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Provides a variety of perspectives on UDL implementation

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Provides a variety of perspectives on UDL implementation

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UDL: Moving from Exploration to Integration
Edited by Elizabeth Berquist
$29.99, Paperback (ISBN: 9781930583009)
$29.99, ePUB (ISBN: 9781930583016)

Overview

This collection of case stories edited by Elizabeth Berquist showcases the practical challenges and solutions of implementing UDL in systems, states, and schools across the United States.
"Are there any more exciting stories than those of pioneers? . . . In this timely new collection, Elizabeth Berquist has brought together some early pioneers of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) implementation. These pioneers discuss many important topics related to implementations, such as the need to build effective professional learning communities, to cultivate support among school faculty and parents, and to integrate UDL with existing initiatives. As more and more educators take up the challenge to implement UDL, this enterprising book is an excellent place to start that journey, filled as it is with wise and hard-won lessons from these UDL pioneers."
- from the Foreword by Nancy S. Grasmick, PhD, co-executive director of the Kennedy Krieger Institute and former Maryland State Superintendent of Education

UDL: Moving from Exploration to Integration is available in paperback ($29.99, 244 pages, ISBN: 9781930583009) and ePUB ($29.99, 229 pages, ISBN: 9781930583016) format.

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UDL Moving From Exploration to Integration

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Edited by Elizabeth Berquist $29.99, Paperback (ISBN: 9781930583009) $29.99, ePUB (ISBN: 9781930583016) Overview This collection of case stories edited by Elizabeth Berquist showcases the practical challenges and solutions of implementing UDL in systems, states, and schools across the United States. "Are there any more exciting stories than those of pioneers?

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CAST: About Universal Design for Learning

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Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Coming soon! UDL Guidelines 3.0

The UDL Guidelines are a living, dynamic tool that is continuously developed based on new research and feedback from practitioners. In 2020, CAST launched our most recent effort to update the UDL Guidelines, with a specific focus on equity. There has been a strong call from the field-both practitioners and researchers alike-to more fully develop the Guidelines to address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of oppression. The current update aims to respond to this call and to work toward fulfilling the promise of the Guidelines as a tool to guide the design of learning environments that more fully honor and value every learner.

Since our launch in 2020, we have been committed to a community-driven, inclusive, and transparent updating process. As part of this effort, we are:

Collaborating with an Advisory Board, a UDL Guidelines Collaborative, and a Young Adult Advisory Board to guide our work

Conducting focus groups with a diversity of participants to learn from their perspectives, lived experiences, and feedback

Reviewing the research on the UDL Guidelines research pages to understand the balance of different research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological approaches, and author positionalities

Conducting literature reviews of equity-oriented research that connect to and extend the Guidelines, such as disability studies and critical pedagogy studies

We are excited to share this next iteration of the UDL Guidelines in 2024. If you are interested in receiving our UDL Guidelines 3.0 newsletter to stay updated on our progress and to share your ideas and perspectives, please complete this brief form.

Review the Summary

Explore the Full Draft

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST.

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The difference between UDL and differentiated instruction

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The difference between UDL and differentiated instruction

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One-size-fits-all is a convenient shortcut for manufacturing massive amounts of a product but teachers aren't machines and students aren't a hat or t-shirt to be churned out, assembly-line style.

So why do so many schools and teachers still cling to old habits when it comes to curriculum, designing their lesson plans for a mythical "average student"?

The idea that effective lesson plans need to take into account the vast array of abilities and learning styles found in every classroom is not a new one. What is relatively new is the concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) an evidence-based framework that aims to reinvent how teachers design and implement their lessons for the 21st century. UDL was developed as a response to the need to teach Core Curriculum Standards to classrooms full of students with many different academic levels and learning challenges. It aims to break down barriers to learning while streamlining the teaching process.

"Think about the entrance to a large corporate office building," said educator and UDL expert Katie Novak, author of the book UDL Now!: A Teacher's Monday-Morning Guide to Implementing Common Core Standards Using Universal Design for Learning. Novak was the guest speaker at a recent Y.A.L.E. School workshop event for special education teachers in southern New Jersey about how to adopt UDL practice.

Novak continued: "If it's a well-designed building, you will notice that there are several different doors comprising the main entrance. There's usually a revolving door that moves lots of people in and out quickly, and sliding or swinging doors for people who can't use a revolving door. Once inside, one can opt for the stairs, an escalator, a regular elevator, an express elevator to the top floors, or even a freight elevator depending on which part of the building he or she needs to access."

In this analogy, the people entering the building are students, and the office building's floors are their individual learning goals. The various methods of getting them into the building and delivering them to the floor where they need to go (of course with ample signs and guides along the way to let them know where they are) can be compared to the way UDL helps students learn.

This includes planning the goal for the lesson, or what the teacher wants students to learn, do, or consider-and what the barriers to those goals might be for the students in the class. Next, teachers should present the information in many different formats and with varied supports. The lesson should also provide as many different choices and opportunities for students to express their engagement and knowledge as possible. Lastly, support and feedback lets students know how they are doing and what knowledge or skills they still need to improve.

Rather than starting from the baseline of an "average learner" and then spending a lot of time and energy making accommodations for students with different levels of proficiency or learning styles, UDL recommends that teachers plan their lessons with flexibility in mind.

"Let's say you have a room full of twelve students," said Novak. "Now let's say you have a lesson plan that you designed to meet the needs of ten out of twelve students. But then you have one kid who's lost because the lesson plan is too complicated, and one who's not engaged because it's too easy. UDL turns traditional lesson planning upside-down because instead of designing for the majority of learners, we're designing for those two kids on the margins. And everyone benefits as a result."

Much as the imaginary office building lets individuals make their own choices about which door best suits their needs, UDL reduces barriers to "entrance" by making sure students don't waste time and effort trying to conform to lesson plans that don't suit their objectives or learning styles. People entering our fictional office building in a wheelchair, or while carrying a large birthday cake, or pushing a delivery cart aren't trying to unsuccessfully squeeze through the revolving door with disastrous results. Meanwhile, those who don't require the extra room are able to move through the revolving door at their own pace, reducing or eliminating any crowding that might have resulted otherwise. The architects have anticipated the different types of visitors to the building and proactively added entrances that improve access for all of them.

Teachers can reap the rewards of UDL by following the framework when preparing lesson plans. The full set of UDL guidelines are available on udlcenter.org and teachers who are beginning to implement UDL can also find more information on the UDL Exchange website at udlexchange.cast.org including example lesson plans.

Katie's tips for special education professionals who want to use UDL right now:

1. Don't be intimidated by a sense that you have to start from scratch with all UDL lessons. Download a lesson plan that is already complete and try it out. Slowly you will see the positive benefits and begin to be able to apply UDL to all classroom activities.

2. Always stimulate student interest and motivation to learn. This creates students who are lifelong learners and explorers rather than just direction-followers.

3. "Scaffold" mastery of difficult or complex content or skills by breaking down into smaller parts and then providing example work samples for each step.

4. Provide lots of mastery-oriented feedback to help move students towards their goals.

You can learn more about Katie Novak at her website, katienovakudl.com on Facebook at facebook.com/katienovakudl and on Twitter at twitter.com/katienovakudl

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VIDEO: Katie Novak brings us up to speed on Universal Design for Learning

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https://vimeo.com/146025130 One-size-fits-all is a convenient shortcut for manufacturing massive amounts of a product but teachers aren't machines and students aren't a hat or t-shirt to be churned out, assembly-line style. So why do so many schools and teachers still cling to old habits when it comes to curriculum, designing their lesson plans for a mythical "average student"?

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Flexible & customized offerings on UDL, literacy, and education leadership to meet your organization's needs. Whether you need a conference keynote to 3,000 eager educators or an interactive workshops with intimate groups of five, Novak Educational Consulting is able to provide professional development tailored for your goals.

Katie Novak, President of Novak Educational Consultants, has authored four books on UDL, selling more than 30,000 copies worldwide. In her updated release, UDL Now!, Katie provides practical insights and savvy strategies for helping all learners meet high standards using the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Download and view resources to help you on your UDL journey. Katie Novak, EdD, President of Novak Educational Consulting, is one of the nation's leading experts on UDL. Here, you can access helpful rubrics and guidelines to help educate you on how to use scaffolding, vocabulary-building, and student feedback to inform instruction.

Join the UDL Revolution

Subscribe to the Novak Educational Consulting newsletter to stay updated on whats happening in education. Get access to useful resources and learn about creative ways to reach your students.

Sign Up

How we are changing education across the USA and the world by providing engaging and inspiring professional development opportunities

Novak Educational Consulting is the premier organization for designing and delivering high-quality, evidence-based professional development on multi-tiered systems of support, evidence-based tiered interventions, evidence-based literacy models, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and effective leadership practices.

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Flexible & customized offerings on UDL, literacy, and education leadership to meet your organization's needs. Whether you need a conference keynote to 3,000 eager educators or an interactive workshops with intimate groups of five, Novak Educational Consulting is able to provide professional development tailored for your goals.

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1. Home

2. Catalog

3. All Books & Products

4. UDL Now! A Teacher's Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today's Classrooms

Author(s)

Katie Novak

Date

2016

A new edition is now available! UDL Now! Third Edition was released in May 2022, with a lower price and updated strategies for the post-pandemic classroom.
Check out the latest edition

About the Book

In this revised and expanded edition of the bestseller UDL Now! Katie Novak provides practical insights and savvy strategies for helping all learners meet high standards using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. Novak shows how to use the UDL Guidelines to plan lessons, choose materials, assess learning, and improve instructional practice. Novak discusses key concepts such as scaffolding, vocabulary-building, and using student feedback to inform instruction. She also provides tips on recruiting students as partners in the teaching process and engaging them in how they learn. UDL Now! is a fun and effective Monday-morning playbook for great teaching.

David Rose, Co-Founder of CAST and a principal architect of the UDL framework and guidelines, writes in his Foreword: "Katie Novak's well-articulated know-how about how to put UDL into practice has helped many thousands of educators. However, rather than rest on that success, Katie has done what expert learners and expert teachers do: She has reflected on her own performance and asked, "What can I do better? How can I make my point clearer? What have I learned from those many practitioners I have met and worked with in the past couple of years?' Throughout this book, you'll find the answers to those and other questions. The result is a bigger and better book."

UDL Now! Revised & Expanded Edition is available in paperback ($34.99, 238 pages, ISBN: 9781930583665) and EPUB ($34.99, ISBN: 9781930583672) format.
Table of Contents

Katie Novak on UDL Now! Revised

Watch the entire series of short videos to get behind-the-scenes insights from Katie about UDL Now!

UDL Now! Revised Playlist

About the Author

Katie Novak, EdD, is an internationally renowned education consultant, author, graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a former Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Massachusetts. Katie has more than 19 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching, and ten published books, including the best-selling education book, UDL Now!.

You can find her online at katienovakudl.com and on Twitter at @KatieNovakUDL.

More from Katie Novak

Table of Contents

Foreword, by David H. Rose

Introduction

Chapter 1: UDL and Reality TV Collide

Chapter 2: The UDL Guidelines for Educators
A Planning Tool You Can't Live Without

Chapter 3: Shining a Light on Engagement

Chapter 4: Recruiting and Engaging Students as UDL Partners

Chapter 5: Next-Generation Skills in Today's Classrooms

Chapter 6: Two Types of Learning Standards and UDL Implementation

Chapter 7: Choice Assignments
Expressing Knowledge in Endless Ways

Chapter 8: Scaffolding
Setting the Bar High and Raising Students to It

Chapter 9: The Best Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Chapter 10: Using Student Feedback to Inform Instruction

Chapter 11: Assessments the UDL Way
(Yes, Standardized Assessments, Too!)

Chapter 12: Technology Helps!

A: UDL Resources

B: Professional Learning Community Resources

C: PLC Assignment Rubrics

References

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Index

More from CAST Publishing

In the third edition of UDL Now!, Katie Novak provides practical insights and savvy strategies for helping all learners succeed in a post-pandemic world using the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

K. Novak
2022

The Unbound Classroom is about using thematic units to create a classroom experience that reflects the world that students find themselves in on a daily basis.

C. Miro
2019

These posters feature the latest version of the version 2.2 guidelines as found on the UDL Guidelines website.

CAST
2020

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UDL Now! A Teacher's Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today's Classrooms - CAST Professional Publishing

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Home Catalog All Books & Products UDL Now! A Teacher's Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today's Classrooms Author(s) Katie Novak Date 2016 A new edition is now available! UDL Now! Third Edition was released in May 2022, with a lower price and updated strategies for the post-pandemic classroom.

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In Universally Designed Leadership , experienced school administrators Katie Novak and Kristan Rodriguez provide school leaders and educators with a guidebook for putting the UDL framework into practice system-wide.

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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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UDL In-person training opportunities in Washington 

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UDL In-person training opportunities in Washington 

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Conference Description and Titles- Flyer 2018

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Online and in-person professional development opportunities on topics such as assistive technology processes, Inclusive practices, including Universal Design for Learning practices, AAC, alternative computer input, as wells as software, app and extension solutions to meet the needs of diverse learners.

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This module examines the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and discusses how educators can apply UDL to proactively design learning experiences that are flexible enough to challenge and engage all students and that promote learner agency (est. completion time: 2.5 hours).

This module was developed in collaboration with CAST.

Work through the sections of this module in the order presented in the STAR graphic above.

Related to this module

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Copyright 2023 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Universal Design for Learning: Designing Learning Experiences That Engage and Challenge All Students

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This module examines the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and discusses how educators can apply UDL to proactively design learning experiences that are flexible enough to challenge and engage all students and that promote learner agency (est. completion time: 2.5 hours). This module was developed in collaboration with CAST.