How does Universal Design for Learning Help Teachers in Real Classrooms?
From pre-kindergarten to graduate school, classrooms usually include learners with diverse abilities and backgrounds, including students with physical, sensory, and learning disabilities, differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds, varied preferences and motivations for learning, students who are unusually gifted, and many others.
Universal Design for Learning supports teachers' efforts to meet the challenge of diversity by providing flexible instructional materials, techniques, and strategies that help teachers differentiate instruction to meet these varied needs. It does this by providing options for:
- Differentiating the ways that students can express what they know (the "how" of learning);
- Stimulating interest and motivation for learning (the "why" of learning)
A universally designed curriculum is designed from the outset to meet the needs of the greatest number of users, making costly, time-consuming, and after-the-fact changes to curriculum unnecessary.
How does Universal Design for Learning Help Maintain High Standards and Goals for Every Learner?
Universal Design for Learning supports the idea that all students in all grades should have the opportunity to become proficient learners of standards-based academic content. Standards and goals, like classroom materials, require careful design so that they do not limit the kinds of learning that can result, or limit the kinds of students who can achieve success. Well-designed standards and goals maintain high expectations but expand the ways in which those objectives can be reached (e.g. using different tools, different media, or different approaches). Providing multiple ways to attain high standards, rather than lowering them, is consistent with both standards-based reform and UDL.
How does Universal Design for Learning apply to assessments?
Test results often say as much about the medium of the test — usually paper and pencil — and its limitations as they do about what students really know. On the contrary, applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning (that is, variety in the what, how, and why of learning) enables us to create assessments that measure knowledge and skills in meaningful, more accurate ways.
For example, in assessing a student's ability to write a coherent narrative (i.e., create one in text), we might provide the same kinds of options that business people use everyday to write, such as voice recognition and word processing, while also leveraging other media, such as images and sound, to scaffold motivation and enhance the narrative. By providing many ways for an individual to approach the "writing" task — options that, in the digital age, are commonplace"we achieve a more honest assessment of student progress.
Assessments in our digital age should be dynamic and universally designed. When we provide a full range of customizations and adaptations as a part of assessments, we are able to more accurately evaluate both student performance and the processes that underlie that performance.
Can states and/or school districts design their own universally designed materials?
Yes. The source of UDL materials is not important - they may come from publishers, state departments of education, educational technology producers, school districts or even individual teachers. The design of UDL materials is what is important. The key to successful UDL materials is that, whoever produces them, they should:
- Address appropriate state and district standards, and
- Follow appropriate guidelines for the design and development of UDL materials.
If my district, school, or teacher does not have universally designed curricula, can the objectives be altered to make them more accessible?
No. Not in isolation. One of the key tenets of UDL is the critical importance of maintaining consistently high standards and objectives for every student. The danger of altering objectives, especially on an individual basis, is that some students, especially those with disabilities, will consistently face the tyranny of lowered expectations. Instead, it is important to revisit goals and objectives as part of an overall reform of the curriculum. Objectives, like materials, require careful universal design so that they do not limit the kinds of learning that can result, or limit the kinds of students who can achieve success. Well designed objectives maintain high expectations but expand the ways in which those objectives can be reached (e.g. using different tools, different media, or different approaches). Providing multiple ways to reach goals, rather than lowering them, is consistent with both standards-based reform and UDL.
Does Universal Design for Learning replace curriculum modification?
Modifying existing general curriculum has long been the primary way to create more accessible learning environments to support all students and their teachers in various educational contexts.
However, curriculum modification can be problematic. For one thing, modifying the general education curriculum is a challenging and time-consuming process, especially when the task is left to individual teachers. Few teachers have the time, resources, or training to modify curricula effectively. In addition, many modifications may not provide adequate instruction to the neediest students"which may violate such students' right to equal opportunities to learn from a high-quality curriculum.
Replacing barriers in the curriculum with flexible learning options for teachers and students through Universal Design for Learning may be a more effective way to ensure that all students, including those with disabilities, make the kind of academic progress envisioned by NCLB and IDEA.
Are classroom materials based on Universal Design for Learning already available in the marketplace?
There are some but not many. However, many organizations and companies are referencing Universal Design for Learning as a needed model for the development of more effective learning materials, including Kurzweil, Scholastic, Pearson Education, and others.
One especially promising program is Scholastic/Tom Snyder's Thinking Reader® editions of leading middle-school novels. These digital books "titles such as "The Giver," "Tuck Everlasting," "Bridge to Tarabithia" — provide built-in supports based on reciprocal teaching, which two decades of research has shown to be an effective approach to reading comprehension instruction.
The Thinking Reader® editions include supports for physical access, such as text-to-speech and synchronized highlighting features. They also include supports for intellectual/cognitive access: reading-strategy prompts, model answers, background knowledge, and vocabulary support. All of these can be accessed and responded to in multiple ways, depending on what students need.
Progress monitoring tools also help teachers identify who is learning — and who needs more individual attention. These are powerful supports for teachers and students that technology makes possible in a busy classroom setting.
Does it cost more to adopt Universal Design for Learning?
To answer that question, it is essential to ask "more than what?" There are certainly new costs associated with implementing UDL. But those costs can only be estimated when compared to the costs of NOT implementing Universal Design for Learning.
Consider the building of a new school. Hiring a qualified architect to plan the building is an additional cost. But that cost must be compared with the costs "financial, aesthetic, functional" of NOT hiring an architect. In constructing buildings, as in most other cases, the initial costs of getting the job done right are usually less expensive than the alternative.
Likewise when "building" curriculum, we need to consider the costs of implementing and NOT implementing Universal Design for Learning.
Classroom Scenarios
Educators who are knowledgeable about Universal Design for learning (UDL) are becoming skilled in reshaping curricula to make it accessible to all students. Making use of powerful computer technologies, they are creating classroom activities that meet a wider range of learning needs so that all students can access curricular content and demonstrate their progress.
Goals: An initial step in applying UDL is to identify and remove barriers in the curriculum. Standards may spell out what students need to learn, but on closer examination, one can often see that measuring "what" is learned can be impeded by unclear goals, which define "how" that goal is to be achieved, thereby excluding certain numbers of learners. Thus it is essential when defining the goal to separate the means for reaching it from the goal itself.
In his high school history class, Mr. Jenkins is asked to implement the following standard: "By the end of this unit, every student will read chapter two in the textbook and will write an essay on the origins of the Civil War." Yet he knows that students who struggle to read and write will be at a disadvantage from the outset in demonstrating their knowledge. Those whose disabilities make decoding text difficult or make it hard to organize an essay may not even be able to participate.
The UDL framework provides Mr. Jenkins with a means to rethink the unit goal, analyze its true intent, and adjust how the goal is articulated to refocus attention on the content rather than on the methods used to express that knowledge. Is reading a printed text the only way to acquire the information? Is it important that students demonstrate what they know in a particular medium"writing an essay"or are there other ways to communicate their understanding?
Establishing a clear goal helps Mr. Jenkins determine how to develop flexible learning environments that open the door for more students' participation and success. For example, a UDL goal for the Civil War unit may be restated to say that "By the end of the Civil War unit, all students will demonstrate an understanding of the origins of the Civil War."
Methods and Materials: José, a 5th-grade Spanish-English bilingual student who reads at the third-grade level, is reading the Thinking Reader digital version of "Snake and Eagle," a Native American legend that is part of his school's grade-level required curriculum. This universally designed, technology-based approach to reading instruction, combines research-based strategy supports, text-to-speech decoding support, and glossary definitions to provide rich reading comprehension supports for different levels of mastery.
Reading in English is still a challenge for José, so when he encounters an unfamiliar word, he has the text-to-speech feature read the word aloud to him, then clicks on the word to get a definition and an accompanying image. He accesses the computer-agent coach, who can speak in Spanish or English, to get a vocabulary strategy tip that points him to a synonym that he may be more familiar with. Periodically, the text prompts him to stop and think about the story and to use one of the strategies he is learning, such as predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing. Summary writing is difficult for José, so he clicks on his computer-agent coach to get some help. He types his summary in the response box and sends it to an online work log that stores his work for his teacher to review. The following week, José and his teacher decide he is ready to move to a less structured level of support"one that will help him move toward more independent use of strategies while he is reading.
Dan is a seven-year-old boy with Down Syndrome. He has very basic reading skills. He knows his alphabet and can decode simple words. But most of his reading instruction has been of the drill-and-practice type and he has never read a story book. Ms. Lindhall, his teacher who has a degree in general education, decides to have Dan try a universally designed Digital Picture Book.
Today, Dan will read Hide and Seek (Brown & Carey) on the computer. Before reading, Dan and Ms. Lindhall watch a video of children playing hide-and-seek "the video is embedded in the Digital Picture Book" so Dan will have a better idea what the game involves. Dan has never played hide and seek. After watching, Dan and Ms. Lindhall talk about what they've seen.
Now Dan is ready to read. Ms. Lindhall sets the UDL-based Picture Book to provide greatest amount of support possible. As he reads, he is prompted to make predictions about what might happen next, or to reflect on what he's read and answer a question about it. Ms. Lindhall sees how this level of support scaffolds Dan's ability to successfully create his prediction. She begins to think about how she can apply this same strategy to some of the other curriculum in her classroom. Dan will begin using. When Dan needs extra help with unfamiliar words, he knows that if he clicks on a word, the computer will read it aloud. Dan becomes increasingly excited as he realizes that the words and sentences and pages he's reading are telling a story, and his anticipation of "what comes next" grows. Dan is reading and understanding what he reads. As his teacher monitors his progress with the aid of built-in tools that capture data about Dan's reading, she gradually decreases the levels of support he receives. Eventually, supports will be withdrawn so that Dan can read the book independently, as many of his peers do.
Assessments: In Ms. Garcia's 6th-grade classroom, students are asked to become experts on ancient Mesopotamia and share their knowledge with the class. They are given a variety of choices in how to accomplish this. They take this responsibility very seriously and committed to research and present information to the best of their ability. Suddenly ancient Mesopotamia, a potentially dull and unconnected subject for middle-schoolers, elicits immense enthusiasm.
Students work in groups and individually write newspaper articles, write, direct and film television news programs, perform puppet shows and plays, create posters or write research papers, then presented their work to the class. Providing choices in expression gives students more opportunity and incentive to develop expert products, thereby becoming more active as learners.
Legislation Relating to Universal Design and Assistive Technology
How does Universal Design for Learning help guarantee students equal opportunities to learn?
Both IDEA and NCLB recognize the right of all learners to a high-quality standards-based education. The laws preclude the development of separate educational agendas for students with disabilities and others with special needs. They also hold teachers, schools, districts, and states responsible for ensuring that these students demonstrate progress according to the same standards.
Neither law adequately addresses the greatest impediment to their implementation: the curriculum itself. In most classrooms, the curriculum is disabled. It is disabled because its main components"the goals, materials, methods, and assessments"are too rigid and inflexible to meet the needs of diverse learners, especially those with disabilities. Most of the present ways to remediate the curriculum's disabilities"teacher-made workarounds and modifications, alternative placements etc."are expensive, inefficient, and often ineffective for learning.
By addressing the diversity of learners at the point of curriculum development (rather than as an afterthought or retrofit), Universal Design for Learning is a framework that enables educators to develop curricula that truly "leave no child behind" by maintaining high expectations for all students while effectively meeting diverse learning needs and monitoring student progress.
How does UDL Address the Core Principles of No Child Left Behind?
Universal Design for Learning supports:
- Greater accountability by guiding the development of assessments that provide accurate, timely, and frequent means to measure progress and inform instruction for all students;
- Greater flexibility and choice for teachers, parents, and students by guiding the development of curricula that provide high expectations for every student and meaningful choices to meet and sustain those high expectations.
- Greater use of evidence-based practices by guiding the design of high-quality curriculum that include research-based techniques for all students, including those with disabilities.
I've seen the term universal design in federal legislation, such as IDEA, but not the term Universal Design for Learning. What's the difference?
The term "universal design" refers to the movement in architecture and product development that aims to create places or things that are accessible to as many people as possible, including those with disabilities. Speakerphones, curb cuts, and close-captioned television are all examples of universal designs"innovations that benefit a variety of users, including individuals with disabilities. When applied to education, the term "universal design" generally concerns eliminating physical barriers to educational places or materials"e.g., providing accessible textbooks.
Of course, increasing physical access is an essential first step. But it is only the beginning. Genuine learning requires much more than physical access"it requires cognitive (or intellectual) access, too. A student with a learning disability may be able to see text clearly (physical access) but may have difficulty understanding the assignment or purpose for reading, finding main points, organizing notes, and expressing understanding (cognitive access). Conversely, a student with cerebral palsy may fully understand an assignment and have clear ideas for executing it (cognitive access) but be blocked from expressing those ideas by inappropriate tools (physical access).
Universal Design for Learning recommends ways to provide cognitive as well as physical access to the curriculum. Students are provided with scaffolds and supports to deeply understand and engage with standards-based material. They not only have access to content and facts, but they learn to ask questions, find information, and use that information effectively. They learn how to learn.
IDEA mentions the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS). How does NIMAS support Universal Design for Learning?
The most common learning technology in classrooms — the printed textbook — raises many barriers for students who have disabilities or other differences. Students who are blind or dyslexic for example, find many barriers to learning in such textbooks.
The key to Universal Design for Learning is maximizing flexibility"in materials, in learning strategies, and in assessments"that both reduce barriers and provide alternative paths to the same high standards for all students.
IDEA 2004 made an important first step in ensuring the flexibility of classroom materials by establishing the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS). NIMAS (pronounced NYE-mas) helps state and local education agencies meet IDEA's mandate to provide qualified students with alternate-format versions of core curricular materials, such as textbooks.
The digital "NIMAS" version is very flexible and can be readily transformed into student-ready versions for students with a variety of different "print disabilities." The flexibility of the NIMAS versions provides a great foundation for Universal Design for Learning. NIMAS does not meet the needs of all students, however. In the future, NIMAS will be seen only as the first step toward full Universal Design for Learning.
Adapted from the Universal Design for Learning Webinar, co-sponsored by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Arizona Literacy and Learning Center and the Council for Exceptional Children.
| Listen to NCLD’s October 14, 2010 webinar, “Access to Instructional Materials for Students with Learning Disabilities (LD): Getting it Done” (length: 90 minutes). Presenters: Chuck Hitchcock, Chief Officer of Policy & Technology for the Center for Applied Special Technology and Joanne Karger, J.D., Ed.D., an attorney at the Center for Law and Education (CLE). |
