, 2002). That research was grouped into the three continuous review of the research and teachers’ daily use and investigation.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

As mentioned previously, teachers use the UDL framework to design both lessons and the learning environment. In Chapter 1, I introduced the concept of the learning environment as your teaching space or location. When most of us think of teaching, we think of being in a classroom. We think of a specific location. UDL asks us to expand our concept of both where learning can take place and what needs to be available for learning to take place. A learning environment includes the physical location where learning is taking place, the resources available to the students, and the design of the lesson. To implement UDL, a teacher must go beyond the basic decision-making of “what topic will be my focus for today.” Instead, the teacher considers the environment in which the students will learn and uses the UDL framework to design that environment so students have access to the tools, resources, and strategies they need and so that they can achieve to their greatest potential.

The Physical Location

Think about a classroom as an example of a physical location. There might be desks and chairs, tables and chairs, or desk units. In most cases, these are mobile. Depending on the physical structure of the room, these can be grouped, placed in rows, or a larger shape such as a square or circle can be created. If there are students who use mobility devices (a wheelchair, a walker, or other assistive devices), a teacher wants to be sure these students have physical access to the seating and they are physically included within the larger chair and desk groupings.

Another piece underlying several of the guidelines and spanning all three of the principles is collaborative work. Students need opportunities to debate, discuss, negotiate, and challenge one another. Without these opportunities, they do not build important positive social and higher order thinking skills.

Flexible Resources

The term flexible resource is a combination of two terms and can have multiple interpretations. Resources can include printed materials (e.g., books, magazines), digital materials (e.g., online information, a DVD, devices that speak, print, or otherwise work as a reader), or representative objects (e.g., a baseball, a diorama, a stuffed animal). That last category is the largest because it includes anything teachers might use to represent an object or a topic.

When a single resource is flexible it can be used in several different ways to demonstrate the same information. For example, let’s say a student needs to read a story, but that student does not decode words well. The goal of the lesson is for the student to identify a story’s characters, setting, and plot, and then predict the end of the story. Knowing that this student will spend time and effort decoding, and it is likely that this student will not meet the goal due to frustration and lack of time, the teacher sets up the computer-based program to read the story aloud. This allows the student to look up words that are unclear and gives the student the ability to use an on-screen highlighter to highlight the characters and words that identify the setting and plot, and then export that information into another document where the student can type up his or her thoughts on the plot and story predictions. Not only does this resource allow the student to hear the information, it provides writing and organizational supports.