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If you read the latest books and blogs on inclusive education, you've probably heard a lot about the potential benefits of universal design for learning (UDL). Stronger student engagement. Sharper executive function skills. Increased access to the general curriculum for all students.

The UDL framework holds such great promise-but with so many myths and misconceptions floating around, those three letters can seem a little mysterious. What is UDL, really? Is it just differentiation in disguise?

To answer these questions, let's check in with UDL expert Loui Lord Nelson, whose book is making a big splash in the world of inclusive education. In Design and Deliver , Nelson takes on 6 stubborn myths about UDL and debunks them one by one. Whether you're a newbie weighing the benefits of implementing UDL in your own classroom or a UDL devotee hoping the change the minds of skeptics, this post gives you the fast facts you need to move forward.

[INFOGRAPHIC: Grab and share the infographic version of these 6 mythbusters below this post!]

MYTH #1: UDL has no research behind it.

FACT: The UDL framework is solidly grounded in brain research and other empirical data. (To see the research behind UDL principles, guidelines, and checkpoints, explore the National UDL Center's archive of articles .)

Quantifying the positive effects of UDL is a little challenging: though UDL guidelines stay the same, implementation will look different from school to school based on each teacher's knowledge and available resources. But early UDL research has been promising. In two recent studies, Nelson points out, students performed better on standardized measures when they used resources designed with the UDL framework-and had teachers who used UDL guidelines to craft their lessons and design the classroom environment.

MYTH #2: UDL is another word for differentiation.

FACT: Differentiation is just one component of UDL. Nelson describes the difference this way: Differentiation is a strategy that helps you address each student's individual levels of readiness, interest, and learning profiles. UDL is an overarching approach that addresses the environment first, including the physical location and the lesson, unit, and/or curriculum. When you address the whole environment up front, you make sure all students have full access to everything in the classroom, regardless of their needs and abilities.

MYTH #3: UDL is only good to use when you have students with IEPs.

FACT: It's true that UDL grew out of accommodating the individual needs of students with disabilities. But because every student is a variable learner, UDL is a helpful framework to use in any classroom, especially one that includes students of all ability levels. When you design your lessons based on the UDL framework, you create an accessible learning environment where all of your students have the best chance to learn.

MYTH #4: If you purchase a UDL product, then you're doing UDL.

FACT: UDL isn't something you buy or "do"; it's a set of principles and guidelines to use as a decision-making framework. True UDL implementation begins with the learning environment first-creating a classroom and lesson plans that meet all students' needs. UDL-aligned products and strategies can be valuable tools, but they're just a part of your journey toward UDL implementation, not a one-stop solution.

MYTH #5: UDL is just good teaching.

FACT: A person implementing UDL might be described as a good teacher-that part is definitely true! But simplifying UDL as "good teaching" is misleading. Good teaching has no single, agreed-on definition, whereas UDL is a framework with clear principles, guidelines, and checkpoints. Teachers who work hard to include all children in their classrooms and remove barriers to learning are doing a lot of things right, but unless they're referencing the UDL framework to make decisions, they aren't implementing UDL.

MYTH #6: To make UDL work, you have to use technology.

FACT: Tech can be a great way to enhance lessons and engage students. But if your school doesn't have the funds for fancy technology, that doesn't mean UDL is out of your reach. "For centuries teachers have used the resources available to communicate ideas to students," Nelson says. "UDL helps teachers look at available resources and potentially identify new ways to use them."

Nelson suggests that teachers collaborate with peers to identify no-tech or low-tech options that support students' learning outcomes. (A good place to start is #udlchat on Twitter, a hashtag for sharing UDL tips and tricks. UDL experts also use the hashtag for a regularly scheduled professional development chat-check #udlchat for the date and time of the next one!)

What do you think? Have you heard any other stubborn UDL myths? What's the #1 misconception most people have about UDL? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

is an amazing UDL primer. Check out the reviews and sample a chapter .

Here's a neat infographic that sums up the key points in this post. Share it around and help spread the word about UDL (click twice to view at full size):

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6 UDL Myths (and the Facts Behind Them!) - Brookes Blog

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If you read the latest books and blogs on inclusive education, you've probably heard a lot about the potential benefits of universal design for learning (UDL). Stronger student engagement. Sharper executive function skills. Increased access to the general curriculum for all students. The UDL framework holds such great promise-but with so many myths and misconceptions [...]

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Engagement OCALI

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NSRF Protocols and Activities... from A to Z Since 1994, the National School Reform Faculty has created and refined more than 200 protocols and activities to use in Critical Friends Group® communities, classrooms, meetings, and beyond. Each one is designed to help you arrive at a specific desired outcome, efficiently and effectively.

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About Universal Design for Learning - CAST

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Learn more about the UDL framework and the UDL Guidelines, developed and maintained by CAST.

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Find out more about CAST. We’re busting barriers to learning, until learning has no limits®.

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What is CAST UDL Exchange?

It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles.

UDL Exchange includes

UDL Resources

Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL.

UDL Lessons

Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

UDL Collections

Sets of resources/lessons organized around a theme to support UDL practices.

UDL Exchange Tools

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It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles. Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL. Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

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ohio center for autism and low incidence

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OCALI | Universal Design for Learning Center

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Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence

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Review student understanding at the class, individual student, or question-level.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

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Checkpoint 8.4 | National Center On Universal Design for Learning

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Feedback that orients students toward mastery and that emphasizes the role of effort and practice rather than "intelligence" or inherent "ability" is an important factor in guiding students toward successful long-term habits of mind.

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Checkpoint 8.1 | National Center On Universal Design for Learning

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Maintaining engagement over the course of any sustained lesson or project can be difficult for many learners. Research shows the importance of incorporating periodic or persistent "reminders" of both the goal and its value in order to support students in sustaining effort and concentration in the face of attractive distracters.

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Resources supporting the implementation of the UDL Guidelines

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Tips and Strategies for Keeping Students Engaged

4 Student Engagement Tips (From a Student): Find out from one student how relationships, humor, choice, and displaying his work engaged him, and watch his three-minute video highlighting student work and personalized learning. (Edutopia, 2016)

Igniting Student Engagement: A Roadmap for Learning: Explore key strategies like being authentic, introducing units with meaningful launch events, and letting students know what outcomes to expect. (Edutopia, 2015)

The 8 Minutes That Matter Most: Find tips for engaging students during the first and last eight minutes of class. (Edutopia, 2015)

Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities: Investigate student engagement practices such as making activities meaningful, fostering efficacy, providing autonomy support, embracing collaborative learning, establishing positive teacher-student relationships, and promoting mastery orientations. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)

New Study: Engage Kids With 7x the Effect: Understand why ensuring that students care about the material and that they know how much you care about them is so critical for effective engagement. (Edutopia, 2014)

Bell Ringer Exercises: Discover ideas for short, focused exercises to help students make the most of classroom time. (Edutopia, 2013)

Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Student Engagement page, and participate in Edutopia's community to collaborate with others and share tips, strategies, and resources.

Engagement Through Projects

4 Practices for Increasing Student Engagement: Pursue interest- and project-oriented strategies for getting and keeping student attention. (Edutopia, 2016)

Powerful Classroom Lessons: It All Begins With the Hook: Introduce projects by capturing students' interest and pulling them in. (Edutopia, 2015)

Embracing Student Creativity With a Wonder Shelf: Provide math students with manipulatives and art supplies to bring excitement, engagement, and elements of a makerspace into the classroom. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)

6 Rules to Break for Better, Deeper Learning Outcomes: Incorporate deeper learning as you empower students to seek knowledge from many sources, use tools relevant to their lives, and embrace the lessons of failure. (Edutopia, 2014)

6 Engaging End-of-Year Projects: Discover six projects to engage students during the last few weeks of school. (Edutopia, 2012)

Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Project-Based Learning page.

Engagement Through Technology

Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Technology Integration page.

Engagement Through Social and Emotional Learning

Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Social and Emotional Learning page.

Examples From Schools That Work

Edutopia's flagship series highlights pedagogies, strategies, and practices from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. Below, dive into real-world examples of how educators are engaging students.
Personalized Learning: Enabling Student Voice and Choice Through Projects
Adapt these six tips from Nashville Big Picture High School in Nashville, Tennessee to bring personalized learning projects into your classroom and build student engagement.
Community Partners: Making Student Learning Relevant
Find out how educators at Hood River Middle School in Hood River, Oregon employ local experts to make student learning come to life.
Student-Led Meetings: Empowering Student Voice
See how students at University Park Campus School in Worcester, Massachusetts grow into their power and potential through student-led meetings.
Maker Education: Reaching All Learners
Learn about maker education in Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia and how it fosters student autonomy, ignites student interest, and empowers students to embrace their own learning.
Morning Meetings: Creating a Safe Space for Learning
Watch teachers at Symonds Elementary in Keene, New Hampshire, and understand how they use morning meetings to develop valuable social-emotional skills, create a culture of respect and trust, and prepare students to learn.

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Student Engagement: Resource Roundup | Edutopia

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4 Student Engagement Tips (From a Student): Find out from one student how relationships, humor, choice, and displaying his work engaged him, and watch his three-minute video highlighting student work and personalized learning. (Edutopia, 2016) Igniting Student Engagement: A Roadmap for Learning: Explore key strategies like being authentic, introducing units with meaningful launch events, and letting students know what outcomes to expect.

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Examples 8.3 | National Center On Universal Design for Learning

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Watch this video for a great example of UDL in the classroom that requires no technology. A teacher in Anchorage, AK demonstrates his strategies for creating a collaborative environment for learning.

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Examples 8.2 | National Center On Universal Design for Learning

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By Lisa Carey, M.A., CILSE Education Consultant, and Lisa Jacobson, Ph.D., NCSP, ABPP
July 12, 2016
Neurodevelopment - how the brain grows and matures - is one of the most important areas of neuroscience for teachers to consider. The human brain starts to develop prenatally, but continues after birth into adulthood (Lenroot & Giedd, 2006). This growth is by no means linear, as the rate of brain development changes over the course of childhood and young adulthood. Thus the expectation that students would continue a steady rate of progression in cognitive development from elementary school through high school does not fit with what research has shown us about the brain.

There is a common neuromyth that all important brain development occurs prior to the start of formal education and that teachers are incapable of steering the trajectory of neurodevelopment. However, this misinformation masks the large impact high quality and developmentally appropriate education can have on the neurodevelopment of students. While experiences of infants and toddlers are extremely important to brain development, early childhood should be regarded as a sensitive period, rather than a critical period. Some skills may be easier to learn during the sensitive period, but it is possible to develop those skills at later points in time. For children who have experienced toxic stress, or grown up in less enriched and stimulating environments, a teacher's understanding of development and use of developmentally appropriate "best practices" can make a difference in their trajectory ( "Building the brain", 2011).

The idea that student brains are "done" developing prior to starting school can be a dangerous myth. If student ability is pre-determined prior to entering school, then students with poor early childhood experiences have no chance at catching up. Taking this further, if students have no chance, what is the point of working hard to educate them? Luckily, this is not the case. Research in neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to change due to experiences, demonstrates that teachers have the amazing ability and responsibility to shape their students' brains through beneficial experiences. In fact, as neurologist Dr. Martha Bridge Denckla once said, "if you think about it, teachers shape more brains, and to a far greater degree, than neurosurgeons." But, how do we ensure that we are helping students develop? Here are some key elements of neurodevelopment teachers should consider. In future posts, we will cover these topics more fully.
References

Understand developmentally appropriate classroom expectations.
I was recently asked to visit a kindergarten classroom to observe several students engaging in disruptive behaviors. I sat and watched as a young teacher attempted to review phonics by showing students flashcards for 30 minutes while students sat still on the floor. Many students wriggled and looked around the room, some crawled around, and two boys got up and walked away talking loudly. Rather than addressing the boys who were disruptive, the teacher and I discussed how to make her lessons shorter, more interactive, and developmentally appropriate. Disruptive behaviors reduced dramatically. The teacher never had a course in developmental psychology or neurodevelopment and was unaware that the curriculum she'd been given had attentional expectations that were beyond her students' abilities. Teachers need to watch out for mismatches between students' development and curricular or teacher expectations. This can happen at any level. From expecting long stretches of focused attention from young children, to expecting middle school students to be able to stay organized before the areas of their brain responsible for executive functions have fully matured, we often forget to consider that our students' difficulties may be related to their development. We are often tricked by the performance of certain outlier students. "Look!" we cry, "Shannon has done it! Why can't the rest of them get it together?" This brings us to our next point.

Be aware that some variability in development is typical.
Students are typically roughly grouped by age, based upon an arbitrary date of enrollment eligibility for each district. For the younger students in the class, fewer months of development makes a large difference. This is thought to account for one reason younger students within a class are more likely than their classmates are to be diagnosed with ADHD (Elder, 2010). Additionally, girls, on average (meaning not every girl in every case), develop more rapidly than boys (Lenroot & Giedd, 2006). By the time of school entry, girls can be as much as a year ahead of boys in terms of their brain development (Feldman, Greeson, & Senville, 2010). This means that using the behavior of the older girls in any given classroom as the expectation for the younger boys can be problematic. There is a wide range of what is considered "typical" development and it is a good idea to take into account age discrepancies among students. In order to address this natural variability, curricula, learning activities, classroom materials, and the learning environment should be flexible. Of course, some students may fall outside of this range of typical variability and would benefit from some specific interventions.

Recognize the signs of developmental delays and encourage screening by experts.
For students who appear to be far behind their peers in terms of development, it is best to contact the school psychologist and conduct a screening. While media coverage has made many people aware of developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) , there are many other causes of delays or learning difficulties ( ADHD, for example).

Know instructional practices that will assist in development of important skills related to academic and social outcomes.
One of the domains that develops throughout the course of a student's academic career is executive function (EF). EF skills are highly correlated to academic success (Jacobson, Williford, & Pianta, 2011). Luckily EF skill development can be influenced by instructional methods used in curricula such as Tools of the Mind and PATHS.

Teachers are responsible for the academic growth of their students. In order to facilitate that growth, it is important to understand that brain development is a key component of cognitive, physical, and social abilities. When we set developmentally inappropriate expectations for students, we hinder their progress. By being aware of general ranges of development for the groups of students we are responsible for teaching as well as offering flexibility within our learning environment and instructional design, we can better meet students where they are and develop greater pathways of growth.

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2011). Building the Brain's "Air Traffic Control" System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu.

Elder, T. E. (2010). The importance of relative standards in ADHD diagnoses: evidence based on exact birth dates. Journal of Health Economics, 29(5), 641-56. doi.10.1016/j.jhealeco.2010.06.003

Jacobson, L. A., Williford, A. P., & Pianta, R. C. (2011). The role of executive function in children's competent adjustment to middle school. Child Neuropsychology, 17(3), 255-280. doi.10.1080/09297049.2010.535654

Lenroot, R. K., & Giedd, J. N. (2006). Brain development in children and adolescents: Insights from anatomical magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 30(6), 718-729. doi 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2006.06.001

Paus, T. (2005). Paus 2005 Mapping brain maturation and cog dev during adolescence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 60-68.

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What Should Teachers Know about Neurodevelopment?

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By Lisa Carey, M.A., CILSE Education Consultant, and Lisa Jacobson, Ph.D., NCSP, ABPP July 12, 2016 Neurodevelopment - how the brain grows and matures - is one of the most important areas of neuroscience for teachers to consider. The human brain starts to develop prenatally, but continues after birth into adulthood (Lenroot & Giedd, 2006).