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Universal Design for Learning is a framework designed so that all learners can access the curriculum taught in schools. It is based on three principles - Multiples Means of Engagement, Multiples Means of Representation, and Multiples Means of Action & Expression.

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Each principle has guidelines (shown below) that help educators design lessons and activities that utilize all three principles.

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For more specific information on UDL, the principles, and the guidelines, please visit the National Center for Universal Design for Learning's website here.

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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Goalbook Pathways provides teachers with standard-aligned resources to support students at all levels. Find assessments at multiple levels of rigor, differentiated activities, graphic organizers, and engaging real-world mini-projects.

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Math

Three-Act Tasks: Modeling Subtraction (Grade 2)

Math as a Social Activity (Grades 3–5)

English Language Arts

Targeting Learning with Success Criteria (K)

Praising the Process (Grade 1)

Informational Texts: Reading for Inquiry (Grade 2)

Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk (Grade 3)

Science

Making Claims from Evidence (Grade 2)

Studying Balance in Art and Science (Grade 5)

Social Studies

Our Selves, Our Classroom, Our Families (Grade 1)

Organize Your Thinking to Critically Analyze Text (Grade 5)

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Math.6.NS.A.1

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

6: Grade 6

NS: The Number System

A: Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to divide fractions by fractions

1:
Interpret and compute quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions by fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem. For example, create a story context for (2/3) ÷ (3/4) and use a visual fraction model to show the quotient; use the relationship between multiplication and division to explain that (2/3) ÷ (3/4) = 8/9 because 3/4 of 8/9 is 2/3. (In general, (a/b) ÷ (c/d) = ad/bc.) How much chocolate will each person get if 3 people share 1/2 lb of chocolate equally? How many 3/4-cup servings are in 2/3 of a cup of yogurt? How wide is a rectangular strip of land with length 3/4 mi and area 1/2 square mi?.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How do learning menus enable Ms. Morey to provide differentiated instruction?

2. Why does Ms. Morey allow students to sometimes choose which tasks she assesses?

3. What resources does Ms. Morey use to design her menu tasks?

School Details

Enumclaw Middle School
550 Semanski St
Enumclaw WA 98022

Data Provided By:

Teachers

Math / Kindergarten 1 2 3 4 6 / Coach

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Learning Menus: Giving Options & Independence

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Crystal Morey uses learning menus to provide students with independent exploration of concepts in her sixth grade math class. Each of her menus has options for an appetizer, main course and dessert task. While students work on their menu tasks, Crystal is able to pull aside a small group to work with on targeted math skills.

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Engaging Students in Work that Matters

The Optimal Seating Plan

Reflecting on Teaching and Learning: Modeling

Critical Friends: Looking at Student Work

Teaching as a Team Sport

Collaborative Teaching for Interdisciplinary Learning

Collaborating Across Disciplines: Planning & Team Teaching

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Flexible Classrooms: Providing the Learning Environment That Kids Need

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How can instruction challenge, engage, and empower all students?

When you know your students well and know your standards well, it is easier to support all students-those who are ready for an extra challenge, those who are just learning English, and those who need more scaffolding and support in order to learn. Chapter 6 of Learning that Lasts describes the culture, planning decisions, and deeper instructional moves that enable more students to reach more learning targets more of the time.

Meeting students where they are as learners and helping them understand their own strengths and struggles supports teachers' efforts to challenge, engage and empower all students. from Chapter 6, Learning That Lasts

Review: Why this Practice Matters

A commitment to high-quality differentiation must be a foundation of instruction in schools that serve students with diverse learning needs. Differentiation makes it possible to challenge and engage all students equitably, and to empower students to understand themselves as learners and strive to achieve more than they think possible.

Review Figure 6.1 from Chapter 6 of Learning That Lasts, The Terrain of Differentiated Instruction. As you do so, consider the following questions:

1. How do all students benefit from doing most of their learning in heterogeneous classrooms?

2. What tools or structures enable students to lead their own learning?

3. How can you take readiness, interest, and learning styles into account when designing your lessons?

4. Which of these layers does your school currently support? How could you address the needs of all students?

Read: The Principles of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiation meets students where they are and provides them with challenging and respectful tasks that engage and empower them. It begins with creating a culture that recognizes and respects differences and enlists students as full partners in the teaching and learning process. Encouraging a growth mindset in which it's okay for students to make mistakes, to learn from each other, and to try again is key. When students know that everyone brings something valuable to the table and that "fair" doesn't mean "same," then all students expect to be challenged and also expect to contribute to the classroom community.
Review The Principles of Differentiation and ask yourself:
Seven Principles of Differentiated Instruction
1. Understand student learning strengths and weaknesses
Definition: This is the complete picture of a student's learning preferences, strengths, and challenges. It is drawn from a range of data, including the student's reflection

For example: Maria is an English language learner who is fluent in her native language,
Spanish. Her family speaks both English and Spanish. She is able to focus on her work
for long periods of time and finds learning her new language relatively simple, but she is
challenged in mathematics. This makes her quite different from Jose, even though he is
also a new English language learner. Jose is not yet literate in Spanish and his family
speaks only Spanish at home. He is nevertheless good at mathematics, especially when
manipulatives are available
2. Get to know student interests
Definition: Interest is a student's particular inclination toward a subject or activity. Interest motivates students naturally and can be a doorway into challenging work.

For example: Following the building background knowledge phase of a second-grade learning expedition about snakes, students were able to choose a specific snake that most interested them to research more deeply.
3. Identify student readiness for a particular concept, skill, or task
Definition: Readiness is not "ability" or intellectual capacity. Rather it captures the "entry point" a student needs. Readiness may reflect experiences, previous learning opportunities, emotional states, social skills, and mindset, as much as cognitive ability.

For example: Some students are ready to organize their information independently, while
others benefit from using a teacher-prepared graphic organizer to arrange information
prior to writing.
4. Develop respectful tasks
Definition: Respectful tasks motivate and challenge all students in the class. While the work may not be identical, it does not create a sense of "unfairness" in the amount or type of task required. The work should challenge students just enough to stimulate them with new learning, but not be so challenging as to overwhelm.

For example: As part of a recent study of Romeo and Juliet, ninth-grade students were given the choice of three projects with the same learning targets. One project appealed to strengths of visual learners, another to auditory learners, and a third to kinesthetic learners.
5. Use flexible grouping
Definition: Students work in a variety of configurations at the appropriate level of challenge. At times they are grouped by readiness, interest, learning style, or choice. At times they work in small groups, pairs, or individually. The groupings are determined to match the purpose of the activity.

For example: A teacher makes two pieces of text on the same content available to her class: one at grade level, and the other above grade level. One day she creates groups based on their choice of text. The next day she mixes groups so that students who have read different texts can learn from each other.
6. Embed ongoing assessment and adjustment
Definition: Ongoing assessment enables the teacher to determine students' entry points, their confusions and misconceptions, the speed at which they are grasping new ideas, and their overall attainment of new skills and concepts. She then uses the information to guide her next instructional steps.

For example: Students complete an entry ticket that assesses material taught in the previous day's class. The teacher reviews (or invites students to share out) the entry tickets before deciding what material needs to be reinforced and/or extended in the current class and for whom
7. Differentiate the process, not the content or product
Definition: Differentiating the learning process includes all of the varied instructional strategies, activities, tools, and resources that help students meet required standards- knowledge, skills, concepts, and habits-that teachers want all students to learn. A common final product allows students to demonstrate mastery of those standards. Unless a student has an individual education program (IEP) that states differently, all students need to meet the same standards, preferably with the same end product.

For example: All students are required to write an analytical essay on the play Pygmalion, discussing the internal and external changes of its main character over the course of the play. Some students are given partially filled in graphic organizers, sentence starters, and academic word banks to assist them. Others are given less "up-front" scaffolding and are provided additional time in teacher conferencing and peer review. Still others are encouraged to extend their drafts and make explicit connections to other literature they have read and studied, beyond the initial prompt.

Read and Watch: Scaffolding Lessons to be Engaging, Challenging and Empowering

Scaffolding lessons by adapting or creating appropriate supports or extensions for the students in your classroom is a way of making every lesson engaging, challenging and empowering for students. It is complex and often time-consuming work, but it gets easier with practice. Some of the do's and don'ts of supporting students' needs during ELA/literacy lessons include:
Do:

Chunk the text to make the amount of challenging text more manageable

Sparingly pre-teach vocabulary if students are unlikely to figure out the meaning in context

Provide sentence frames for conversation

Let students dictate text to you if they are working toward mastery of a reading standard

Group students strategically

Group flexibly based on assessments of progress (note: more information on flexible grouping follows)

Don't:

Change the text to a less challenging text

Pre-teach too much of the vocabulary if students can grapple with it productively and figure out the meaning in context

Allow students to be silent or passive

Let students dictate text to you if they are working toward mastery of a writing standard

Allow stronger students to do all or most of the work in a group

Create static groups that are not responsive to assessments of progress

Read the Strategy Close Up: Front- and Back-End Scaffolding Strategies for Reading Complex Text on pp. 295-297 of Learning That Lasts, then watch the video: Adapting Curriculum to Learners' Needs.As you read and watch, consider the following questions:

Watch and Try it: Adapting a lesson

Tiering tasks means creating parallel tasks at varying levels of complexity so that students can work toward the same learning targets in a way that is responsive to their readiness. By creating tiered tasks, teachers ensure that all students get appropriately challenging work-work that is challenging enough to push learning to new levels, but not so challenging that it is overwhelming. The "equalizer," developed by differentiation expert Carol Ann Tomlinson, can help teachers identify appropriate levels of complexity for different students. Review The Equalizer and reflect on how it could impact differentiation in your classroom.

Watch two videos: Tiered Lesson: Differentiation and Developing Content Mastery and Self-Reliance through Math Menu. As you watch these teachers make decisions and develop lessons and classroom structures to support students at different levels, ask yourself:

Watch: Scaffolding Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners

English language learners have particular needs that require specialized attention. To understand the context of an ELL's learning and apply differentiation appropriately, it's important to have a full picture of the student's academic, cultural, and linguistic histories. ELLs vary as widely in their learning habits, backgrounds, and home supports as do native English speakers. Literacy instruction poses particular challenges and tremendous promise, because literacy is the foundation of all learning.

Watch the video Scaffolding Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners for a window into the kinds of supports ELLs may require. As you watch, consider the following questions:

Dig Deeper

Supporting ELLs: Explore this professional learning pack to learn specific strategies for supporting English Language Learners.

Initiatives to Support Differentiation: Use these short initiatives and activities to develop a respectful and joyful culture for differentiation.

Carol Tomlinson's website: Carol Tomlinson's work has informed much of our learning about differentiation at EL Education. Explore her website to learn more.

ASCD Express: This issue of ASCD Express discusses ways to make assessment fair and meaningful for each student and how to generate assessment data that informs how you will tailor instruction to meet individual student needs.

Helping All Learners PD Pack: This PD Pack from EL Education provides a closer look at educators can serve every student, including pages on Differentiation, Entry Points, Assessment, and more.

Synthesize
For Teachers...

1. Review the Who, What, and Why of Differentiated Instruction from Chapter 6 of Learning That Lasts. What's your next step in creating a classroom where all students are challenged, engaged, and empowered?

2. What data can you look at to make reliable decisions about differentiating for your students?

3. How are you allowing students to become full partners as learners and managers of themselves in your classroom?

For School Leaders...

Resource Downloads

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Learning That Lasts: Chapter 6: Differentiating Instruction

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How can instruction challenge, engage, and empower all students? When you know your students well and know your standards well, it is easier to support all students-those who are ready for an extra challenge, those who are just learning English, and those who need more scaffolding and support in order to learn.

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For students who have a hard time coming up with a topic

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Say it with your hands... ELL learner strategies

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Say it with your hands... ELL learner strategies

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Thought starters

1. How can you build hand gestures into lesson planning?

2. How can you encourage your students to use hand gestures?

3. Why is this strategy especially useful for English Language Learners?

School Details

Glen Park Elementary School
151 Lippard Avenue
San Francisco CA 94131

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Science Social Studies Arts / 2 / Teacher

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Anna Dearlove explains how she uses hand gestures to clarify language. She says that this practice supports all learners, especially her English Language Learners. She even encourages the students to use gestures to explain their own thinking. This is an easy practice to start using right away.

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Sample of strategies that are UDL based

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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UDL Guidelines in Practice: Grade 5 Language Arts