UDL in Post-Secondary Education

This week’s blog reflects on several articles that discuss the implementation of the UDL framework and effective application of UDL into instructional practices at the post-secondary level.

UDL on Campus…A CAST Initiative

College STAR (Supporting Transition, Access, and Retention) is an initiative out of the University of North Carolina system that builds models of student and faculty support to address learning differences, specifically learning disabilities and ADHD. This initiative, currently at the North Carolina Greensboro, Carolina University, Appalachian State University, and Fayetteville State University campuses, focuses on UDL as part of a model to make educational environments more welcoming for a wider variety of  learners.

 

A network of support is provided for students who historically have slipped through the cracks   — students who are capable of college success but often struggle academically because they learn differently. By weaving together direct supports for students, instructional supports for faculty members, and partnerships with public school professionals, this initiative is providing the opportunity for participating campuses to learn together and implement effective strategies for teaching students with varying

learning differences in post-secondary settings.

Strengths in the program:

• A clear mission throughout each college campus with a two-fold focus — direct student support to students within our specific target population and a campus-wide focus on UDL to benefit all students;
• The programs are not cookie-cutter but instead designed with each specific campus mission, culture, and priorities in mind;
• A commitment to shared learning that permeates throughout the College STAR initiative, and a project-wide evaluation model guides our work together; and,
• Unwavering belief in the effectiveness of UDL…instructional development support, for faculty who teach increasingly diverse groups of learners in today’s college classrooms, is grounded in principles of Universal Design for Learning (“About,” n.d.).

Services available through College STAR student-support programs include:

• assistance in making the transition from high school to college;
• seminar-style courses to equip students with skills necessary to succeed in their other coursework; and,
• a support network that includes advisors, mentors, tutors and/or specialists (“College Star,” n.d.).

Participants are encouraged to explore a wide range of assistive technologies that may help them with their coursework (“College Star,” n.d.). Tutors are a key part of the program and work closely with faculty members, attend classes for which they are providing tutoring, and hold group and individual peer tutoring sessions for undergraduate students (“College Star,” n.d.). Tutors also receive training in learning theory, learning differences, and use of assistive technologies (“College Star,” n.d.).

College STAR provides support for faculty members who want to infuse the principles of Universal Design for Learning into classroom instruction and each university has designed an instructional support model for faculty members. Faculty development modules and case studies (n.d.) in the College STAR program are quite extensive and include:

• Active Collaborative Quizzes
• Advance Organizaters
• Charting Student Information
• Classroom Response Systems
• Collaborative Learning
• Creative a Welcoming Learning Environment
• Flipped Classroom
• Game-Based Learning
• Inquiry-Based Learning
• Lecture Capture
• Livescribe Pen
• Merging Silly and Serious for Creative Expressions of Learning
• Mnemonic Devices for Instruction
• Padagogy Wheel
• Promoting Student Engagement
• Read and Write
• Team Based Learning
• Using iPad for Preserving Class Information
• Using Organization to Streamline Courses
• Uses Quizzes to Increase Compliance
• Using Syllabi to Organize Courses
• Using Web 2.0 Tools to Engage Learners
• When Lecture Is Necessary
• Writing for the Right Audience

EDUCASE: 7 Things You Should Know About UDL

There are key considerations to keep in mind to establishing successful UDL systems change initiatives in higher education. Learner variability is the rule, not the exception. Using the UDL framework to design courses and learning environments can be daunting and leave professors feeling overwhelmed but even changing one or two practices or materials can help build momentum (“Getting Started,” n.d.). Support from administrators and the university can assist professors as they begin the task of implementing UDL in their courses (“Getting Started,” n.d.). The video on the UDL on Campus website advises getting started in small steps because it’s not necessary to make sweeping changes all at once. We need to remember that UDL implementation is a dynamic process.

The Educase article (2015) begins with a scenario:

A committee is seeking to reduce the number of withdrawals from the college’s intro courses. Because these high-enrollment courses tend to have multiple requests for accommodation from students with disabilities, a consultant recommends implementing UDL and the committee decides to to redesign one history course as a pilot.

When polled about the course design, students appreciated the value of the flexibility in learning activities (e.g. multiple means of representation) and testing (e.g. multiple means of action and expression). At the end of the semester, the college finds that grades were 12 percent higher than in the other intro history courses, requests for special accommodation dropped to zero, and course withdrawals were cut in half.

As noted in both the video and scenario above, UDL implementation is a dynamic process and it’s not necessary to make sweeping changes…it can start with small steps.

The Educase article (2015) suggests additional considerations when establishing successful systems change initiatives in post-secondary settings:

• Professors need initial and ongoing support to implement UDL in their courses. One example of support includes a website for faculty, students, and student advocates, where instructors can find help teaching a class that includes students with disabilities and students with learning differences can find self-advocacy resources.
• UDL challenges the status quo: This could mean that faculty, designers, and administrators face difficult conversations as they integrate UDL into the learning environment.
• A campus-wide adoption of UDL can be expensive, and a full picture of the costs and benefits of UDL—including the retention of students who might otherwise not return—should be developed.
• It must be made clear that UDL does not lower expectations but opens new learning pathways that can help more students meet existing expectations.
• Adoption of UDL can help an institution commit to a broader range of students, cultures, abilities, and backgrounds.
• For faculty, the prospect of teaching effectively to all learners is rewarding, particularly when it is visibly demonstrated that more students are able to succeed.
• UDL has been effective in addressing such troubling issues such as student apathy, sinking enrollment, and rising dropout rates by ensuring that students have equal access to learning and participatie in their own education.
• A campus-wide adoption of UDL can be expensive, and a full picture of the costs and benefits of UDL—including the retention of students who might otherwise not return—should be developed.
• Although many institutions turn to UDL initially as a tool for meeting the legal requirements of ADA compliance and optimizing the tools of assistive technology, UDL’s focus on reducing physical, cognitive, and organizational learning barriers goes beyond students with disabilities and provides support for and accommodates the differences of ALL students.

As schools at the K-12 level implement UDL with the goal of creating expert learners, post-secondary education should also have the same goal for their students:

In the best learning environments, where students are exposed to a variety of learning paths, multiple means of action and expression, and opportunities for engagement, they come to recognize their own best approaches for self-education and sustainable learning, and become expert learners (Educase, 2015).

UDL in the College Courses and Post-Secondary Education

UDL is becoming more established in K-12 education but is much newer to higher education. Rose et al. (2006) state that “UDL requires that we not only design accessible information but also accessible pedagogy” (p. 2).

Pedagogy is the science of teaching and learning—the educational methods that skilled educators use to highlight critical features, emphasize big ideas, clarify essential relationships, provide graduated scaffolds for practice, model expert performance, and guide and mentor the apprentice (or student) (Rose et al., 2006).

In Universal Design for Learning in Postsecondary Education, Rose and his colleagues note two important points: research and application still lag behind theory with respect to UDL in university settings and implementing UDL in college courses is rare, especially at the graduate level.

The authors then discuss attempts to apply UDL to an existing Harvard University graduate course. Rose and his colleagues tell us that the course description communicates an obvious goal: to teach information. The authors share that UDL tells us that it’s not enough for students to acquire information — they must also have some way to express what they have learned and some way to apply that information as knowledge (thus, making knowledge useful). Furthermore, there is an affective component to learning goals:

• Students will never use knowledge they don’t care about, nor will they practice or apply skills they don’t find valuable; and,
• Students need to be fully engaged in learning the content, to be eager to apply what they know, to leave the course wanting to learn even more, and to want to apply their knowledge everywhere (Rose et al., 2006).

Lectures and textbooks are typical in college courses. While the content and the language in a lecture are best conveyed and accessible in a printed version, the expression capacity of the human voice – its ability to stress what is significant and important, to clarify tone and intent, to situate and contextualize meaning, and to provide an emotional background – is a strength of lectures (Rose et al., 2006). Rose et al. (2016) share that good lecturers also use facial expression, gesture, and body motion to further convey meaning and affect, and that lectures combined with additional media provide students with a rich multimedia experience. Lectures play an important role in the Harvard class and many other college courses as well, but there are still barriers to learning to overcome and that can be accomplished by utilizing multiple means for representing information. One example, used in the Harvard class, is videotaping lectures:

• Students can access the lecture at any time;
• Information is more accessible for some students than the live lecture;
• Video’s flexibility allows students to replay it entirely or stop and start segments; and,
• Learning is more accessible through a video for those who struggle with sustained attention and concentration during live lectures (Rose et al., 2006).

The Harvard class also collects student notes from the lecture and provides them to all students enrolled in the course (Rose et al., 2006). There are several unexpected benefits to this. Some students take very detailed linear notes, others take very graphic notes with little text, and others run the gamut in between the two. Students notes represent differences in notetaking or in other words, learner variability. Also, students often enhance their notes knowing they are going to be publicly posted to be shared with classmates (Rose et al., 2006).  Rose et al. (2006) state that what becomes clear from a UDL perspective is that although a lecture conveys course content to the students in the Harvard class, reception of the material is highly variable due to learner variability. The authors talk about additional options provided in the Harvard class: discussion groups, review sessions, and advanced sessions that can supplement lectures and compliment textbooks. Furthermore, there is a course website that contains the syllabus (multimedia with links and media), the assignments, the discussion groups, the projects, the class notes, the class videos, and the PowerPoint slides for the lectures, along with links to many websites that are additional representations of the topic for the week, or as scaffolds and supports for student learning.

Barriers and the challenges of individual students can’t be considered “individual” or student problems because that view promotes solutions that address weaknesses in the individual (Rose et al., 2006). Using a UDL lens, these issues should be considered “environmental” problems in the design of the learning environment.

Unfortunately, universities place too much emphasis on students’ disabilities and not enough on the disabilities of the learning environment (Rose et al., 2006).

References

About College Star. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.collegestar.org/about

College Star Frequently Asked Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.collegestar.org/frequently-asked-questions#what-is-the-college-star-program

Educase. (2015). 7 Things You Should Know About UDL. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2015/4/eli7119-pdf.pdf

Faculty Development Modules and Case Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.collegestar.org/modules

Getting Started. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/udl_gettingstarted#.Wteq0y7wbIU

Legal Obligations for Accessibility. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/policy_legal#.WtevHi7wbIU

Rose, D. H., Harbour, W. S., Johnston, C. S., Daley, S. G., & Abarbanell, L. (2006). Universal design for learning in postsecondary education: Reflections on principles and their application. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 19(2), 17.

UDL in Pre-K to 12 Settings

Case Study: Carter G. Woodson Middle School

Our guest lecturer, Dr. Croasdaile, presented a case study that was an excellent example of UDL systems change. UDL systems change requires very thoughtful and purposeful implementation planning that reduces barriers and builds learner expertise. All the planning in the world does not help if the barriers to curriculum are still there. She shared that systems change did not happen overnight at the Carter G. Woodson Middle School:

Three to five years were spent just on inclusive practices…it took eight years to reduce barriers in the curriculum…in total, systems change at the Carter G. Woodson Middle School took 13 years.

It is important to note that inclusive practices were led by the building principals and based on the school’s vision. Dr. Croasdaile shared that the school’s core values and approaches – inclusive practices, positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), and Response to Intervention (RTI) – made systems change happen at the Carter G. Woodson Middle School.

To make systems change work and build learner expertise, Dr. Croasdaile states that schools have to answer guiding questions during the Explore phase of UDL implementation. In her presentation, she provided the guiding questions used by the Carter G. Woodson Middle School:

• What are the current best practices?
• How is instructional planning done?
• How is instructional implementation done?
• How does the system of planning and implementation reduce barriers in the curriculum?
• How does the system of planning and implementation build learner expertise?
• Why might the unified perspective of UDL framework for teaching and learning–that ties all the parts together–help the stakeholders within the system to collaborate?

Some of the planning and implementation of UDL systems change included:

• The Mindset of the school changed: if a student didn’t learn or understand something, the teacher or the school had to do something different…the student didn’t do anything wrong.
• Focus on Feedback
• Student Learning Targets were utilized: allowed for students to reflect on their learning and included information for students about the real life application of what they are learning.
• The use of PBIS to look at behavior as data and focused on teaching, rather than , punishing behavior. Dr. Croasdaile gave an example of how the office staff taught expected behaviors to students. The school understood the effect social-emotional learning and behavior has on students’ academic learning.

© Carter G. Woodson Middle School

• Focus on stakeholders and collaboration:
  • Teachers – Principals recognized they need support and assessed how they could provide support; teacher led professional development was created.
  • Student Engagement – This included learning contracts and student engagement forms.
  • Parents – The school sent a brochure about the implementation of PBIS and behavior expectations. Those expectations were tied in with school PRIDE, the school’s acronym for their expectations of the type of school culture they wanted to have.
  • Professional Learning Communities were created that reflected and responded weekly to learners and curriculum units in order to reduce barriers and provide learner support.
• A Responsive Environment was created to meet the needs of those students who did not become expert learners through the Tier 1 interventions by providing additional support and specialty interventions.

While UDL systems change took 13 years, it is apparent that it was effective for the Carter G. Woodson Middle School, as Dr. Croasdaile shared that the students received the highest scores in math on state assessments, overall and for students with disabilities. All the thoughtful and purposeful planning and implementation of UDL systems change resulted in reduced barriers to the curriculum, improved student performance, and students learning to become expert learners.

A Unified Perspective of the UDL Framework and Stakeholder Collaboration within a System

Novak and Rodriguez (2016) state that as a school or district leader, you have to build an outstanding system capable of supporting all learners and engaging them as they strive to become expert learners. The authors note that this takes planning, collaboration, and multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement, or in other words, tools found in the UDL framework.

To know what is best for our district is to know our people, to collaborate with them, and to grow with them (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016).

A term that keeps coming up here and in every other conversation about UDL systems change is collaboration. Collaboration with stakeholders is important during the Explore phase of UDL implementation to reflect and conduct a needs assessment, set goals, and determine problems or barriers. Once that foundation for UDL systems change has been laid, the next step is to develop a strategy and provide levels of support to school staff so that everyone understands how to implement UDL to improve learning and increase outcomes for ALL students (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016).

Novak and Rodriguez (2016) state that in order to implement UDL as a district wide framework, it is critical to provide universally designed professional development (PD). For effective teaching and learning and UDL systems change to occur, everyone has to be on board with the same mindset. The authors argue that a district’s most important resources are its human capital – staff members who work so very hard to support students. Districts need to collaborate with and invest in their professionals:

…this ensures that all members of the teaching and learning team have a shared understanding of best practices, a commitment to the district strategy, and the ability to implement the evidenced-based strategies that will result in the most effective student outcomes (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016).

Since stakeholders, including staff, worked collaboratively to design a district strategy that was built on a shared vision, meaningful goals, and feedback, it is critical that the district strategy is the basis for professional development so that all teachers are engaged in improving student outcomes (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016).

There are many steps a district can take to build engagement around PD:

• Collaborate with staff to design a PD calendar and PD initiatives;
• Survey teachers to gather data on the PD needs of the district;
• Build collaboration and community with teachers by creating a PD committee;
• Research best practices in PD in the areas of needs outlined in the survey data;
• Review the district strategy to ensure that a PD program is aligned to district, school, and educator goals;
• Create a PD system with embedded choice for teachers with offerings that are relevant and meaningful;
• Communicate the need for teacher leaders and administrators to develop a PD series to meet the needs of teachers (provide stipend and supports on how to universally design the series); and,
• Provide resources so staff can design their own UDL sessions that provide options for engagement, representation, and action and expression (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016).

Building engagement around professional development enables teachers and other stakeholders to have that shared perspective of the UDL framework for teaching and learning that allows for effective UDL systems change and improved student outcomes.

Consideration for My UDL Systems Change Plan

The National Center on Universal Design for Learning’s (2012) presentation, The UDL Implementation – A Process of Change, provides a very clear definition of UDL Implementation:

…it is a process, a continuously improving cycle of learning and growth, designed in a UDL way and customized to meet unique district needs.

The presentation asks some excellent reflection questions:

• What is a critical education need in your district?
• What would you like to see done?
• In what ways will UDL implementation address this need?

Starting with a clearly defined need for change is critical for success UDL implementation at a systemic level and these questions help us address system variability because schools and students are both variable and complex systems (The National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2012).

The presentation shares strategies that are critical to any UDL systems change plan:

• Recruit and collaborate with stakeholders;
• Build awareness inside and outside the system – Staff willingness and interest is essential…Mullenax and Fiorito (2017) suggest holding meetings to help staff identify what roles they will play to move systems change forward;
• Map resources;
• Define strategic vision and plan of action with expected outcomes;
• Develop educator expertise in applying UDL to instructional practices and decision-making;
• Continuing to foster collaboration and support to implement UDL; and,
• Connect UDL to what teachers are already doing by embedding it in the teaching and learning framework.

While discussing the case study in their article, Mullenax and Fiorito (2017) noted a couple specific strategies to consider for my UDL systems change plan:

Lesson Study – an effective strategy that involves refining pedagogical practices and examining content standards while providing opportunities for collaboration and reflective conversation among peers.

Instructional Rounds – Encourages teachers to observe best practices in action and to reflect on their own practice. The teams rounding focus on practices they observed that effectively support learner-centered,universally designed environments and discuss how these ideas can be embedded in all classrooms. Instructional rounds provide an opportunity to view the learning environment, not just the lesson, through a UDL lens.

In the previous section, all of the excellent professional development strategies on building engagement provided by Novak and Rodriguez will be beneficial in crafting my UDL systems change plan as well.

References

Croasdaile, S. (2018). UDL applied to practice: A focus on instruction . Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_297066_1&content_id=_8376840_1

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2012). UDL Implementation: A Process of Change [Online seminar presentation]. UDL Series, No. 3. Retrieved April 14, 2018 from http://udlseries.udlcenter.org/presentations/udl_implementation.html

Novack, K. & Rodriguez, K. (2016). Universally Designed Leadership: Applying UDL to Systems and Schools. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

 

UDL Applications to Practice: Secondary Transition, Career & Technical Education, and Career Assessment

Joan Kester and Conditions for Systems Changes

Joan Kester (n.d.) shares something that we’re all familiar with: we’ve all come up against internal challenges that perpetuate the status quo. If we can break through these initial barriers by bringing together diverse perspectives to identify challenges, we’ve begun the very first step of systems change (Kester, Kallas, & Smith, n.d.). At times, we get stuck talking about barriers and challenges and don’t talk about opportunities and growth but by breaking through barriers, we change our organization’s culture by changing the nature of the conversation (Kester et al., n.d.).

Dr. Kester (n.d.) shares four conditions for creating systems change:

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) – AI is not so much a shift in the methods and models of organizational change, but rather is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to ‘see’ the wholeness of the human system and to “inquire” into that system’s strengths, possibilities, and successes (Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, n.d.). Dr. Kester (n.d.) shares that AI allows us to discover what is best in what we do, envision what we could be, and construct the future.

Authentic Stakeholder Engagement – We need to bring people together at all levels who represent every piece of the problem to work together to address mutual issues and concerns – this leads to the best solution (Leading by Convening, 2014). Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2015) state that “learning that matters today is social, in real time, and inventive” and starts with a joint activity such as conversation, design, problem solving etc. which focuses on the value produced:

• immediate;
• potential (where learning ends for most people);
• applied (You try one of those good ideas when you get back,change your practice, and collaborate with someone you met); and,
• realized value (As a result of all this chain of events, you would hope to see some improvement in performance – your own or your organization’s).

Liberating Structures to Increase Engagement – Change involves increased levels of engagement for change to emerge and the conventional structures used to organize how people routinely work together stifle inclusion and engagement (Liberating Structures, n.d.). Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in how we meet, plan, decide and relate to each other. They create a high level of engagement where people are very active in conversation (Kester et al., n.d.), include everyone in shaping next steps (e.g. collaboration), generate innovation and great results, and make it possible to build the kind of organization everybody wants (Liberating Structures, n.d.).

Collective Impact – Complex problems such as transition cannot be solved by one organization or stakeholder alone (Systems Change, n.d.) but rather, change emerges when we collaborate to tackle social problems.

The Sandwich Public School District can use Dr. Kester’s approaches to systems change:

Fran Smith and Best Practices on UDL in Career Assessment

Smith, Leconte, and Vitelli (2012) discuss UDL as a framework for designing career assessments and vocational evaluations which, as a comprehensive practice, has modeled many of the three core principles of UDL (Smith, 2018). That is, when considered as an assessment process, vocational evaluation and career assessment are designed to offer multiple ways to represent information, to allow a student to demonstrate their knowledge and become engaged in their career exploration (Smith et al., 2012).

Dowd, Harris, and Smith (2012) state that Universal Design for Learning (UDL) facilitates access to and participation by all who wish to engage in vocational evaluation and career assessment services. The authors go on to say that as a framework, UDL is a lens for designing assessments that are fair, equitable, and supportive of variation in learner ability. The variation of neurological characteristics across the three primary networks critical to learning – recognition, strategic, and affective – correlates with the need for multiple and varied means of assessment (Dowd et al., 2012).

According to Smith, Leconte, and Vitelli (2012), this diverse spectrum of neurological functioning, career assessment, and planning means that programming should be individualized and customized to gain maximum benefit for participants. The authors share that individuals have been denied access to meaningful assessment and evaluation due to methodological, physical, and instructional barriers and that the UDL framework eliminates barriers to full engagement, learning, and discovery in career assessment and vocational evaluation. Thus, assessment plans that are created through a UDL lens better assure that methods will be flexible and offer multiple opportunities for success. To gain access to one’s personal goals and aspirations, one has to have complete access to assessment methods: UDL in assessment permits multiple opportunities to express, explore, and demonstrate career preferences, needs, strengths, capabilities, and goals, and reduces barriers to achieving desired education, training, and employment (Smith et al., 2012).

Dowd, Harris, and Smith (2012) were involved in the Expanding Career Options with UDL (ECO UDL) project which used assessment and instructional strategies designed using the UDL principles. Their project also included digital technologies and UDL techniques to support learning and training and assist students in overcoming barriers to successful job performace. Dowd and her colleagues (2012) used examples in their presentation to show how the UDL framework can assist teams in identifying student career interests and possible assistive technologies to support students in their jobs. Some of the unexpected lessons learned from the project were:

• students were motivated by the opportunity to use technology;
• the intuitive nature of technology enhanced students’ connection to learning;
• students used technology to a purposeful goal; and,
• families explored/increased technology use at home (Dowd et al., 2012).

The ECO UDL Learning Ecology Congruence Matrix created by Dowd et al. (2012) is used to construct UDL solutions to assist students in overcoming barriers to employment and technology options to help students perform their jobs successfully. This aspect of vocational evaluation and career assessment in the ECO UDL project highlights the critical role technology plays in successful employment for transition-age students.

Courtney Kallas and the Denver Public Schools

Courtney Kallas’s presentation illustrated how systems change strategies, stakeholder engagement, and the UDL principles can impact secondary transition. She and her colleagues in the Denver Public School District used UDL to level the playing field so all students could participate in Career and Technical Education (CTE) and take advantage of programming (Kester, Kallas, & Smith, n.d.). They also used the UDL framework to create programming that students would be interested in. Courtney alluded to Authentic Stakeholder Engagement when she talked about how she and her colleagues leveraged partnerships, university resources, CTE programming, and special education programming to have a collect impact on the programs that the Denver Public Schools provide to students (Kester et al, n.d.).

She then provided examples of systems change within the Denver Public School. Courtney discussed finding congruence between students’ needs, interests, and abilities and the work environment through the application of UDL in order to develop supports for students’ learning needs in an effort to overcome barriers to employment and increase success on the job (Dowd, Harris, & Smith, 2012). She specifically mentioned the Career Navigate and Career Launch internship programs in which they looked at what supports made sense for students using a UDL lens. This allowed them to find congruence by applying it to all students…English language learners, students who have experienced a lot of trauma, students with disabilities etc. Courtney mentioned the Garden of Youth program (for students in special populations) and that it was created by leveraging networks within the district (special education, sustainability department, CTE, and the UDL team) that looked at how the district and students contribute to the community (Kester et al, n.d.). For engagement, they created entrepreneurship “hooks” (e.g. selling the produce at a farmers’ market) and engaged them in career development in the area of “green” careers because students see them as valuable because there is a lot of green industry in Denver (Kester et al, n.d.). Courtney shared the Career Connect Matrix, which has not yet been implemented, but shows all of the options available to students with disabilities in various career and technical tracks (Kester et al, n.d.). For example, the district uses UDL to enable students to have access to a tier 1 class in CET programs (e.g. Engineering Connect) and have access to a professional certificate through the course along with access to work based learning (Kester et al, n.d.).

Courtney has a systems change plan (for work basesd learning programs) but it changed as she began interacting with the people to help her implement her plan. The results of her plan have taken much longer than she thought and have had impacts in smaller ways that she anticipated (Kester et al, n.d.). She realized that she keeps building – as she has an impact in one area, she just continues to use the strategies that she thought she would use to have a huge systems impact and makes a number of smaller impacts (Kester et al, n.d.). She’s been working to create professional development and infuse project based learning models with UDL and shares that it has been pretty slow going because people don’t want another acronym (Kester et al, n.d.). She has to get creative about infusing UDL into what’s already happening with professional development because she hasn’t been able to gain the leverage she needs to make UDL a priority for professional development in the Denver Public Schools (Kester et al, n.d.).

References

AI Commons. (n.d.). Appreciative inquiry commons. Retrieved from https://appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu/

Dowd, L. R., Harris, L. A., & Smith, F. (2012). Expanding career options with universal design for learning (ECO UDL). [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://phillipsprograms.pbworks.com/w/file/52381570/2012%20ECOUDL%20Forum%20Preso.ppt

Kester, J., Kallas, C., & Smith, F. (n.d.). UDL and Systems Change: A Focus on Secondary Transition Practices [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/%20http://phillipsprograms.pbworks.com/w/page/27888926/FrontPage%20

Leading by Convening. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.ideapartnership.org/documents/NovUploads/Leading%20by%20Convening%20508.pdf

Liberating Structures. (n.d.). Introduction. Retrieved from http://www.liberatingstructures.com/

Smith, F. G., Leconte, P., & Vitelli, E. (2012). The VECAP position paper on universal design for learning for career assessment and vocational evaluation. Vocational Evaluation and Career Assessment Journal, 8(1), 13-26.

Smith, F. (2018). Week 12: UDL Applications to Practice: Secondary Transition, Career & Technical Education, and Career Assessment: SPED6210 [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_297066_1&content_id=_8376697_1

Systems Change. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-8376701-dt-content-rid-21905230_2/courses/37243_201801/Systems%20Change.pdf

Wenger-Trayner, B., &  Wenger-Trayner, E. (2015). Planning and evaluating social learning. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/planning-and-evaluating-social-learning/

 

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Systems Change

UDL Implementation: A Tale of Four Districts shares how four school districts piloted processes and tools developed to support the UDL implementation process: Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Indiana, Cecil County Public Schools in Maryland and Chelmsford Public Schools in Massachusetts (“National Center,” 2014). With a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, these districts worked with the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) to develop and implement an effective and sustainable district plan to support the integration of Universal Design for Learning (“National Center,” 2014). I will share some of the salient points about the Chelmsford Public School’s experience in implementing UDL systems change, who the key players were, and what made their plan a success.

Chelmsford Public Schools (CPS)

There are three significant points to note about the the Chelmford Public School’s  experience in implementing UDL that contributed to its success:

Integration of UDL with State and District Initiatives and Requirements

• CPS understood that UDL would not be successful if it was just another initiative or requirement in their district and that aligning district initiatives with UDL would strengthen UDL implementation.
• They developed their five-year strategic plan and incorporated UDL principles into their district goals to support higher achievement of academic goals for all students. This way, UDL is not an add-on but a framework for decision-making.
• By incorporating UDL into their district strategic plans, CPS’s district strategic plan informs the school improvement plans, which inform department goals, which inform teacher practice, which then informs instructional goals. This created connection and coherence so that UDL didn’t feel like just another initiative in the district (“National Center,” 2014).

Collaboration Is Key

• CPS felt that collaboration between educators is a primary and effective means of supporting UDL in the district – they believe their most important resource is their professional staff and their ability to learn from each other.
• The CPS administration listened to educator concerns and developed collaborative strategies and structures to support them: after-school time was found for them to work together; the groundwork for professional learning communities (PLCs) was laid by sending educators to PLC workshops; and the district partnered with three other local districts that had also taken UDL workshops to share ideas, successes and challenges.
• CPS infused UDL in their co-teaching model because they found that when general education teachers worked together as co-teachers with special educators, there was an enriched level of instruction and their data indicate improvement of student scores as a result.
• CPS developed a successful mentoring system that increases educator knowledge and the practice of UDL – videotapes and practice lessons were created and demonstrations and workshops were presented throughout the district.
• CPS successfully utilized a “train the trainer model” as part of the UDL implementation project. Teachers developed a professional development module to sustain innovative UDL practices (“National Center,” 2014).

Establishment of Data Collection and Evaluation Processes to Measure Progress

• CPS collected data and used it to identify causes of proficiency gaps and created a model to identify “smart” goals (which are created using UDL guidelines) and define strategies and action steps to attain those goals.
• The district evaluates student success every year by using existing data such as district benchmarks and nationally normed assessments and found that since incorporating UDL, there has been student improvement in all the participating UDL classrooms.
• Thus, establishing data collection and evaluation processes are key to measuring student progress and the resulting data motivates teachers to continue to develop UDL lessons, parents are excited by their children’s success, and all stakeholders see the value of the UDL framework (“National Center,” 2014).

For CPS, administrators and teachers were the key players in implementing UDL systems change. Administrators educated themselves on the UDL framework, aligning district initiatives with UDL and incorporating UDL into district goals — essentially making UDL the framework for decision-making throughout the district. Administrators knew that collaboration between educators would be a primary and effective means of supporting UDL in the district so they created various collaborative strategies and structures to support them which increased teacher knowledge and practice of UDL, which in turn enriched instruction and improved learning and test scores (“National Center,” 2014).

Exploring UDL Within a School or Agency 

In their book, Universally Designed Leadership, Novak and Rodriguez (2016) offer some ideas about the Explore phase of UDL implementation in schools and systems:

Collaboration…Districts cannot commit to meaningful goals by developing them in isolation – teachers, students, parents, and community members are part of the system and so, district goals need to align with a shared vision.

UDL as a decision-making tool…A school district needs to work through the Explore phase collectively with stakeholders and design a strategy for this phase so that stakeholders don’t think UDL is just another initiative or phase.

Maximizing student learning and improving schools…Districts need to understand the work ahead (the “what”), know how to do the work (the “how”), and create a culture of continuous improvement, sustained engagement, and self-reflection (the “why”).

Sandwich Public Schools

My school district has a history of poor and disjointed communication. The superintendent along with each building principal has a different approach to and frequency of communication. Rarely is parent and community feedback actively sought, although our superintendent of two years reaches out to parents and community members through “office hours” at the local library once a month and parents know they can reach out to their principal at any time. Other than that, parents and community members attend school committee meetings to speak at public forum if they have a concern or issue they wish to address or grips on two Sandwich Facebook groups and a school Facebook group. Every superintendent who has been hired in the 15 years I have had children in this district has come in and created new programs and instituted new curriculum that come and go so teachers, students, and parents are vary of the next “new thing” and students being “guinea pigs.”

Because of declining enrollment in our school district (and other districts in our region), the Sandwich Public Schools closed one of three K-8 elementary schools almost three years ago and created a Pre-K to Grade 2 school and a Grades 3-6 school with the goal of making curriculum and teaching practices more uniform as well as achieving efficiencies in use of resources (money, capital, materials, etc). At this time, the 7th and 8th grades were moved to the high school and a STEM Academy was created with STEM teachers being trained in Project Based Learning and Project Lead the Way. The district has also been focused on keeping students from leaving the district and choosing other high school options (e.g. religious, charter, private schools).

The following is on the front page of the Sandwich Public Schools website:

Sandwich Public Schools: We are a unified community of four schools – each representing its own grades/levels, designed to meet the unique needs of all learners.

Is this the district’s vision? Mission? I’m not sure because neither is articulated in the above statement. It is a very poor vision/mission focused on the “unification” or  consolidation of schools three years ago. I also would venture to say that in its creation, no feedback was solicited from stakeholders — teachers, staff, parents, students, or community members. I know my feedback was not sought out.

What appears to be a bit more promising is the district’s commitment to curriculum:

The Sandwich Public Schools is committed to providing curriculum that engages students in:

1. Deep understanding of content;
2. Effective approaches to learning that consider the child, the content, and the skills being taught; and,
3. Developing a sense of responsibility for their own learning.

Other commitments:

1. We provide instruction based on the belief that all students can learn.
2. We provide opportunities for students to show what they have learned with authentic and student-centered assessments.
3. We respect the process of learning, and value student growth (Curriculum, n.d.).

These statements sound like the UDL framework and its purpose (e.g. expert learners) but I have no way of knowing if the UDL guidelines are utilized within my school district. Just looking at what passes for a vision/mission statement tells us that even if UDL is utilized in some way, the district has not yet used it as a decision-making tool that is incorporated into their district strategic plans and aligned with their vision — which should be a shared vision created collaboratively with stakeholders (Novak and Rodriguez, 2016). I honestly believe that implementing the UDL framework in the Sandwich Public Schools would improve student learning but they will have to work through the Explore phase of UDL implementation collaboratively with stakeholders so that they don’t think UDL is just another initiative that will come and go (Novak and Rodriguez, 2016).

Data Informs Best Practice

Novak and Rodriguez (2016) offer several ideas for considering how data informs best practices that can be enriched by the UDL framework. As I am not a teacher, I am unsure of the structures that the Sandwich Public Schools have in place (organization structure, programs, curriculum plans/models, resources) that they can leverage for understanding their systems data culture.

Novak and Rodriguez (2016) state that collaborating with stakeholders to create a needs assessment is a critical step for districts in the Explore phase of UDL implementation. Uncovering information about their performance is a very personal pursuit for a district as it feels like an analysis and attack of the work of the people involved in the data collection and analysis (Novak and Rodriguez, 2016). The authors note that to begin conversations about data, a district must first gather information about their data culture. As mentioned in the text, I suspect that feedback would tell the Sandwich Public Schools that stakeholders feel that data collection and data-based decision-making will be just another initiative given the district’s history of employing programs and initiatives that have turned out to be passing fads. Some initial sources of data that the Sandwich Public Schools could consider in the Explore stage of UDL implementation would be state assessment data (e.g. Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System or MCAS) as well as benchmark assessment data that teachers collect on every student throughout the school year. After a district’s understand their data culture, the authors go on to state that protocols for data collection must be determined, data must be gathered, themes explored and identified, and then district strengths and needs can be pinpointed.

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References

Curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.sandwichk12.org/teaching-learning/curriculum

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2013). Chelmsford MA Public Schools. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/fourdistricts/chelmsford

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2014). UDL Implementation: A Tale of Four Districts. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/fourdistricts

Novack, K. & Rodriguez, K. (2016). Universally Designed Leadership: Applying UDL to Systems and Schools. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

 

Developing Clear Goals and Minimizing Barriers in the Curriculum

Define My Curriculum and Goals. Are the means embedded? Is there flexibility in how learners can reach the goal and still maintain high standards?

My Collaboration with Systems and Families course last fall was a great example of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in action. The curriculum was a syllabus which laid out 15 weeks of instruction:

The instructional delivery methods include (a) a combination of activities including, on-line discussions, critique and problem-solving, small group activities, etc.; (b) an expectation that each student will incorporate technology into their power point presentations, which can include video-clips, audio clips, or on-line links, (c) an expectation that each student will use search engines and data bases on the web to conduct web searches, and (d) guided by rubrics, students will complete class assignments and reflection questions posted on Blackboard. Each student brings a unique perspective and knowledge base to the course. Therefore, a collaborative learning model will increase students’ knowledge, skills, and competencies through knowledge sharing with fellow classmates and the instructor. There is an emphasis on experiential learning through assignments, to support students’ application of knowledge, skills, and competencies (Kester, 2017).

Please watch this Voki in which I briefly talk about the clear learning goals, methods, and materials which were utilized by my professor in last fall’s Collaboration with Systems and Families course (Since you can only record 60 seconds of audio with a Voki, it is a brief summary of the information below).

Each week, there was a video/audio of the lecture notes in which the professor outlined the learning goals for the week. Instruction (methods) and information (materials) were delivered in a variety of formats – video lectures, printed lecture notes, video conferencing with the professor and guest speakers, readings (print and online),  embedded links, videos, research, and assignments. The assignments were designed to provide a variety of different learning experiences by collaborating with a variety of individuals – parents, students, educators, administrators, and adult agency representatives. The professor used a flexible approach to assessments (Meyer & Rose, 2005), requiring students to utilize different methods of evaluation – Word documents, reflections, surveys, PowerPoint presentations, graphs, tables, resource directories, and guides – while allowing for some flexibility in format and presentation. This flexibility in instruction, materials, and assessment allowed students to achieve each week’s learning goals while maintaining high academic rigor.

Barriers Associated with Traditional Classroom Materials

Barriers with traditional classroom materials prevent some students from working toward lesson goals and others from receiving the appropriate level of challenge (Meyer et al., 2014). Curriculum methods and materials have traditionally been inflexible with fixed, constricted learning goals. Narrowly defined, they have not separated the lesson goal from the methods (and even materials) thus restricting the available pathways to learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Barriers with methods can include:

• Learning Context (e.g. location, grouping)
• Instruction Format (e.g. lecture, reading)
• Presentation Format (e.g oral, written, visual) (Barriers to Learning, n.d.)

UDL curriculum provides a teacher with the flexibility to offer students a variety of instructional methods and materials which can remove barriers that could prevent students from not only expressing their knowledge and skills but also learning how to learn and becoming expert learners.

Figure 1. Examples of methods and materials. (Barriers to Learning – Materials. (n.d.).

Many of the methods and materials used in lessons can present barriers to learning for some students. In designing goals and curriculum, teachers need to reflect on methods and materials to think about what types of skills are required in order for students to make meaning from them and learn (Barriers to Learning – Materials, n.d.). The list above is not exhaustive and teachers need to consider how methods and materials could be barriers to learning for students. There are many more options and pathways that can be added to this list.

How Can Flexible Technology Remove Barriers Associated with Traditional Classroom Materials?

Unlike the traditional view of curriculum, UDL curriculum facilitates further differentiation of methods and materials based on learner variability with respect to the lesson, the learner’s social/emotional resources (e.g. affect), and learning environment (e.g. classroom, home, community etc). While materials are typically seen as the media used to present content and what the learner uses to demonstrate knowledge, the UDL framework is unique in that it provides much more flexibility and variability than what has traditionally been used in education.

Materials based on the UDL principles focus on the three learning networks of the brain. For conveying conceptual knowledge (recognition network), UDL materials offer multiple media and supports such as hyperlinks, images, videos, and more; for strategic learning and expression of knowledge (strategic network), UDL materials offer tool and supports needed to access, analyze, organize, synthesize, and demonstrate understanding in a variety of ways; and for engagement (affective network), UDL materials offer alternative pathways to success including choice of content, various levels of support and challenge, and options for creating and sustaining interest and motivation (National Center for Universal Design for Learning, 2014).

Given that UDL and technology tend to be mentioned in the same breath, it’s important to remember that methods and materials should involve both hi tech and low tech options. As technology evolves at a rapid pace, more flexibility, supports, and scaffolding are being built into learning tools and media to address the diversity of learners in today’s classrooms and allow students to mindfully pursue lesson goals on their path to becoming expert learners (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

What Has Changed to Make Curriculum More Student Centered?

Traditional education held the belief that curriculum was and must be at the center of the learning experience (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014). This belief was based largely on the fact that the predominant instructional media in the field of education — printed textbooks and worksheets — were fixed and inflexible (Meyer et al., 2014).

The traditional definition of curriculum is very narrow, identifying it as a sequence of content elements indicated by a particular set of instructional materials (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

Even more concerning was the fact that this belief led to unnecessary labeling or grouping of students who couldn’t learn from the given curriculum into categories such as disabled, challenged, underachieving, and failing (Meyer et al., 2014). In short, the curriculum defined the learner. Meyer and her colleagues noted that with no alternatives to print or out-of-the-box creative approaches to designing curriculum and supporting materials, students had to learn to adapt to its limits. Thus, the burden to adjust to the materials and methods encountered in the classroom naturally was on the students (Meyer et al., 2014). The classroom became textbook-centered rather than student-centered because the assumption in tradition education was that the student appeared to be more adaptable and flexible rather than printed textbooks (Meyer et al., 2014).

Given that printed texts, the primary instructional media  in traditional education, are fixed and inflexible, it is not students who are disabled but the curriculum. It is disabled in:

• Who they can teach
• What they can teach
• How they can teach (CAST, 2011).

So what has changed to make curriculum and materials more student-centered? Making curriculum more student-centered means making it more accessible to all learners. Universal Design for Learning and its definition of curriculum is the framework that makes curriculum more accessible to the diversity of learners teachers see in today’s classrooms.

UDL is a process by which curriculum — goals, methods, materials, and assessments — is intentionally and systematically designed from the beginning to address individuals differences (Meyer et al., 2014).

Curriculum designed using the UDL framework doesn’t simply help students master a specific body of knowledge or set of skills…it helps them master learning itself (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2014). The National Center on UDL (2014) states that UDL principles allow teachers to remove potential barriers that could prevent student from becoming expert learners. With the student at the center, the curriculum and learning environment is now defined by how well it supports and accommodates the diversity and variability of learners (Meyer et al., 2014). Students of all abilities are provided with challenges and are supported in developing expertise and enthusiasm for learning (Meyer et al., 2014).

Why Clear Goals Should Drive Methods and Not Tools

Often described as learning expectations, goals traditionally represent the knowledge and skills that all learners should master and generally aligned to standards (Meyer et al., 2014). Meyer et al. (2014) notes that goals are not the same as curriculum standards. While standards articulate what a community values and believes teachers must teach and assess, well-designed standards leave room for teachers to shape goals and individualize the means (methods) for attaining them (Rose & Meyer, 2002; Meyer et al., 2014). Clear learning goals are the foundation of any effective curriculum and allow teachers to determine the best methods and materials for reaching those goals and enable them to establish appropriate assessments (Meyer et al., 2014). The UDL framework provides teachers with the flexibility to do this. Ralabate (2006) notes that research has shown that students can gain approximately 20 to 40 percentage points on assessments when teachers design and communicate clear learning goals.

(This Prezi provides a very basic overview of the differences between traditional educational goals and UDL goals.)

Meyer et al. (2014) maintain that to create clear goals from standards, teachers must first determine the purpose of a standard by separating the goal from the methods for attaining it and then re-state the goal in a way that is attainable for all students. They note that teachers need to think very carefully about the intention of the standard and how flexibility can be designed around it. Knowing the real purpose of a goal helps teachers determine where they can offer flexible options and where they can provide scaffolds without removing the challenge for students (Meyer et al., 2014). To engage students and address learner variability, the UDL framework allows teachers to express learning goals in a broad and flexible way and offer a variety of paths for achieving the goals (Rose & Meyer, 2002). Rose and Meyer (2002) maintain that if you know the goal of your lesson, then you can construct the lesson – the methods, materials, and assessments – to meet the needs of your students and address learner variability.

Click the link to view CAST’s webinar on Practical Tools for UDL Lesson Design.

When goals are too closely linked to methods, some students are unintentionally excluded from working towards these goals while other learners are not offered an appropriate level of challenge (Meyer et al., 2014). Goals that are too highly specific limit the possible strategies for reaching them. Rose and Meyer (2002) mention that some curriculum standards (and consequently, goals) outline too narrowly and specifically what and how students should learn and what means (e.g. tools) they are to use to attain them. This specificity limits teachers’ access to methods and materials for teaching and assessment, and creates barriers for students, lending itself to one-size-fits-all approaches, “teaching to the test,” and an increased need to cover huge amounts of material instead of having the time to go deeper into the material (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

In my Collaboration with Systems and Families class, the goals are separate from the methods. The goals are simply the topics to cover each week — no methods or materials are included. This way, they are broad and flexible, allowing for a variety of instructional methods (see the first section of the blog) and materials as well as a variety of assessment tools to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge.

Thus, by utilizing the UDL framework, goals are separated from the methods to achieve them so that teachers can effectively plan the remaining aspects of the learning environment. A learning environment based on UDL principles allows students to use their skills to give a teacher their best work (Nelson, L.L., 2014). When teachers clarify what they want to accomplish and when, then they can begin to consider what assessments, methods, and materials will be most effective.

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References

Antonio, Brandy. [Brandy Antonio]. (2013, December 17). UDL: Reducing barriers to learning. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WDisGLZXtY

Barriers to Learning – Materials. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://udlpd.weebly.com/barriers-to-learning–materials.html

CAST. (2011). Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines: version 2.0. Wakefield, MA: Author.

Kester, J. (2017). SPED 6255: Collaboration with Systems and Families Fall 2017 Syllabus. Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-8128464-dt-content-rid-20447326_2/courses/88239_201703/SPED%206255%20Syllabus%20Fall%202017%281%29.pdf

Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordon, D. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2014). UDL and the curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlcurriculum

Nelson, L. L. (2014). Design and Deliver: Planning and Teaching Using Universal Design for Learning. Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-8376861-dt-content-rid-21905281_2/courses/37243_201801/nelson-universal-design-for-learning.pdf

Ralabate, P. K. (2016). Your UDL Lesson Planner: The Step-by-Step Guide for Teaching All Learners. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company.

Rose, D. H. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

What is an Expert Learner?

Normality and the Mythical Average Learner

In The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (Hernnstien & Murray, 1994) and Real Education (Murray, 2009) , Charles Murray argues that human behavior — including IQ — distributes along a bell-shaped normal curve and that intelligence is fixed.

©www.greyenlightenment.com

Dudley- Marling and Gurn (2010) state that the theory of the normal curve, when applied to education, affects school placement, grading, college admission, educational policy and research, and teachers’ approach to instruction and learning. The authors argue that, “not only is the normal curve is not normal, the idea that human behavior distributes along a bell-shaped curve with most people clustered around the mean or average grossly oversimplifies the diversity of human experiences” (p. 3).  In addition, they note that the human experience is infinitely complex and that equating students with scores on a distribution, averages, or statistical norms ignores the complex systems of which students are a part (Dudley- Marling & Gurn, 2010) — a variety of educational staff, other students, and a myriad of learning environments.

The concept of normality, in which human diversity is characterized by a bell-shaped curve and populations are viewed around the idea of a statistical norm, is one of the most powerful ideological tools of modern society…there is probably no area of contemporary life in which some idea of a norm, mean, or average has not been calculated (Dudley- Marling & Gurn, 2010).

Learner Variability and the Expert Learner

The philosophy of normality and fixed intelligence only lends itself to the idea of the “mythical average learner” and ignores human diversity and learner variability. The UDL framework allows educators and school systems to focus on learner variability and creating expert learners.

But what is an expert learner? First, let’s look at the concept of expertise. Expertise is never static but rather a process of continuous learning…of becoming more motivated, knowledgeable, and skillful (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014). Given the variability of learners and learning contexts, expertise looks different from person to person. Meyer et al. (2014) note that while the mastering of specific content and skills is still important, there should be an emphasis on process rather than product. Furthermore, they posit that learning expertise cannot be measured simply by evaluating competencies and outcomes at a single point in time because learning is a process of continuous change and growth.

We define expertise not as a destination — signifying the mastery of content knowledge and skills — but rather as a process of becoming “more expert” on a continuum of development…(Meyer et al., 2014).

Everyone can become an expert learner because everyone can develop the motivation, practice, reflection, self-efficacy, self-regulation, self-determination, executive functioning, comprehension, and situational awareness that help make experts what they are (Meyer et al., 2014). The authors argue that what makes expert learners experts is not content knowledge, but their ability to recognize where they are challenged, their motivation to overcome difficulties, and their skill at seeking out and using strategies to reduce or overcome barriers. Meyer and his colleagues offer learners several excellent questions to reflect on:

What are my strengths and weaknesses? What is the optimal setting for me to learn? Which tools amplify my abilities and support my areas of weakness? How do I best navigate my environment? How do I best learn from peers? How can I support myself when I feel anxious about an upcoming challenge? How can I be open to unlearning mistaken or outdated understandings and build new ones? How can I learn from my mistakes?

Thus, the key to expert learning is self-knowledge as a learner — an awareness of one’s strengths, challenges, and needs — and it is this self-reflection, an essential practice of expert learners, that personifies the growth mindset (Meyer et al., 2014).

Meyer, Rose, and Gordon (2014) note that expert learners are not created in a vacuum. While teaching is an inherent part of who we are and central to everything we do, they argue that expert learners require expert teachers who need to be expert learners themselves. The authors suggest that teachers need to cultivate their own development as teachers, embrace change, and continuously appraise their own work and their students’ progress and adapt on the fly. Furthermore, the authors state that the development of students and teachers as expert learners requires us to design educational systems to be expert systems – communities of practice – where expertise is valued, nurtured, and developed for educators and students both. Learning environments need to be smart and flexible enough to support expert learning which, in turn, requires that all parts of the system – students, educational staff, and school systems – work together as a flexible, supportive community and support the goal of learning expertise for all (Meyer et al. 2014).

Thus, Meyer and his colleagues (2014) champion UDL because it provides a framework to develop expert learners, expert teachers, and expert systems and assists educators in creating expert learners…learners that have become purposeful and motivated, knowledgeable and resourceful, strategic and goal-directed.

Learner Variability, Barriers, and Expert Learners in an Instructional Setting

When reflecting on these topics, my daughter and a particular instructional setting came to mind. A college sophomore, Shannon was taking Introduction to Sociology last semester. She shared with me that her professor was a young sociologist, an adjunct professor with little teaching experience. Shannon was one of 50 students. This class was a liberal arts requirement, the type of course which lends itself to larger numbers of students and faculty with less experience. Early on in the semester, my daughter bemoaned the fact that the professor mostly lectured from a PowerPoint presentation and pretty much read off the slides. Even though part of the grading rubric included points for participation, this professor did not stimulate conversation often. Tests were the only evaluative tool. My daughter was bored, not engaged, and unmotivated.

Let’s first reflect on the learner variability present in this classroom. There are 50 learners, each with different learning styles, competencies, strengths, talents, and needs. Variability goes far beyond that to include gender, culture, language, disability, economic background, previous schooling (e.g. public, private, parochial, charter school), past curriculum (e.g. IB, AP, honors, college preparatory, remedial classes, special education instruction), and study and organizational habits. And let’s not forget about past learning experiences – positive and negative experiences along with great and not so great teachers – that influence motivation, anxiety, stress, and other emotional responses connected to the affective networks of the brain. Learning is emotional work whether for students or for teachers (TU Office of Academic Innovation, 2016).

Meyer, Rose, and Gordon (2014) share that each person’s brain is unique just as their fingerprints are. Modern neuroscience is deeply relevant to education and provides insight into the nature and origins of learner variability (Meyer et al., 2014). The authors note that although learners are unique, they share common, predictable patterns of variability in the affective, recognition, and strategic networks of the brain.

©National Center on Universal Design for Learning

These 50 different learners bring to this class a variety of ways in which they:

• are engaged, stay motivated, challenged, excited, or interested (Affective Networks);
• gather facts; categorize what they see, hear, and read; or identify letters, words, or an author’s style (Recognition Networks)
• plan and perform tasks, and organize and express their ideas (Strategic Networks)

Each one of these 50 students is unique and learn in ways that are particular to them (Meyer et at., 2014). The suggestion of broad categories of learners is a flagrant oversimplification that does not reflect reality (Meyer et al., 2014). Looking at one’s class roster as simply 50 students is a distorted view when considering teaching style and delivery of instruction. Learner variability is much more complex and calls for the use of UDL principles when designing instruction. Ways to improve the instructional setting for these students include:

• Engagement – Play classical music at the start of and/or throughout class; provide feedback during discussions, other class work, and outside of class; teach simple techniques to help manage emotions; hold class outdoors; offer small group work (collaborative learning); invite guest lecturers, and plan field trips.
• Representation – Utilize presentations and lecture notes with visuals, music, embedded links and digital media; videos; websites; online and printed versions of textbooks; podcasts; and connect content to art, literature, film, music, science, history etc.
• Action and Expression – Provide options such as reflection papers, tests, blogging, video blogging, presentations, videos, online and in class discussion, and other assignments designed to be collaborative and allow students to show the application of their learning.

This learning environment is a far cry from a dry PowerPoint lecture and exams. It is more dynamic and engaging, and will help to remove barriers associated with the three networks of the brain and address:

• affect (emotional regulation) → Affective;
• the recognition strengths, needs, and preferences of learners → Recognition; and,
• the variability in and promotion of the acquisition of executive functions which are important higher level skills including planning, organizing, progress monitoring, constructing alternative strategies, and seeking help → Strategic (Meyer et at., 2014).

Thus, the goal is to design a flexible learning environment to address the variability of learners in this instructional situation and become expert learners — learners who  know how to learn and how they learn, and can apply those skills to other contexts including other courses, learning environments, and experiences after they leave Introduction to Sociology (Digital Promise, 2017).

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References

Digital Promise. (2017, March 8). Research@work: Embracing learner variability in schools. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxLz_fSvBqU

Dudley-Marling, C. & Gurn, A. (2010). The myth of the normal curve. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

Hernnstien. R. J. & Murray, C. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American Life. New York, NY: Free Press.

Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordon, D. (2014). Universal design for learning: Theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

Murray, C. (2009). Real Education. New York, NY: Crown Publishing.

TU Office of Academic Innovation. (2016, May 14). Universal design for learning: Variability in emotion and learning. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDaP-THd-9c&feature=youtu.be

Setting the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Context

UDL in my Environment

I am not an educator and have never been in a classroom. I currently work two days a week as a companion to a gentleman with disabilities, bringing him to work and keeping an eye on him while he goes about his duties at a local fire station.

Copyright http://www.themunicipal.com

One day is spent washing fire trucks and other vehicles; the other day is spent cleaning the interior of the fire house. He needs very little, if any, oversight while performing his job tasks. In addition to work, we explore the community together and I accompany him to speech therapy, therapeutic horseback riding, boxing lessons, and adaptive sailing lessons. Thus, my current job does not lend itself to applying UDL principles. However, when I think about Universal Design (UD) with respect to the fire house where we work, there is a handicap parking spot directly in front of the entrance and no curb so that visitors can easily walk onto the sidewalk. There is an additional ramp to the front door. Unfortunately, the front door is heavy, swings outward, and is not automatic. Offices and restrooms have appropriate signage but lack Braille and pictures. In addition, while handicap accessible, the restroom doors are heavy and there are no automatic faucets or paper towel dispensers. The firehouse is an older building in need of renovation.

UD and UDL are two different concepts but have complimentary pieces (Smith, 2017). UD removes physical barriers in the environment to help architects meet accessibility requirements under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and guides the development of products, services, and environments to ensure access to people with disabilities but which are also useful to all people (Ralabate, 2016). UDL is a framework for designing learning experiences to ensure everyone is both a successful and expert learner (Smith, 2017). Both offer physical accessibility in educational environments but UDL goes beyond accessibility by activating thinking, scaffolding deep understanding, and engaging learners (Ralabate, 2016).

Persistent Problems in the Practice of Education

Several persistent problems exist which prevent the adoption of UDL, technology, and ultimately, educational reform at a faster pace. Today, teachers are challenged to meet all students’ educational needs but not all students are succeeding. Ralabate (2016) states that many lessons are built on incorrect or old concepts about how students learn and are constrained by stagnant formats. Ralabate (2016) notes that good teaching is more process than product but in today’s high stakes world of education, there is strong emphasis on meeting local and state standards and I feel that often times, teachers are focused on “teaching to the test.” Furthermore, many traditional approaches to educational reform are rooted in misconceptions — different “kinds” of learners have been labeled as belonging to distinct groups; individualization of instruction has been offered according to those groups; and individual learners have been treated as separate from their contexts and environments (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014).

The goal of education today goes beyond mastery of knowledge and skills to the mastery of learning itself — becoming expert learners (Ralabate, 2016). UDL is the framework to make that happen and address persistent problems in the education today.  As classrooms become more diverse and inclusive, technology offers more flexibility than ever before, and teachers need to ensure that all learners meet state standards, UDL guides the development of barrier-free, instructionally rich learning environments and lessons that address learner variability and offer options for how students can engage in learning, receive information and instruction, and demonstrate their knowledge and skills (Ralabate, 2016). Education needs the transformative innovation that UDL can provide — emphasizing flexibility and individuality to revolutionize the way teaching and learning occurs (Meyer et al., 2014). We need to shift our mindset and move away from a traditional model of education that focuses on the mythical “average learner” to embrace a dynamic model that celebrates human diversity and learner variability (Meyer et al., 2014).

The UDL Lesson Planning Process in my Environment

As I mentioned above, my current job as a companion for a gentleman with disabilities does not lend itself to applying UDL principles. However, two other endeavors allow me to reflect on whether the UDL framework and principles have been and can be applied in those situations.

For several years now, I have been the Chair of the Sandwich Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC), a parent-run volunteer organization that advocates for students with disabilities in the Sandwich school district. As an educational advocate who was trained by the Federation for Children with Special Needs (FCSN) in Boston, I give presentations on the Federation’s behalf to SEPACs and other local groups.

For the SEPAC, I have created my own PowerPoint presentations and printed handouts for attendees. The FCSN does the same. I stand at the front of the room presenting material from the PowerPoint slides as workshop attendees follow along with their handouts. In both presentations, questions can be asked during and/or after the presentation. UDL is a framework that gives all individuals equal opportunities to learn…not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2014, para. 1). My SEPAC presentations and those of the FCSN clearly are one-size-fits-all, regardless of the variability in workshop attendees and do not utilize the three principles of UDL — multiple means of engagement of the learner, representation of information, and action and expression (Ralabate, 2016). Meyer, Rose, and Gordon (2014) noted that the “traditional approach to learning was dictated by the predominant learning medium of the time – printed text” (p. 3). Built on old concepts about how people learn and constrained by stagnant formats (Ralabate, 2016), the presentations rely heavily on printed media — handouts and information filled PowerPoint slides. I have given many workshops for the FCSN and have watched people walk out because the presentations are too long and boring, and not interactive and engaging.

Ralabate (2016) notes the importance of learners knowing lesson goals and expected outcomes. The FCSN outlines the presentation goals on one of the first slides in the PowerPoint and I do the same with my presentations. However, defining clear goals is the only step of the UDL lesson planning process involved in preparing the SEPAC and FCSN presentations. While determining appropriate assessments is not exactly applicable to the audience of these presentations (e.g. parents, community members, administrators, and teachers), the remaining steps of the UDL lesson planning process are not utilized: consideration of learner variability; selecting methods, materials, and media; and refining educator learning through self-reflection. The FCSN asks attendees to fill out an evaluation about the presentation and the workshop presenter. Since they realize the tediousness of the presentation and that I am at the mercy of how the FCSN has created these presentations, attendees quickly check off top marks for me as a presenter and blithely state that the presentation was very good. This in no way provides accurate feedback to me to allow me to improve my presentation skills or to the FCSN to allow them to improve the presentations.

Other ways in which my planning process and that of the FCSN differ from the UDL lesson planning process include the following:

A core tenet of UDL is that what is “essential for some” is almost always “good for all” (Ralabate, 2016). Both the SEPAC and the FCSN presentations need to be redesigned using the three principles of UDL and incorporating a variety of digital technology, thus making learning an interactive process and addressing the diversity of workshop attendees.

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References

Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordon, D. (2014). Universal design for learning: Theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2014, July 31). What is UDL? Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

Ralabate, P. K. (2016). Your UDL Lesson Planner: The Step-by-Step Guide for Teaching All Learners. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company.

Smith, F. (2017). Setting the UDL Context: SPED6210 . Retrieved from https://blackboard.gwu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_297066_1&content_id=_8377044_1

My Experience as a Learner

When I look back on my learning throughout the years, I have two experiences that stick out in my mind: Catholic school and graduate school.

My elementary and high school years were spent in Catholic school. The “what” of my learning was new material but the “how” of my learning did not make the information interesting and informative. The goal was not to learn material for future use but rather to be successful on tests and quizzes and then move on to new material and repeat the cycle. My learning was delivered in ways that were not engaging and didn’t encourage active learning. Instruction consisted of lecture, printed textbooks, blackboard work, seat work (e.g. work from textbooks), studying (e.g. memorization), and tests and quizzes. I do not recollect any group projects or collaborative work except for lab work in my high school chemistry class. My early education immediately made me reflect upon the early beginnings of CAST, the Center for Applied and Special Technology, depicted in Chapter 1 of our text Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice by Anne Meyer, David H. Rose, and David Gordon (2014) who noted that the “traditional approach to learning was dictated by the predominant learning medium of the time – printed text” (p. 3). As far as the “depth” of my learning was concerned, the standardized, uniform delivery of instruction did not challenge me to seek more information and knowledge, didn’t encourage reflection or questions, nor did it help me to develop critical thinking skills to dig deeper into the material presented. In elementary school, I remembered finishing my work before most of my fellow students and being bored. To ease the boredom, I practiced writing with my left hand (I’m right-handed) while waiting for others to finish their work. In short, multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement were clearly not utilized throughout my elementary and high school education (Meyer & Rose, 2005).

In graduate school, my Collaboration with Systems and Families course last fall was a great example of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in action. This class was all new material for me yet always very informative and interesting. In addition, the professor provided an amazing array of resources for future use in other courses and professional endeavors. The material made me want to seek out more information through online research or journal articles that were referenced by the authors of my reading assignments.

Instruction and information was delivered in a variety of formats – video lectures, printed lecture notes, video conferencing with the professor and guest speakers, readings (print and online), research, and assignments. The assignments were designed to provide a variety of different learning experiences by collaborating with a variety of individuals – parents, students, educators, administrators, and adult agency representatives. The professor used a flexible approach to assessments (Meyer & Rose, 2005), requiring students to utilize different methods of evaluation – Word documents, reflections, surveys, PowerPoint presentations, graphs, tables, resource directories, and guides – while allowing for some flexibility in format and presentation. The collaboration and presentation methods engaged me in the learning process. Active learning was encouraged because I had to apply the new material and information in the formulation of the assignments and then reflect upon my learning and how it would impact my future practices.

It is clear that the professor utilized the core principles of the UDL framework to provide:

• Multiple means of engagement;

• Multiple means of representation; and,

• Multiple means of action and expression (Meyer et al., 2014, p. 4).

She utilized a variety of options for presenting information, student expression, and student engagement through software including Blackboard, WebEx, and Skype; digital content including Pdfs, YouTube videos, and recorded and live video/audio of lecture notes; and Internet resources including websites, articles, webinars, and resources embedded in lecture notes (Meyer & Rose, 2005). As Meyer et al. (2014) noted, “We have seen classrooms become exciting, collaborative hotbeds of learning for all students” (p. 3). That accurately describes my experience in the Collaboration with Systems and Families course.

Today, the objective of education has shifted from the acquisition of knowledge to learner expertise (Meyer et al., 2014). This clearly can be seen when reflecting on my personal learning experiences from elementary/high school and graduate school.

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References

Meyer, A. & Rose, D. H. (2005). The future is in the margins: The role of technology and disability in educational reform. In D. H. Rose, A. Meyer, & C. Hitchcock (Eds.), The universally designed classroom: Accessible curriculum and digital technologies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordon, D. (2014). Universal design for learning: Theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.

 

What is Universal Design for Learning?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for curriculum development that gives all students equal opportunities to learn and for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone…not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2014, para. 1). I am not an educator and work with adults with disabilities so I have not had the opportunity to learn about or implement the UDL framework. Thus, I am excited to be taking this graduate school class to learn about UDL. Please share with me your experiences in using UDL in the comments below.

Wordle from Howard-Winn Tech Blog

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Reference

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2014, July 31). What is UDL? Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl