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Our vision is for every student to be educated in an environment that is intentionally designed, equitable and inclusive. SIP hosts and organizes several statewide events each year with the goal of supporting LEA/District to progress on the path of creating inclusive organizations. The events range from in-person training/workshops to webinars designed to ensure access […]

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A dynamic, user-friendly tool that supports the intentional design of flexible learning experiences by offering practical strategies and examples for fostering multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression to meet the diverse needs of all learners.

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Interactive UDL Companion | Open Access 2.0

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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This toolkit is designed to support educators in reflecting on, assessing, adapting, and creating lesson plans through the lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

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Open Access is honored to spotlight LUDIA, developed by Beth Stark and Jérémie Rostan, as a valuable resource for supporting UDL implementation. LUDIA is an AI-powered tool designed to help educators create inclusive and engaging learning environments. It provides personalized, context-specific strategies to minimize learning barriers and empower all learners to achieve their full potential.

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Open Access UDL Resources | Open Access 2.0

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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This tool supports educators in designing and reflecting on lessons using UDL to address learner variability and remove barriers.

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Explore our work and impact and get to know Open Access!

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Get to Know the Open Access Team!

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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A dynamic, user-friendly tool that supports the intentional design of flexible learning experiences by offering practical strategies and examples for fostering multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression to meet the diverse needs of all learners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Interactive UDL Companion | Open Access 2.0

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

# data[].attributes.body
This toolkit is designed to support educators in reflecting on, assessing, adapting, and creating lesson plans through the lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

# data[].attributes.body
Open Access is honored to spotlight LUDIA, developed by Beth Stark and Jérémie Rostan, as a valuable resource for supporting UDL implementation. LUDIA is an AI-powered tool designed to help educators create inclusive and engaging learning environments. It provides personalized, context-specific strategies to minimize learning barriers and empower all learners to achieve their full potential.

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Open Access UDL Resources | Open Access 2.0

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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A curated collection of strategies, tools, and examples aligned with Universal Design for Learning to support inclusive lesson planning and the removal of learning barriers.

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A curated collection of strategies, tools, and examples aligned with Universal Design for Learning to support inclusive lesson planning and the removal of learning barriers.

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The Open Access team has created and curated a number of resources to support your journey in AAC. These include tools, supports, and resources for implementation of AAC.

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Open Access AAC Resources | Open Access 2.0

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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Discover, engage, and connect—find us on your favorite platform!

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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Digital Promise - Learner Variability Navigator

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Digital Promise - Learner Variability Navigator

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Matt:
Hello SEL education community, my name is Matt Pearsall. I am the community manager here in the SEL and education community and I am really excited to be able to share with you today at the beginning the inauguration of our of our new speaker series when we start- we're having a regular series of community members and other people coming in and talking to us giving brief talks around various different topics on social emotional learning and I am not only excited to be kicking off this event but also really excited to be able to kick off at this event featuring somebody who had a chance to meet here before A long time SEL champion in the SEL education community, Lynn Thomas. And so we're gonna be talking about supporting learner variability and without further ado I wanto kind of introduce you all to Lynn Lynn can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself before we jump in?

Lynn:
Hi I'm Lynn Thomas I'd love to Matt. I'm really happy to be here. Really excited about speaking to everybody I'm an ed secondary school english teacher from dunville ontario and I'm also an HP Teaching Fellow and I really advocate for mental health support and mental wellness and social emotional learning. I'm really excited to be here today.

Great! And so this topic of supporting learner variability one of the things on it that I really appreciated when I heard that you wanted to talk about this was that this is something that we all, we, every educator deals with every single day and so kind of hearing how you this connection you found in a little bit you were telling me about it before we started got me really excited. So can you tell us a little bit more about about this this this tool that you've been using and and why it's so exciting?

Well yes definitely. I'm really excited to share it with you so um it's a tool that was introduced to me through being an HP Teaching Fellow and it's something that has been created by Digital Promise who are a non-profit organization who research and try and fill the digital learning gap. And the wonderful thing about it is like learner variability as we all know our kids come to school with all kinds of stuff in their backpack and everybody learns different and we try to adjust and do everything in our programs to try and support all those students and that's a real feat how do you do it for you know 30 odd kids in a room and that kind of thing and a lot of times it can be overwhelming when we try and think about well but how do I account for trauma? How do I account for social emotional learning? how do I account for any cognitive issues? How do I account for background knowledge? You know English language learner, there's so many things that it can feel overwhelming.

And how do you put all that together so the really cool thing about it - and it's called the Learner Variability Navigator - is that it does put all those things together and I love the fact that a lot of times we often think about when we want to do a social emotional learning activity it's very explicit and what I love about this is it offers strategies that are based on research to support any of the different variables or factors that affect learning. And it gives you teaching strategies and methodologies that support those things so you can build it as a thread throughout your program, like every single day and every single lesson without feeling like you're adding more. You know it's switching to how you teach something as opposed to teaching one more thing. And I think that sometimes can really you know it's it's a hard thing to figure out how to do. And you know what are those things it supports so well.

Matt: I think we got you got muted there Lynn there we go you're back

Lynn: okay so I'm having trouble picking which screen I want. That's the one. I got it. Okay sharing. Okay is it right can you see the Learner Variability Navigator? Yep okay.

So this is the Digital Promise's Learner Variability Project. As I said, Digital Promise is an independent nonprofit and their mission is to accelerate innovation and improve opportunities for learning. So basically, what they've done is they've taken research and put it at our fingertips. This is open source and free for all educators. So, you can see as we move down through their research, they've defined basically four pillars that are the main areas that they look at.

So you know here we have social emotional learning, and but we also have content cognition and student background. And then what they did is created looked at those pillars and looked at them in these different models. So they've broken it down basically into kind of numeracy and literacy, which basically they can hit on every single subject. Right, so for ease and because it's the one I'm most familiar with. So you know we'll have a look at the grade 7-12 model and explore the factors. So the first time I saw this, I was blown away by this part so here you can see the four pillars divided in the columns and you can see the factors that they discovered affected learning the most what's really marvelous is when I hover over any one of these factors you can see how some fade out and highlight and it shows automatically right there visually how they're interconnected. And I thought that was just brilliant because sometimes we would forget like you know I wouldn't have thought reading fluency would be affected that much by social emotional learning right and it really emphasized the importance of integrating everything together to support the whole child. And you know you can see like hearing is a factor you know it. I thought it was marvelous, but it gets better.

So on any one of these I can click on and it will take me to a summary page. And then basically outlines what the factor is here it can go it goes into a little more deeper explanation about those connections you know critical literacy so it talks about why is emotion why does critical literacy get affected by emotion you know why does competition get affected so those it really helps. It's, it's like the best teacher PDA out there, I think also.

And again explains all the main ideas so in emotion and if you continue down the page it gives you lots of opportunities to learn more. And I like this - the view measures and references. And it's a little different on for each of the factors, but what's wonderful is one you could dig into the references if you wanted to, but it also gives you measures. So sometimes, these are specific sorts of assessments that you could use in the classroom sometimes they're more specialized where it might be your school psychologist or something like that would deliver and interpret these sorts of assessments but there's a lot of them that the classroom teacher could utilize to then give themselves a better base of understanding so then if we go back and as I said sometimes there's a couple of different measures in there and and then you can see it goes into what are the strategies for this factor and before we get into there I will go back up to the top and you'll notice here we have strategies. So I'll show you that and again here we can see all the different areas down the left hand side and on the right hand side we see all the various strategies again that have been extensively researched and you can see just by the color coding what ones support each of the different factors and for example we can look at annotating. And again like before when I click on annotating I'm taken to a summary page that gives me an overview of what is this strategy and what is it like. But it's really awesome because it then gives me a perfect like a lovely example of it in action in a classroom. It also on the right hand side gives me an example of a technology tool that does a really good job in supporting this specific factor, so you know if you want to need to want to etcetera integrate technology you can find out what ones are really good at supporting that factor.

And as before you there's a ton of examples so you can really learn how are people using this strategy in their classroom and find something that really works for you and learn about it better and even dig into more research if you want to go down rabbit hole, which I have you know so and you can really find out different strategies and what they look like and how successful they can be and work in the classroom.

And finally up here in explorers what's really cool is you can create your own workspace and I'm just gonna show you directly the workspace that I created and what it does. Basically, it's you can go and select five or six factors that maybe you want to focus in on. You know, your class needs etc and that's what I did with this where I was given a new course to start this year our whole board is shifting our grade english courses to indigenous literature and so looking at that coming into coming back to school this year obviously I had a lot of things that I had to think about so I selected specific factors that I thought were going to be really important. So background knowledge because it's kind of lacking critical literacy always important in the english classroom but I also looked at given the emotions and adverse experiences and it's great because this workspace you can give annotation notes so you know I thought okay there's a lot of things that might be triggering just because of the subject matter this year emotions are probably going to be a big factor because of coming out of you know isolation etc and you can share the workspace so you could collaborate with colleagues wow you can just share it straight as a view viewing piece and the strategies that it came up with now it gives me a really great panorama I guess strategies that I can use and build on in my classroom so I know I'm supporting those different factors throughout what I'm teaching, no matter what the content material is.

This is really cool. This is, it's amazing yeah - the depth and breadth has just been phenomenal and the learning possibilities like as a teacher to see how those things are connected and learn the strategies that can support so many different things at the same time is just phenomenal. Yeah I think I mean one of the most powerful things I think from this is I hear a lot, I hear people saying "Well how do we move social motion learning into the classroom?" and I think there's a lot of real there's a lot of high level ways that we talk about that a lot but this really makes it very concrete it's like here's this teaching strategy that that probably most educators will recognize They'll say "oh I already do that, yeah like a gallery walk." How many of us do gallery walks all the time? Well now it's like, "Oh look at that, it supports emotion and it supports motivation. Wow, I wouldn't have thought that." Yeah right - or a guided inquiry. Like, "oh it didn't occur to me that that could be a social emotional learning tool."

Lynn: Yeah and and when when when when we kind of are aware of that then we can be a lot more intentional about how we're approaching it and saying that I'm not just doing this as an academic exercise I'm doing it as a social emotional learning exercise at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah, and I thought it was really cool you know obviously we still need those explicit times where you know maybe we're looking at the vocabulary and the social emotional word wheel or you know and that check-in and that kind of thing but to then carry it throughout the day in the various ways that you teach I think is just phenomenal. Yeah, wow. I really appreciate you you sharing this with us. I think I'd like to ask just one one question here at the end before we before we wrap up and say that that for people approaching this for the first time, what's the what's the where should they start? What's the what's the what's the first place they should go to, you know, What I - just again - it's pretty straightforward how they have it set up is just go to the Learner Variability Project, and I believe you put that n the chat for people to grab and I also gave you a link to a slideshow. Oh yeah let me put that I I made surrounding the learner Navigator Yeah sorry the Learner Variability Navigator and there's a ton of links in there and one specific link at the end resources is basically kind of a one-pager of how to get started and how to create your own workspace. And it's like a one-pager and there's a ton more examples of workspaces that are really really helpful to see how people have utilized it like one teacher used it and sent the link home of her workspace because it explained to the parents all the different strategies and factors

That is a really cool yeah really neat idea because I feel like that's that's something that that's often a real that's a it's a gap in communication between families and educators about about why are we doing things what are the what are the reasons what are the reasons that we do this why does education look different than it used to that sort of those sort of conversations though yeah exactly exactly. So you know there's a wide array of ways that you can use it you know for for your own learning to improve your own practice but also to reach out and make connections with your parents and community

Matt: Well thank you so much for sharing this Lynn, I know the thing I'm going to dig into in this as soon as we get off of here is I'm going to go look at the assessment tools that are laid out in there because that is something that I come that comes up all the time about what are some different ways that we can assess things that are that are they can be done alongside academics. This would be is going to be really useful to a lot of people. That's where I'm headed, yeah for sure.

Lynn: And like I said you could get lost going down the rabbit hole in this Navigator, but it's well worth it.

Matt: Cool! Well again Lynn, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us, and for those of you watching at home, I just wanna remind everyone that this is the this is the first of our of our social emotional learning kind of speaker series we're having in the SEL and education community you can continue the conversation right here you see the link to our group. We'd love to see you there. We'll be doing more of these. We've got another one coming up a week from from today with JV Johnson talking about emotional motion management. So, without further ado thank you very much, and we will see you all next week take care everybody. Thank you, Lynn.

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Learner Variability Navigator | Learner Variability Project

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Matt: Hello SEL education community, my name is Matt Pearsall.

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Supporting Innovative Practices - Meet the Team

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Mr. Schaefer believes that data-based decision-making, open and honest communication pathways, vulnerability-based trust and self-reflection among team members, deep level family engagement, and ongoing analysis of organizational culture, practice, and policy development is foundational to this work.

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Supporting Innovative Practices - Archived Virtual Events

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Supporting Innovative Practices - Universal Prekindergarten (UPK)

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The Powerful Role of Play in Early Education

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The Powerful Role of Play in Early Education

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NAEYC/DEC Joint Position Statement on Inclusive Play Environments

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NAEYC/DEC Joint Position Statement on Inclusive Play Environments

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Why Child's Play is Serious Business In Early Childhood

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Why Child's Play is Serious Business In Early Childhood

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Why child's play is serious business in early education

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Play is such a powerful force, some research suggests, that it can be used as a tool to close achievement gaps and improve mental health.

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The Benefits of Play for a Child's Development

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The Benefits of Play for a Child's Development

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Play helps children understand the world and discover how their bodies work. Explore the benefits of play and find out how to encourage rich playtime experiences.

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Five Ways Play Changes Your Child's Brain - Minds in Bloom

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Turns out that play activates the whole neocortex or front part of the brain and builds new circuits in the prefrontal cortex.

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Pre-k: the love of teaching with the wonder of learning

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What is Playtime so Important? | Child Development Resources

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Play is an important part of your child’s development and it begins early. Learn the different skills children learn and develop through play.

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How Child-Directed Play Impacts the Brain

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How Child-Directed Play Impacts the Brain

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How Child-Directed Play Impacts the Brain | Generation Two

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ECTA ECE Indicators of High Quality Inclusion

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ECTA ECE Indicators of High Quality Inclusion

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Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center

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Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center

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ECTA Center: Improving Systems, Practices and Outcomes

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The ECTA Center is a program of the FPG Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, funded through cooperative agreement numbers H326P170001 and H326P220002 from the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the Department of Education's position or policy.

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MCIE Inclusive Education Practices Survey

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MCIE Inclusive Education Practices Survey

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TIES Belonging Resources | Creating communities of belonging for students with significant cognitive disabilities

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No cost, targeted technical assistance is available to state and local education agencies who are ready to move toward rightful presence and end systems of segregation in their schools.

Targeted technical assistance includes a wide range of short-term interactions, such as:

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National Center on Inclusion Toward Rightful Presence - SWIFT

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No cost, targeted technical assistance is available to state and local education agencies who are ready to move toward rightful presence and end systems of segregation in their schools. Targeted technical assistance includes a wide range of short-term interactions, such as:

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Video -  Inclusion 2.0: Teaching to Diversity

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Video -  Inclusion 2.0: Teaching to Diversity

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Dear Teacher: Heartfelt Advice for Teachers from Students

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IRIS Center - Designing Effective Early Childhood Environments

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IRIS Center - Designing Effective Early Childhood Environments

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The term physical environment refers to the overall design and layout of a given classroom and its learning centers. Teachers should design the environment by organizing its spaces, furnishings, and materials to maximize the learning opportunities and the engagement of every child. To effectively do so, teachers can apply a concept known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which stresses that the environment and its materials in it should be accessible to everyone. Creating this accessibility might involve providing books at different reading levels, placing materials within easy reach on a shelf, or creating ample space so that a child who uses a wheelchair can maneuver around the classroom.

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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.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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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.

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Sign up to join our listserv to stay up-to-date on all things inclusion and belonging!

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Supporting Innovative Practices - Connect With SIP!

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Have a question? Contact us today!

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The objective of the Open Access website is to facilitate the Learning and Participation for ALL students by eliminating barriers to learning.

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I was probably in my seventh year of teaching when I realized I really had no idea what my students were doing when I was teaching in front of the class. I had been really feeling good about myself. My lessons were tight, I had built great rapport with my students and families, and I was not having nightmares anymore about my students forming a Lord of the Flies rebellion against me. After one particular lesson, that I thought went great, my teacher assistant asked, "did you not see Natalie was on her phone almost the entire time you were teaching? It was under the desk. Also, when you were on the document camera, Darren was staring at the ceiling and Kaylee was cleaning out her pencil pouch in her backpack." Ouch.

I honestly didn't notice any of this. I thought all the students were on task and following along. It was at that moment that I realized teachers often really have no idea what is going on in their class. A well planned organized teacher is often juggling ten plates at once. We are thinking of the past, present, and future all at the same time. We don't have the bandwidth to "see" everything. That is when I knew that being quiet and compliant doesn't mean engagement.

Today's traditional classrooms are rife with what Schlecty's Levels of Classroom Engagement call "ritual compliance." Philip Schlecty spent his career researching best practices in education. One of his main focuses was increasing student engagement. In 2020, John Spencer used Schlecty's research and created a chart to visualize different student levels of engagement. In my estimation (and I admit, this is not the most scientific approach) 90% of students in classrooms are exhibiting ritual compliance. Most kids are quiet and do what they are told but not actively engaged in learning. Another 5% of students are strategically compliant. These are generally the students raising their hands and participating in group work. They are playing the part of school. The small pocket of kids leftover fall anywhere from retreatism and rebellion. Sadly, these are the students often with IEPs, behavior plans, etc. whose needs are not being met in a traditional learning environment where lectures and textbooks are the primary sources of learning.

(Spencer, 2020) https://websonthewebs.com/schlechtys-levels-of-engagement-for-the-workplace/

As most teachers can tell you, the students who are the least engaged in school take up an extraordinary amount of time and resources on a school campus. In order to address the lack of engagement, meetings need to be held, detentions are set up, intervention classes are designed, and teachers stop class instruction to try to control the behavior of the students who are not engaged. These students usually show very little progress in learning, receive failing grades, and are labeled "at-risk".

As a special education teacher for ten years, and another 10 years working as an administrator focusing on at-risk populations, I understand a lot about student engagement...or lack thereof. I currently work at a school that is an alternative education program focused on students who are severely credited deficient. The students at my school are placed here because they have failed a significant number of classes and are not able to graduate on time. These students are at-risk for not earning a diploma and becoming high school dropouts. After reviewing hundreds of student transcripts and records, I have noticed that they have over a decade of failed classes and negative school experiences. By the time they get to us at the age of 16, they have completely given up on learning. Most at-risk students have very low attendance rates and their commitment to school is very low. The only reason they come is because of compulsory attendance laws and the threat of going to a small community behavior program.

The teachers and administrators who work with at-risk students understand we have to change the traditional school model in order to build these students back up and help them see the purpose of school is learning. As a community, the educators have to help non-engaged students build learner confidence. The best way to do this is through UDL.

Switching over to using UDL best practices can be overwhelming for teachers. Asking them to think about differentiating instruction for each learner seems impossible (and it would be if done through the DI model instead of the UDL model). The UDL Framework in itself contains a ton of guidance and information and it is too easy to give it a glance and think, "NOPE, not doing it." When getting started with UDL, I encourage teachers to focus on a simple equation instead of paying too much attention to the guidelines themselves.

Respect

The teacher must respect the learners in their classroom. They must respect each student's unique learning profile - what in UDL we call "variability". A teacher needs to respect where students come from, moral differences, unique family situations, religious differences, cultural differences, etc. When you respect the individuals you have in your classroom, you will innately start building meaningful relationships with your students which is foundational for engaging unmotivated students ( Headden and McKay, 2015).

Here are some examples of how teachers can build respect:

Identity charts

One-on-one meeting about goals

Interest surveys or student interviews to get to know them

Asking students why they have not been showing success in school

Asking students to describe the perfect classroom/teacher for learning

Asking students what they want from their teacher

Asking students for feedback about your classroom and instruction

Choice

Because we respect learner variability, students need to have options to show what and how they learn. Students need to be given the autonomy to make decisions about learning for themselves (but remember that these choices must be aligned with meeting educational goals and standards!). All students need access to accommodations and support during all parts of the learning process.

Every student has access to technology

Students learn skills but get to pick topics to research to show their skill

Students are able to pick literature to read instead of a class novel

Students choose how much and the type of work they do to show knowledge

Accommodations are proactively planned and offered into lessons

Every student is offered tools or accommodations to help get work done

Success

The third step is to show success. If a teacher has built a solid relationship of respect andbuilt in choice for learner variability, the students will start to have success. But that is not enough. Students who have been disengaged for many years often do not acknowledge their own success. Students who have historically been disengaged or have a history of failure often measure themselves next to the "star" students. At-risk students do not know how to feel good about learning or recognize they are making progress. The teacher needs to help each student chart their growth and change their mindsets to see the value in learning (Headden and McKay, 2015).

Have students keep a portfolio of work that they reflect on

Students monitor their success on tests or reading levels on charts

Students are able to take tests on skills until they have learned the material

Meet with students one one one to explicitly show growth/progress

Make sure you reward on effort and improvement, not perfection

Provide written or verbal feedback that outlines strengths and weaknesses, rather than just sharing a grade

Create a strong PBIS classroom that focuses on explicitly teaching appropriate behavior and pointing out positive behavior with students.

Have students self-report or tally different behaviors over time and then have a meeting to show growth

Create systems to visually reward students for progress on goals so they can physically see improvement

Make it a point to call home for seeing success and positive choices in class

With respect, choice, and success students will become engaged in learning. I have never met a student who doesn't want to be successful in school. I have never met a student that doesn't feel good when they start learning and making progress. From my experience, some of the most difficult students on your campus will become engaged in school and start creating a path for themselves to become lifelong learners if you use UDL as your guiding light.
April Evans Weaver has been an educator in California for over 20 years. She started her career as a special education teacher and now is an administrator. She has worked at the site and district level focused on creating strong instructional programs based in UDL.

Learn more about how to build relationships with students and boost student engagement by earning a certificate in UDL through UPENN.

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I was probably in my seventh year of teaching when I realized I really had no idea what my students were doing when I was teaching in front of the class. I had been really feeling good about myself.

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Discover the power of routines in learning and how they can enhance academic success. Explore different categories of routines and their impact on learning

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My granddaughters, Aylin and Ariette, are queens of why. " Why do we need to do this homework?" " Why can't we keep watching the iPad?" " Why can't we eat Fruit Loops for dinner?" As a grandparent, it can be an exhausting exercise to answer all of these "whys" kindly and patiently and not just yell out " because I said so!" But the fact is, when my wife Kathy and I have our granddaughters over for a sleepover, we want it to be a happy time. " Because I said so " is simply not going to get them through tough moments.

In the classroom, getting students to embrace the why can be even more challenging because of student variability. Students have different strengths, limitations, interests, cultures, and backgrounds. They have varying social skills and some are better at self-regulating and coping than others. " Learn it because you have to " doesn't pass muster with a single kiddo. It certainly won't work with 10, 20, or 30 students in your class.

That is why it is critical for us to provide multiple means of engagement. Let's start by unpacking the UDL principle for Engagement. The principle is broken up into three distinct guidelines which are further divided into checkpoints. Each checkpoint serves as a reminder for considerations we must take when working with groups of learner[[s who have varying strengths and weaknesses.

The three guidelines in the engagement principle are:

Provide options for recruiting interest

Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence

Provide options for self-regulation

Traditionally, we often equate engagement to interest, but at a glance, you can see it goes so much further than that.

Know the Goal, Engage the Student

The engagement principle means that the students ALWAYS know the goal(s) of the lesson and what the standard(s) is that you are reaching for in the lesson. By being clear about our goals, we help to recruit interest and help students sustain effort and persistence when things get challenging. Below are some examples and guiding questions to drive engagement based on:

How the Assignment is Delivered. Can the students read about it, watch something about it, do something about it, or with it? Or, will listening to the teacher do the trick?

The Perspective of the Topic. Can the students find out about what the topic means to different people or different times? Can they find out about what it means to a certain occupation or how they will be able to solve some past or future problem? Can they ask a lot of questions?

The Different Methods of Working. Can students work alone, in a small group or with you? Can they go home and ask their family members? Can they have a choice to just go do research on it at the library or online? Can it be a discovery project?

Social Emotional Factors. Before students can start learning in any option, it is important to create engagement given varying social emotional factors. Some students like spontaneity, some don't. There will be some students who come into a given situation with the feeling that they are "no good at this" or they feel that they are "not as smart as the other kids", aka the "stereotype threat ". So ensuring that you have options for students to self-regulate is critical.

Keep Students Actively Engaged

Engagement extends beyond recruiting interest and providing choice. We also have to ensure that students can commit to the learning process and continue to put in effort and persistence.

"With UDL, our aim is to enable all learners to become expert. In the all-important affective domain, expertise involves developing interest, purpose, motivation, and, most importantly, strong self-regulation as a learner."
- Meyer, Rose, and Gordon, Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice

Here are the UDL Guidelines for Engagement ( image at right). Together, these guidelines and checkpoints ask us to consider how we design instruction where all students can work toward meaningful goals with appropriate levels of challenge.

Given the incredible variability of our classrooms, it is important to design lessons and units with scaffolding and support as well as acceleration and enrichment. You don't have to take this on yourself. Foster collaboration and community with your learners to ask them to co-create lessons with you. Just as you provide mastery-oriented feedback to learners, so too should they have opportunities to share feedback with you, as an educator.

It is critical that we create classrooms where students feel safe enough to take risks and know they have options to cope. Creating practices and procedures that embrace frequent breaks, embedded accommodations, revisions, and retakes can optimize student motivation. Since we are asking students to personalize their learning, it is important that we offer frequent opportunities for them to reflect on their decisions and course correct if necessary. This is a critical part of executive function and what it means to be an expert learner.

To lear more about the Engagement principle and the UDL Guidelines, check out the resources below:

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UDL: Providing Multiple Means for Engagement

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Unpacking the UDL Guideline: Providing multiple means for engagement. Why it is critical for us to provide multiple means of engagement for learners.

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My first classroom, of my own, was kindergarten. I never set out to be a kindergarten teacher exactly, but a school I knew had a great principal and was hiring, and so I went for it. I'm so glad I did. I learned so much that year that I still carry with me, but at the beginning, there was quite the learning curve!

I remember talking to my mom early on and saying, "Mom, they don't know how to do anything!" after realizing that what I thought were simple tasks - like sitting on the carpet or lining up at the door - were brand new to them. I never understood all that kindergarten teachers do to acclimate kids to school (and life!).

One of those things that I quickly realized my students didn't yet know how to do yet was line up at the door. I was a cool, laid-back, 26-year-old guy in a band. Nbd! Just say, line up at the door and roll with it!

Nope

As my kindergarten brethren know and the rest of you can probably predict, chaos ensued. There was running, pushing, and oh so many tears. That's why teachers around the world have universally designed lining up. I've been in hundreds of schools and worked with some incredible early childhood educators and have witnessed so many scaffolds and strategies, so the 'simple task' of lining up can be pulled off.

UDL Transition Strategy: Lining Up

So that everyone can line up at the door in an efficient and orderly fashion, we have:

Line order - Students are numbered and have a place in line. They know who they stand behind and in front of. No running required.

Jobs - We still have the good old-fashioned line leader, to mix it up and make it equitable, the trusty caboose. Some classrooms even throw a door holder in there for good measure. This rotating set of jobs adds variety, meaning, and responsibility to the process.

Songs - We've all heard the banger, "My hands are by my side, my eyes are facing front..." Just another clever way for students to know what is expected.

Dot spots - To make sure there's no bumping into each other, we have literal dots on the floor that students stand on, strategically placed a few feet apart. (Wouldn't mind this implemented at the airport now that I think of it.)

This is just one example of what it looks like to universally design a transition. For kindergarten teachers, the barriers to success were that some students might rush to be first, others are still learning to control their bodies, some are still working on personal space, and early childhood students need predictability. All of that is taken into account with these supports.

I've worked with teachers to universally design other hot spot transitions like their return from lunch recess, as students pour in, dysregulated from the wrongs they suffered at kickball, hot from the exercise, and needing to process their emotions. This is a predictable result of recess in elementary school, but often, dealing with the aftermath means altering plans, cutting lessons short, or finding something for everyone else to do while you solve the problem.

UDL Transition Strategy: Post-Recess

One strategy is to make ten minutes post-recess quiet time. During quiet time, the lights are off, calm music might be playing, and students have the choice of a few quiet activities (research tells us that 2-4 choices is the sweet spot). These activities could be reading a book, coloring, drawing, or writing in a journal. I've seen sudoku or crosswords, math word problems, and rebuses. Whatever you choose, carve out ten minutes post recess for students to get regulated for the next part of the school day, have some much-needed quiet time, and provide you with ten minutes should you need to help resolve a conflict or process emotions without your lesson taking a hit.

UDL Transition Strategy: Changing Classrooms/Leaving Classroom

Another transition opportunity to universally design is packing up to go home or change classes. When we say to students, it's time to pack up, we are actually asking them to do a series of tasks that, when all completed, result in being packed up. That might be putting away work they are in the middle of, taking other work home, putting away materials, and navigating to lockers, cubbies, and backpacks. Those tasks are taxing on executive function skills , which is why some papers end up crumpled at the bottom of backpacks, stuffed in cubbies and lockers, or lost altogether. One way to support students in this is to provide visual supports at the point of need for all the steps to the task. (This works great at home too for cleaning up a room, getting ready for school, or bed). Create a laminated checklist of steps, complete with icons or other visuals, including a picture of what success looks like.

💡Tip! Use an AI tool like Goblin Tools and Claude.AI to save time. Watch this tutorial to see it in action!

As we wrap up this school year, which of your transitions could use a makeover? Think about what barriers exist for students during that time. Then proactively plan for things you could do to remove those barriers.

Learn how to universally design your practice to increase access and student outcomes. Explore online courses and professional development options.

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3 UDL Strategies That Transform Classroom Transitions (Without the Chaos)

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Discover how universally designed routines like lining up, post-recess quiet time, and packing up, can make daily classroom transitions smoother and calmer

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Tried-and-True Techniques to Create a Focused Learning Environment

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Tried-and-True Techniques to Create a Focused Learning Environment

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4 Effective Ways to Quiet a Noisy Classroom

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Four tried-and-true techniques to quiet a noisy classroom - two without even saying a word! Calmly create a focused learning environment for all students.

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Universally Designed Family Engagement Guide

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Universally Designed Family Engagement Guide

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2025.7.23 - UDL in Math K-5 - Emily and Pam 

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Early Childhood MTSS: Checklist for Intensifying Universal and Additional Support

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Early Childhood MTSS: Checklist for Intensifying Universal and Additional Support

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Early Childhood MTSS: Checklist for Intensifying Universal and Additional Support - SWIFT

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DEC Position Statement on Early Childhood MTSS

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DEC Position Statement on Early Childhood MTSS

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Division for Early Childhood - Return to DEC’s Main Site - www.dec-sped.org

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We’re creating a community for equity-minded educators to equip their ability to provide impactful PD, so that we can achieve equitable outcomes for all students. We believe that professional learning is so vital yet often under-resourced. There are few places for PD leaders to share ideas and sharpen their saw. The Jumpstart PD Network is a community to equip educators with the tools they need to design, deliver, and participate in effective PD with an equity mindset. For Teachers and School Leaders, Jumpstart PD is a platform to access high-quality PD on equity and inclusion inside and outside the classroom. Resources are curated for you, with guidance for how and when to apply tools in your district or classroom. For Consultants and PD Providers, Jumpstart PD is a membership community to access strategies, ideas, and support for designing and delivering effective professional learning. It’s also a place to showcase your PD opportunities to the educators who need your expertise. Our Founding Team brings decades of experience leading equity and inclusion PD along with cutting-edge expertise in delivering high quality PD from a distance and in person. With heightened awareness, the world needs educators equipped to lead the exhausting work of striving for more equitable outcomes for all students. And, we need each other! Let’s elevate the PD community, together. The Founding Story In February 2020, Co-founder Nicole proudly published a book on designing dynamic and engaging in-person PD. A month later, in-person gatherings screeched to a halt. The education sector, along with the rest of the world, grappled with how to navigate and maintain community and connection. Nicole had already begun exploring this challenge, because two months prior she was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a highly sought presenter who traveled across North America, she feared losing the ability to engage with innovative educators passionate about this work. Anticipating that cancer treatments would throw a major wrench in her networking plans, she started looking for an engaging online community focused on designing equity-minded PD. She couldn’t find it, so we built it. While the origin story is personal, our mission is global. The mission of the Jumpstart PD Network is to equip education leaders with skills to see inequities and challenge them, to guide teachers to teach empathy and not entitlement, and to empower students as agents in their learning environment. Our team has worked with hundreds of districts and thousands of schools focused on the same challenge: how do we develop our staff and ourselves so that we can reach all of our students? And our partner schools want to know – what are other schools doing? What’s working? Jumpstart PD is a place to answer those questions, explore common challenges, and share lessons learned TOGETHER. Nicole’s diagnosis gave us a jumpstart (hence the network name) on building the online space, but the people make the community. Let’s work together to provide impactful, equity-minded PD so that we not only professionally develop our staffs and ourselves, but that we ultimately make the world a less biased and more empathetic, less oppressive and more equitable place to live.

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View the interactive image by Fred Cochran

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