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A Blue Print for UDL (includes misconceptions)

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A Blue Print for UDL (includes misconceptions)

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Theory and Practice. By Anne Meyer, David H. Rose, and David Gordon.

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1. Home

2. Key Questions to Consider When Planning Lessons

CAST

Author

2020

Abstract

An alternate way to consider the UDL Guidelines is to look at some key questions that each Guideline answers. When planning a lesson or unit, consider these questions to ensure that the environment is flexible and inclusive of all learners.

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Cite As

CAST (2020). Key questions to consider when planning lessons. Wakefield, MA: Author. (Reprinted from Universal design for learning: theory and practice, by Meyer, A., Rose, D.H., & Gordon, D., 2014, Author). Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/products-services/resources/2020/udl-guidelines-key-questions-planning-lessons

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Key Questions to Consider When Planning Lessons - CAST

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An alternate way to consider the UDL Guidelines is to look at some key questions that each Guideline answers. When planning a lesson or unit, consider these questions to ensure that the environment is flexible and inclusive of all learners.

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This is "UDL guidelines overview NC" by Ministry of Education on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Page 4: Goals

The teachers at Sycamore Middle School are accustomed to identifying learning goals that are clearly stated, observable, measurable, and that align with grade-level standards. As a practice exercise, the team attempts to apply what they have learned about UDL to a social studies goal developed by one sixth-grade teacher: "The students will read the textbook chapter about ancient Egypt and write in cursive a 500-word report about burial customs." Though the goal is clearly stated, observable, and measurable, the team members agree that it does not adhere to the three UDL principles. They discuss several barriers that may prevent all students in the class from achieving this goal.

Traditional Goal: The students willread the textbook chapter about ancient Egypt and write in cursive a 500-word report about burial customs.

Representation barriers:

Printed text

Some students with certain visual impairments and certain physical disabilities may have difficulty accessing information.

Some students may struggle with decoding text.

Action and Expression barriers:

Writing a 500-word report

Some students may have difficulty with cursive handwriting.

Some students may not be able to effectively organize their thoughts and put them on paper to create a report of this length.

Engagement issues are often not addressed in traditional goals such as the one suggested above.

In the example, the intent of the learning goal could be for the students to a) learn about ancient Egypt, b) to create and write by hand a 500-word report, or c) both. In this particular instance, the teacher wants the students to learn about ancient Egypt. However, he has inadvertently limited the means by which the students can learn the content (i.e., read a textbook chapter) and demonstrate their knowledge (i.e., write in cursive a 500-word report). This is a common occurrence: Teachers unintentionally create learning goals that limit the means by which their students can achieve the goal.

UDL Goal

The Sycamore team learns that the principles of UDL can be applied so that all students can meet the learning goal. As was outlined above, a teacher must first know the intent of the learning goal he or she wishes to create. Once this is accomplished, he or she can allow students multiple ways to access and demonstrate their learning.

The team now realizes that their goal needs to specify that the students will learn about ancient Egypt, and should not involve learning about writing a report. They thus set about applying UDL principles to rewrite the goal in a way that does not confound the means that students use to access information or to demonstrate their knowledge.

UDL Goal: The students will learn about and present information about the burial customs of ancient Egypt.

Representation:

Students are still required to learn about the burial customs of ancient Egypt, but they are now permitted to use alternate methods for accessing that information (e.g., audio books, digital text, internet, video).

Action and Expression:

The students still need to demonstrate that they learned about the burial customs of ancient Egypt, but they now have options for doing so (e.g., handwriting a report, making a film, recording a presentation, creating a diorama).

Issues with engagement are addressed in how students choose to access the content and how they demonstrate their knowledge. Students will complete the assignment in accordance with their learning need or preference (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic).

Additionally, now that the teachers have identified the intent of the learning goal, they can more easily provide scaffolded instruction and support their students. For example, David is overwhelmed by the number of resources he found on ancient Egypt. The teacher helps David to narrow his list of Websites or books to a few that he will initially consult.
scaffolded instruction
Instructional technique in which teachers offer support for students learning new skills by systematically building on their experiences and knowledge until they can apply the new skills independently.

Grace Meo further describes how teachers can identify a goal that is not restricted to one particular means of achieving it (time: 1:07).

Transcript: Grace Meo

Focus on identifying a goal that does not embed the means, the how to achieve the goal, since once you embed the how into the goal you're actually restricting the goal to a certain population of students. You want to remove barriers. You want to design the goal so it is encompassing of all students. For example, if one were to set a goal of writing an essay on the causes and effects of the Civil War, what would happen by including the word "write," you're going to eliminate those students for whom writing is a difficult task. If in fact, though, the goal is a skill goal in which you really do want the students to write a particular thing, then you have to provide scaffolds for the students that have difficulty in achieving that goal. It might be that the process of writing, using a pencil and paper is the difficulty, so you might provide an alternative such as a computer. Or, if it's difficult for a student to understand how to get started, you might provide a sentence starter or structure for the student so they can, in fact, achieve the goal that you want to achieve.

Activity

Given the traditionally stated goal below, help the teachers at Sycamore Middle School to a) identify potential barriers that might make it difficult for some students to achieve the goal and b) rewrite the goal so that it incorporates UDL principles. In this case, the intent of the project is for students to learn about a child's experience during the Holocaust and to present this information to the class.
The students will read the book Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and give a five-minute oral presentation about the author's experiences.
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Traditional Goal: The students will read the book Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and give a five-minute oral presentation about the author's experiences.

Some of the barriers that might make it difficult for some students to achieve this goal are listed below.

Representation barriers:

Printed text

Students with certain visual impairments and certain physical disabilities may have difficulty accessing the text (e.g., not being able to see it, not being able to turn the pages of the book).

Students with learning disabilities in reading may struggle with decoding and comprehending text.

Action and Expression barriers:

Oral presentation

Some students may not be able to organize their thoughts effectively enough to make an oral presentation.

Some students may experience high levels of anxiety or may stutter when required to speak in front of others.

Engagement issues:

The requirement to read a specified book or to give an oral presentation may present barriers for some students.

Some students might choose a different book about the Holocaust.

Some students may want to demonstrate their learning through a means that corresponds to their preferred learning modality.

One Possible UDL Goal: The students will access a biography or autobiography of a child's experiences during the Holocaust through their preferred medium and will complete a project to summarize the child's experiences.

Representation:

This goal allows students to access the content of the book through multiple formats (e.g., printed text, digitized text, audio book).

Action and Expression:

This goal allows the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the book using alternate methods (e.g., written report, diorama, oral presentation).

Engagement:

This goal allows the students to select a book that appeals to them. The teacher may provide a list of biographies and autobiographies from which to choose (e.g., Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, The Upstairs Room, Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944). Additionally, the students can choose how to access the content and demonstrate what they have learned using methods that may reflect their preferred learning modalities.

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The teachers at Sycamore Middle School are accustomed to identifying learning goals that are clearly stated, observable, measurable, and that align with grade-level standards.

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Katie Novak -  What is UDL (not differentiation)

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Katie Novak -  What is UDL (not differentiation)

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Finding the time to adapt lessons to meet the needs of every student can be a daunting task. Lesson planning with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help you design your lessons to teach the range of students in your classrooms.

UDL can transform your classroom practice. However, there is no "magic box" of tools and resources in a UDL classroom. Instead, when you integrate UDL, you'll notice the following:

There is a strong focus on goals. In a UDL classroom, there is a strong focus on learning goals for students. Teachers and students talk about why those goals matter and how they support challenging, meaningful opportunities to learn. You'll also see students creating their own learning goals.

There is a focus on variability. In a UDL learning environment, differences in experience, knowledge, and ability are expected. Flexible options are built into lessons for all students. That allows you and your students to talk about how different tools or resources support them as they work toward the goal. It also means not all of your students will be doing the same thing at the same time.

There is a focus on the barriers in the design of the environment. In a UDL classroom, the focus is on how to change the design of the curricular goals, assessments, methods, and materials - not on how to "fix" the students. For example, you may have asked yourself, "Why aren't my students engaged?" UDL would encourage you to reframe the question: "How can the design of this lesson better engage students?"

Learn more about how Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework developed by CAST, can help you design your lessons to meet the needs of all your students. Planning a lesson with UDL includes three stages:Proactive design, implementation of the lesson, and reflection and redesign.

Step 1: Proactively design

Why: We have so many goals for our students. We want them to build content expertise. We want them to build skills, develop socially and emotionally, and also meet curricular standards. One of the most critical parts of planning with UDL is to analyze and understand the different parts of a lesson goal. (Those different parts are the measurable outcomes of the lesson and are sometimes known as objectives.)

How: Take one of your curricular standards or objectives and separate the means ( how students must demonstrate understanding) from the content ( what students need to know).

For example, imagine a lesson in which your students read about the stages of butterfly metamorphosis and then draw a diagram of the process. This lesson has three main objectives - to have your students read, learn the stages of butterfly metamorphosis, and draw a scientific process. To analyze the goal, you need to identify the primary objective for this part of the lesson.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

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Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

All of the lesson's objectives are important. In the end, you'll want students to integrate all of them. But planning with UDL requires you to step back and recognize that there are barriers for students in each of these tasks. You can provide support for these barriers. Consider this:

If the primary objective is to work on reading comprehension, engaging with the topic could be a barrier. After all, butterfly metamorphosis may not be compelling to all students. Having a few topics to choose from could help students engage and build their reading skills.

If the primary objective is to learn the stages of butterfly metamorphosis, reading a complex textcould be a barrier. Because reading is not the essential part of the lesson, there could be a text-to-speech option or a video on the stages of butterfly metamorphosis.

If the primary objective is to learn how to diagram a scientific process, not knowing which pieces of information to include could be a barrier. Having the option to use a template or to collaborate with a partner could reduce the barrier and help deepen the understanding of how to diagram a scientific process.

The UDL Lesson Planning Template can help you analyze the goals and decide on the primary content or skills you want students to develop. It will help you think about the content your students need to understand, group work that may be involved, and different skills they'll use in the activity or task.

You can create flexible options in the design of the goals, assessments, methods, materials, and environment - and make them available for all your students.

How: Use CAST's UDL Guidelines as a tool to help you anticipate variability among your students. Then, design flexible learning options to align with the three broad learning networks of the brain: affective (the "why" of learning), recognition (the "what" of learning), and strategic (the "how" of learning).

Choice boards to recruit interest

Options for collaboration to sustain effort and persistence

Options for how students can reflect on self-regulation

Visual and auditory options for perception

Vocabulary supports for language and symbols

Graphic organizers for comprehension

Assistive technology for physical action

Flexible ways to draw, record, write, or build for expression and communication

Checklists or rubrics for executive functioning skills

This phase involves facilitating the lesson, observing, and getting feedback on how students are building the skills and habits.

Why: In a UDL environment, your students are invited to take charge of some of their learning decisions. That's why we say the lessons are "facilitated" instead of "taught." Students are encouraged to connect learning to real-world issues that matter to them. They're also invited to show what they know in a variety of ways and build background knowledge to become " expert learners " in the discipline.

For example, if your students typically struggle with a new concept after you present it, you could make a short video recording of key ideas. Or you could offer a bulleted list of the key ideas. Students can then choose to use one or more of those options. Make sure that there are options regularly available for any student to use as needed.

Observe how students are - or aren't - using the options.

Work with students to develop a deeper understanding of what they need - or don't need - to achieve the goal.

Offer process-based feedback to students as they are working. Connect feedback to progress toward the desired goal.

Step 3: Reflect and redesign

The reflection and redesign phase allows you to consider your next instructional moves.

Was the goal meaningfuland challenging? Did students know what the goal and objectives were so they could make progress?

Did the lesson design anticipate variability? How was there a range of engagement, background understanding, and skills? Were there flexible options available for engagement, representation, and action and expression that students could choose?

Could the lesson design further reduce barriers? Where were students still stuck or frustrated? Where did you have to reteach? Can you identify one or two new ideas you could integrate into the design of the lesson next time? How could you collaborate with other teachers and invite discussion with students for ideas to help reduce the barriers, and increase the challenge and meaning of the goal?

As the year progresses, you'll get to know your students better. Plus, they'll become more familiar with the flexible tools and strategies available to them. Lesson planning with UDL will become more automatic and will help the full range of students to become expert learners.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

Show articles Hide articles

Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

About the Author

About the Author

Allison Posey, MEd, CAST, Inc. is a curriculum and design specialist at CAST.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Brittney Newcomer, MS, LSSP is the director of instructional design at Understood for Educators, which she joined after serving in public schools for more than a decade as a teacher, evaluator, and curriculum manager.

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Lesson planning with Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

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Finding the time to adapt lessons to meet the needs of every student can be a daunting task. Lesson planning with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help you design your lessons to teach the range of students in your classrooms. UDL can transform your classroom practice.

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UDL (Part 5): Action and Expression Strategies

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Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, is a set of learning design principles that increase access and reduce barriers for all types of learners. This video offers strategies for action and expression, one of the three UDL principles promoted by CAST.

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When you plan a road trip, you know you might run into detours or roadblocks that get in the way of reaching your destination. Some of those barriers are predictable, like traffic, road work, or bad weather. Knowing and anticipating those barriers can help you plan your trip so you can still get to your destination.

Classroom lessons are no different. There will be barriers that prevent students from reaching the intended learning goals. Just like with a road trip, some of those barriers are predictable and can be reduced by careful planning and design. Identifying barriers in curricular goals, assessments, methods, and materials will help students gain the skills they need to become expert learners.

What are barriers to learning?

Barriers to learning are where students "get stuck" in a lesson or activity. For each student, barriers can differ from subject to subject and from activity to activity. A core tenet of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is to anticipate and address those barriers up front. You can do that by designing flexible lessons and learning environments rather than trying to "fix" or change a student.

Here are some examples of barriers:

Not having enough background knowledge or the required skills for a lesson

Not knowing the next steps or not receiving feedback about their progress, which can be difficult for many students, especially those who struggle with executive function

Not knowing key vocabulary terms, which can be challenging for many students, including English language learners

Facing social-emotional challenges or feeling that a lesson isn't culturally relevant or academically interesting

How can I identify and reduce barriers?

The first step is to clarify the goal (or the "destination") of your lesson. If lessons are overpacked with goals, it can be overwhelming to identify all of the barriers.

So for each part of a lesson, identify the primary goal: What do you really want students to know, do, or care about for that part of the lesson? Then, reflect on the different pathways or options students have to achieve that goal. That flexibility helps reduce barriers and increases meaningful learning opportunities. Ask yourself the following questions:

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

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Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

In addition to these questions, there are three more ways you can identify and reduce barriers in your lessons: reflect on where you need to re-teach; ask students to give you feedback; and proactively identify barriers.

After a lesson, ask yourself, "When did I need to repeat directions?" "When did I have to show students how to do something I already taught?" or "When was a student not able to be fully included in the lesson?" The answers will help you identify the barrier in your lesson. With the barrier in mind, you can then make plans to reduce that barrier by adding an additional support or scaffold into the learning environment.

For example, imagine that after you model how to solve a word problem, some students struggle to remember the process for solving this kind of problem. The barrier is that the lesson requires students to process and work with a lot of information at once. To reduce the barrier, you could create a short video highlighting the key steps of the process. Or you could provide a graphic organizer outlining the steps.

Adding those resources to your lesson and making them available for all students to reference as needed reduces the barrier. Those resources will also help all students develop expert learning skills and make progress. That, in turn, empowers students to better understand what they need to be more independent in their learning.

Whether they know it or not, students are very good at giving feedback about barriers. Think about when students ask, " Do I have to...?" That question often signals that the student is facing a barrier to learning. For example, a student who asks, " Do I have to work with a partner?" is expressing concern that working with a partner is going to get in the way of learning.

Before responding to the question, you can think through whether partner collaboration is an important part of the lesson goal. If it is an important part of the lesson, you might reduce the barrier by suggesting a few sentence starters to foster collaboration between partners. If partner work is not critical to the lesson goal, you could make working with a partner optional.

You can also use exit tickets to gather student feedback. Ask students where they were frustrated or disengaged during a lesson. Read more from Reading Rockets about how to use and create exit tickets.

Using tools like exit tickets can help you build routines to better understand the experiences your students are having in the classroom. At the same time, these routines can also build students' self-awareness and self-advocacy skills so they can recognize and address their own barriers.

You can also proactively identify barriers using CAST's UDL Guidelines. I t's a powerful tool to help you think about potential barriers to learning before delivering a lesson. With UDL, barriers can be identified in terms of:

Will reducing barriers make learning too "easy"?

It's natural to worry that offering strategies or scaffolds could lead students to take the "easy" route. And sometimes, you may want students to grapple with a concept or encounter a productive struggle. Productive struggle is about students experiencing desirable difficulty, like struggling with how to apply a particular problem-solving strategy. (It's not about being stuck while trying to read the text that explains the strategy.)

So how do you balance these concerns with reducing barriers? Here are some considerations:

Without scaffolds, students may not gain the foundational skills and tools necessary to develop expert learning. Keep in mind that most scaffolds aren't meant to be permanent, but are phased out as students build expertise. If students continue to use a scaffold longer than needed, it's a good chance to encourage them to take a risk and not use the scaffold anymore.

No lesson will ever be completely barrier-free. Each year and in each lesson, there will be different barriers for different students.

But identifying and reducing those barriers is important. Without flexible tools and resources for all students, gaps in learning outcomes will persist. This is especially true of students who come to lessons without the expected requisite background or skills.

When you reduce barriers and set challenging, meaningful learning goals, you will develop more equitable teaching practices for all students. You will have designed learning to anticipate and value student variability in your class.

To get started with finding and breaking down barriers, print or download a one-page chart that includes the three UDL principles adapted from CAST. The chart includes some questions to consider and examples of the principles in action. Keep the chart on hand when you set out to reduce barriers to learning in your next lesson or activity.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

Show articles Hide articles

Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

About the Author

About the Author

Allison Posey, MEd, CAST, Inc. is a curriculum and design specialist at CAST.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann, EdD is the executive director and chief scientist at EdTogether and an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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How to break down barriers to learning with UDL

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When you plan a road trip, you know you might run into detours or roadblocks that get in the way of reaching your destination. Some of those barriers are predictable, like traffic, road work, or bad weather. Knowing and anticipating those barriers can help you plan your trip so you can still get to your destination.

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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As schools plan for a year that may include distance learning, you may be looking for how to improve your online lesson plans. One way to make online learning more accessible to all students is Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Whether you're new to UDL or have been using it for years, planning with UDL in mind can help you remove barriers to learning in your online classroom. According to CAST, the organization that developed the UDL framework, there are three principles to consider within a UDL approach:

Here are some ways to use these UDL principles before, during, and after each online lesson.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

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Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Planning ahead is a must when using UDL in online learning. Your plans will help you be more responsive to all your students' needs. You can use this UDL lesson planning tool to lay out your lessons in advance.

Think about how you design your physical classroom to be accessible to all. Now think about how to design your online learning space with the same goal in mind. For instance, how are you displaying information to make sure students and families can easily locate it?

Consider what technology you can use in the lesson. Keep in mind that prepping your technology may take longer than you expect, especially if you're still getting comfortable with it.

Set aside time to explicitly teach about the technology you'll use. Give students and families time to explore the online learning environment just as they would explore a physical classroom during an orientation or open house.

Anticipate any misconceptions or questions students might have about a lesson's tasks, materials, or technology. Proactively address them with readily available and accessible resources.

Think about the pacing of lessons in the online setting. Plan for how you can use scheduled breaks during instruction and work time.

Check the accessibility of materials you create or use. For example, check to see if you can include captioning or speech-to-text for students who benefit from reading content. Or you can try virtual math manipulatives for those who benefit from visual representations.

Rather than taking a "one size fits all" approach for presenting information, offer different options as you teach online. Giving students meaningful choices can help them engage with the content. These choices can also motivate students to learn in challenging or new situations like online learning.

To offer choice in an online setting, you'll need to rely on the features of the technology you're using, like breakout rooms, discussion boards, screen captures, and chat boxes. When you collaborate with other staff members, including co-teachers, specialists, and paraprofessionals, you can use one-on-one or small group meetings to offer students different options for learning.

Provide choices for how students can interact online. For example, you might allow students to decide whether to join live video lessons with their video on or off. Students who have anxiety might benefit from being able to choose to keep their video off.

Offer options for how students can engage with the content. You can offer a choice board so students can choose to listen to a podcast, watch a video, or read an article about the topic.

Give students some control over how and when they engage in the work. For instance, you can record your live video lessons so students can choose to rewatch all or parts of the session.

Be open-minded about the format that students' work can take-from text documents to visual arts products. Among other options, students can make digital learning portfolios with a tool like Seesaw. Or they can use a tool like Flipgrid to make videos about their learning.

Since online learning is new for many teachers and students, take time to reflect after your lessons. You and your students can think about the roles you played in a lesson, and how those roles work together.

Help students reflect on their strengths and needs when learning online. They can keep a list of which online learning features and strategies best support those strengths and needs.

Allow students to co-create approaches for online learning activities. Students may know about different technology that you're still learning about. This is a good chance to build on students' strengths and empower them in their learning.

Learn about ways you can improve your virtual instruction by asking students what they think. Use surveys, rubrics, or journaling to give students a chance to assess their own learning and give you feedback about your teaching.

Share your insights with other teachers and staff members. Helping students better access their learning is a shared responsibility among school staff.

UDL can seem daunting if you try to cover every single aspect of it all at once, especially when you're new to using it with online learning. Begin with a few strategies and be consistent with implementation. This will make your new practices become habits.

By proactively planning for accessibility and variability, you'll be more prepared to welcome many different learning and thinking needs in your physical or virtual classroom.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

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Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

About the Author

About the Author

Lauren Jewett is an Understood Teacher Fellow and a third/fourth-grade special education teacher in New Orleans.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Gabrielle Rappolt-Schlichtmann, EdD is the executive director and chief scientist at EdTogether and an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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How to plan online lessons with Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

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As schools plan for a year that may include distance learning, you may be looking for how to improve your online lesson plans. One way to make online learning more accessible to all students is Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

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Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, is a set of learning design principles that increase access and reduce barriers for all types of learners. This video offers strategies for engagement, one of the three UDL principles promoted by CAST. Engagement considers how students are motivated to learn the content by connecting course concepts to their academic, professional and personal lives.

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The Myth of Average:  Todd Rose at TEDxSonomaCounty

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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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Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, is a set of learning design principles that increase access and reduce barriers for all types of learners. This video offers strategies for representation, one of the three UDL principles promoted by CAST. Representation considers how instructors communicate course concepts through a variety of class modes and media.

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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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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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Guidelines for Making Content Accessible

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Guidelines for Making Content Accessible

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Guidelines for Making Content Accessible

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Leverage Learning Designed to collaborate with your educator community during COVID-19. Learn More

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Design the Future

This year's Symposium will be held online and on-demand from Wednesday, July 28 - Friday, July 30, 2021. Learn more about our theme, The Future Designed, and download our submission guide. Proposals are due by 11:59 pm PST on Friday, January 15, 2021.

Learn more & submit your proposal today

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This year's Symposium will be held online and on-demand from Wednesday, July 28 - Friday, July 30, 2021. Learn more about our theme, The Future Designed, and download our submission guide. Proposals are due by 11:59 pm PST on Friday, January 15, 2021. Learn more & submit your proposal today

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Explore a Model UDL Lesson Plan

Click on the button to see how UDL principles have been integrated.

Fractals, An Inquiry: Day 1

Lesson Overview

Unit Description

This unit is designed as a UDL approach to supporting student understanding of scientific inquiry. Students experience first-hand each step in the inquiry process and how the steps systematically build toward understanding. A simple art activity that involves creating fractals with paint serves as the context for the inquiry. By situating an introduction to inquiry in art, students who might feel reluctant or incompetent in science have an alternative environment for engaging in the inquiry process. Exploring scientific inquiry through art is also a way to enable students to experience the inquiry process as a natural, sometimes spontaneous process that is intrinsic to many learning experiences.

Fractals, intriguing in their complexity and beauty, have been charted mathematically, and serve as the connection for the inquiry. By experimenting with the effects of various art media on the formation of fractals, such as the thickness of paint or types of paper used to make them, students' initial encounter with the inquiry process occurs in a non-threatening, intuitive way, so they will arrive at an understanding of the inquiry process inductively.

Lesson Description for Day

Teachers engage students in an anticipatory set about scientific inquiry. Then, a case study is used to guide students' understanding of the steps in a scientific inquiry.

State Standards

Florida Sunshine State Standards:
Standard 1:
The student uses the scientific processes and habits of mind to solve problems. (SC.H.1.3)
Standard 2:
The student understands that most natural events occur in comprehensible, consistent patterns. (SC.H.2.3)
1. Recognizes that patterns exist within and across systems

California State Standards:
Investigation and Experimentation
Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations.

Goals

Unit Goals:

1. Students will gain an understanding of the process of scientific inquiry.

2. Students will gain independence in conducting and reporting on their own inquiries.

3. Students will become aware that scientific inquiries can happen anywhere, and are a natural part of exploring the world.

Time Frame: 10 Minutes

Invite a volunteer to read the following goals aloud to the class:

1. Students will gain an understanding of the steps in a scientific inquiry.

2. Students will become aware that scientific inquiries can happen anywhere, and are a natural part of exploring the world.

Encourage students discuss with partners whether these goals make sense to them, whether they think they're attainable, and what personal resources they have that will facilitate their progress.

Methods

Time Frame: 10 minutes

Develop an anticipatory set for the scientific inquiry process for students by asking them to rate the following statements as true or false. Students can jot a 'T' or 'F' on a sheet of scrap paper as you read the following statements aloud. Afterwards, ask for shows of hands for numbers of students who answered true or false to each question. Then, discuss the implications for each statement as a class (see annotations below each question).

A. To conduct a scientific inquiry, you need a science lab with precise equipment, including microscopes, Bunsen burners, test tubes, and proper chemicals. (False-Any time you have an interest in something and decide to pursue it by developing a question, testing the question, making and noting your observations, thinking about the results, and reporting your findings, you are involved in a scientific inquiry).

B. A question you ask in an inquiry must allow you to end up with a clear-cut answer. (False-In fact, very often scientists decide that they need to do more inquiries in order to try and arrive at a clear conclusion Often a clear answer is never found to the question asked-only limited information that might apply in certain circumstances. This is how the field of science continues to grow and expand).

C. People can conduct a scientific inquiry into just about anything. (True, if the resources, time, and opportunities to do so are available).

D. You need to know something about the topic you're investigating before beginning an inquiry. (True, you must be able to connect your understanding of the topic you are investigating to the inquiry process. It would be hard for example, to test the effects of a change in diet on your pet dog's weight unless you know something about his diet to begin with).

Introduce and Model New Knowledge:

Time Frame: 10 Minutes

Build Background on the Scientific Inquiry Process
A. Overview the Steps in an Inquiry: Explain that by experimenting with making fractals the class will have an opportunity to engage in a scientific inquiry. Write the following points on the board and let students know that a good inquiry involves: Asking good questions, testing the question, observing closely, collecting and organizing data, interpreting the results to develop conclusions, and reporting on them.

Let students know that they will make some fractals during the next class, and that they will also use an inquiry process to test how changes in the ways the fractals are made influence their designs.

Time Frame: 20 Minutes

Guide students through a case study as a model of an inquiry:
Using the attached graphic organizer, entitled Max's Inquiry, share the following example of an inquiry with students. For each step in the inquiry that you describe, have students fill-out the corresponding section of their graphic organizers.

Max's Inquiry:
I am a scientist, but most people think I am just a dog. They see me at the pond and throw sticks in the water for me to fetch.

I am curious about how many sticks get thrown on the pond during the year. So the topic of my inquiry is investigating how many sticks people throw in the pond.

I wrote one sentence in the form of a question to help me focus on my inquiry. It is: How many fetching sticks do people throw on the pond?

I needed to make observations and record how, what, when, and how often I made them. I also needed to record other information that might have been important.

I counted the number of fetching sticks on my favorite pond. That's the what and how of my observations.

Every afternoon for a week, I counted the sticks on the pond - that's when and how often of my observations.

I also needed to know the weather conditions in the park on the days I counted sticks on the pond. This is the other information that could be helpful part of my observations.

I made a chart that organized and recorded all my data. Each column on my chart has a label, they are: Day, Time, How Many Sticks, and Weather Condition. Here's an example of one entry:

I studied all my entries and noticed a pattern. On days when the weather was warm and sunny, there were more sticks on my pond. This is the conclusions part of my inquiry.

Now I'm wondering whether the warmer weather brings out more people to play fetch with their dogs on these days, and if that's why there are more sticks on sunny days. This is the now I need to do another inquiry part of my inquiry. These inquiries can go on forever!

Provide Independent Practice:

None in this lesson.

Wrap-Up

Think, Pair, Share:
Time Frame: 10 minutes

Ask students to turn to a partner and share any questions they might have about today's activities. Have one partner share a question that came up for him or her, then both should discuss what they believe to be a possible answer (or answers). Then, have one partner share their question and possible answer with the whole class. Call on volunteers to add their ideas and information to what the student thinks is the answer. Be sure to correct any misinterpretations and to refine student understandings through feedback and elaboration. Repeat the process with other pairs of students.

Finally, wrap up today's lesson with a reminder that tomorrow the class will explore

Assessment

Formative/Ongoing Assessment:

During the activity that models Max's Inquiry, be sure to note which students have trouble charting the steps of the inquiry process in their graphic organizers. Collect their responses so you can study them in detail.

Be prepared for the 'Think, Pair, Share' activity with a sheet of paper divided into three columns, with the following headings: Confused, With Partner, With Rest of Class. Then, during the 'Think, Pair, Share' Activity, keep track of students who seemed confused, those who were able to generate answers to their own questions with the help of a partner, and those who needed the added insights of the rest of the class. As students respond, place their initials in the correct column of your chart. Use this information for later grouping purposes, so you can pair novice learners with those who seem more versed in the scientific inquiry process.

Summative/End Of Lesson Assessment:

None in this lesson.

Materials

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Click on the button to see how UDL principles have been integrated. Lesson Overview Unit Description This unit is designed as a UDL approach to supporting student understanding of scientific inquiry. Students experience first-hand each step in the inquiry process and how the steps systematically build toward understanding.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Implementation

Special educator Rebecca Chappell shares how she designed choice into the AIMSweb assessment through UDL. By providing her learners choice, they are more engaged with their writing and by clarifying the goal, they are finding their own motivation.

The podcast's theme music is Corporate Success by Scott Holmes, and is used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Subscribe: iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, RSS

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Episode 21 - Rebecca Chappell * Loui Lord Nelson

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Special educator Rebecca Chappell shares how she designed choice into the AIMSweb assessment through UDL. By providing her learners choice, they are more engaged with their writing and by clarifying the goal, they are finding their own motivation. Video Video with Audio Description Transcript Transcript with Audio Descriptions Follow Up Blog Post UDL Guidelines The [...]

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Check e-mail ePayStub español | 中文 | français | tiếng Việt | 한국어 | አማርኛ

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UDL Principles and Practice Video Series

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UDL Principles and Practice Video Series

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This suite of videos was created to give examples of what UDL looks like in a classroom. Examples range from Grade 1 to Grade 6.

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CAST - The Goal of Becoming Expert Learners

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CAST - The Goal of Becoming Expert Learners

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Infographic - Equality, Equity, and Expert Learning

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Infographic - Equality, Equity, and Expert Learning

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Step-by Step Lesson Planning Using Universal Design for Learning

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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Center for Independent Living - Berkeley

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The 7 Principles of Universal Design | Ed Roberts Campus

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motivation

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What are the four biggest classroom barriers that get in the way of your efforts to motivate students? Go ahead. Take a guess. Very few people get all four. I'll explain what they are in just a second but I'll give you a hint. They all have to do with things that are easily overlooked by most teachers and as a result, students end up bored, disengaged, and even defiant. Wanna know what these barriers are? They are Institutional, Internal, Interpersonal, and Instructional barriers and if you don't address these head on, they can derail even your best efforts to motivate your students. Institutional Barriers are those policies, procedures, and rules of engagement that make some students feel invisible or marginalized in your classroom. If students feel that the rules automatically prevent them from ever being successful in your class, they will not invest themselves in your classroom. Ask yourself: What kinds of students are best and least served by my classroom or by my school? Internal Barriers are those things that make students feel like what they bring to the classroom - their personalities, their gifts, their experiences, and their ways of learning - are not valued or valuable in your classroom. If students feel that they are not valued, they will not invest themselves in their learning. Ask yourself: What currencies do your students carry and value and are those currencies recognized and valued in your classroom? Interpersonal Barriers have to do with the ways that you relate to students. Typically we try to motivate students based on what motivates us. But, if you don't understand what really drives and motivates your students, no strategy you try will work. Ask yourself: What students do you find easiest and most difficult to engage and why? Instructional Barriers are those things that prevent students from actively engaging in their learning. If you don't understand how to engage students through your instruction, it is hard to keep them motivated to learn for very long. Ask yourself: What lessons do my students respond to the most and why? Take some time this week to assess which of the above barriers may be preventing your students from being fully motivated in your classroom. Next week, I'll share a few strategies you can use to overcome these barriers and get all your students motivated to learn. We want to know... Which barrier is your biggest challenge this year? Share it with us below.

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The 4 Biggest Classroom Barriers That Keep Your Students From Being Motivated To Learn. | Mindsteps Inc.

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What are the four biggest classroom barriers that get in the way of your efforts to motivate students? Go ahead. Take a guess. Very few people get all four. I'll explain what they are in just a second but I'll give you a hint. They all have to do with things that are easily overlooked [...]

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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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Guideline Checklist - not in current version order (FYI)

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Guideline Checklist - not in current version order (FYI)

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UDL in 15 Minutes (elementary and secondary teachers)

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UDL in 15 Minutes (elementary and secondary teachers)

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Yacine Hakmi and Ashraf Meguellati from Algeria walk us through the successful design they use at the STEM Teacher Training program to help teachers become excited about and apply UDL in their classrooms.

Rene shares how he brought UDL into his high school in Houston, TX when he was the principal and how the framework continued to influence his leadership as he moved through other districts and positions. BONUS: He shares a crosswalk of the intentional outcomes of UDL, PBIS, and International Baccalaureate used at his high school.

Continuing the UDL district implementation series with Fond du Lac Schools, Shannon Schultz offers a deep dive into their UDL Readiness Rubric.

Gina shares a lesson she taught in May of 2020 at the height of COVID lockdown. It reconnected her students with the great outdoors, supported their social emotional learning, and maintained their academic rigor all while using the digital learning environment. It was all planned using the UDL framework.

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We have 2 informative Podcast series. Our UDL in 15 Minutes - The Podcast is our original podcast where educators and UDL leaders share their experiences and thoughts on implementing and using UDL. This Podcast series can be found below on this page. Our UDL Research in 15 Minutes - The Podcast is our newer [...]

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Implementation

David Rose, co-founder and Chief Education Officer Emeritus of CAST (the creators of UDL) shares stories about the research that drove the beginning of CAST and UDL, what research kept them going, and where CAST is headed with the framework. This 45 minute interview was longer than expected, but so worth it.

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Episode 1 - David Rose * Loui Lord Nelson

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David Rose, co-founder and Chief Education Officer Emeritus of CAST (the creators of UDL) shares stories about the research that drove the beginning of CAST and UDL, what research kept them going, and where CAST is headed with the framework. This 45 minute interview was longer than expected, but so worth it.

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Theory and Practice. By Anne Meyer, David H. Rose, and David Gordon.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching and learning that gives all students equal opportunity to succeed.

To understand what UDL is, it helps to understand what it's not. The word universal may throw you off. It may sound like UDL is about finding one way to teach all students. But UDL actually takes the opposite approach.

The goal of UDL is to use a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers to learning. It's about building in flexibility that can be adjusted for every person's strengths and needs. That's why UDL benefits all learners.

This approach to teaching or to workplace training doesn't specifically target people who learn and think differently. But it can be especially helpful for kids with these challenges - including those who have not been formally diagnosed. It can also be very helpful for English language learners.

Watch this video to see what UDL looks like in a fifth-grade classroom.

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What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a teaching approach to help all learners be successful. Read about UDL principals and the benefits of UDL for students.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework developed by CAST, an Understood founding partner. UDL guides the design of learning experiences to proactively meet the needs of all learners. When you use UDL, you assume that barriers to learning are in the design of the environment, not in the student. UDL is based on brain science and evidence-based educational practices. It also leverages the power of digital technology.

Imagine this: Your students are going to write an essay on the stages of butterfly metamorphosis.

Some students have seen butterflies grow through the different stages at a local science museum. These students are excited to share what they know. Other students don't know anything about butterflies and are nervous to write about the topic. And some students don't like to write - they dread this activity from the moment you say "essay."

In any class, you know there's a wide range of enthusiasm, background, and skills among your students. When you plan with this range in mind, you could approach the lesson in several ways.

You could share a mini-lesson on butterfly metamorphosis and have students use a guided worksheet as they write. Or you could set up stations where students are grouped using flexible grouping around understanding of the topic, language ability, or reading level.

But take a step back. In any lesson or task, you can anticipate this range of variability among your students. There's another approach you can take to plan for this variability in all your lessons: Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Why use Universal Design for Learning?

The ultimate goal of UDL is for all learners to become "expert learners." Expert learners are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed about learning.

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

Show articles Hide articles

Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

UDL is a powerful approach because from the very start of your lesson, it helps you anticipate and plan for all your learners. It can help you make sure that the greatest range of students can access and engage in learning - not just certain students.

You don't need specific tools or technologies to follow UDL's principles either. Instead, your students choose from the tools and resources you already have. They might use them in different ways.

Also, UDL may change how you think about what prevents students from learning. Instead of thinking that something needs to change about the students, UDL looks at the learning environment. The learning environment can include barriers to learning, like the design of the curricular goals, assessments, methods, and materials. In this way, the learning environment itself can be "abled" or "dis-abled."

UDL gives you a framework to follow so you can reduce the barriers to learning. The main way to do this is to prepare a learning environment where students have what they need to flexibly meet learning goals.

What does UDL look like in the classroom?

Universal design can be found just about anywhere you look - both inside and outside your school. Curb cuts change sidewalks so that they're accessible to the greatest range of users, including people who use wheelchairs and those pushing strollers. Closed captions make television accessible to people who are deaf or who have hearing loss, as well as people at the gym or spouses who can't agree whether or not to keep the TV on at night. No two forms of universal design are the same.

Universal Design for Learning looks different in every classroom. But there are commonalities. To start with, there's always a focus on building expert learning for all. Other common elements of a UDL experience include:

All learners knowing the goal

Intentional, flexible options for all students to use

Student access to resources from the start of a lesson

Students building and internalizing their own learning

In a UDL environment, students rarely do the same task in the same way at the same time. The flexible options will differ across developmental ages. But the framework for having clear goals and flexible options is consistent no matter the grade level or content areas.

The 3 principles of UDL and how to use them

UDL describes human variability based on parts of the brain that manage the "why" (affective network), the "what" (recognition network), and the "how" (strategic network) of learning. Watch as CAST co-founder David Rose explains why UDL emphasizes variability instead of disability.

CAST developed UDL guidelines that are based on three main principles that align with these learning networks. The three UDL principles are engagement, representation, and action and expression.

The chart below includes the three UDL principles adapted from CAST. It also gives you some questions to consider and lists some examples of the principles in action. You can print a one-page version of this chart to have on hand while planning a lesson, activity, or routine for your students.

Families may not be familiar with the concept of students being active participants in setting their learning goals. They may have questions about letting students make their own learning choices.

Explain at back-to-school night or in a class that you'll be using Universal Design for Learning. You can even share a family-friendly article about the UDL approach to teaching.

Assure families that you have high expectations for all students to become expert learners in your classroom. And explain that you'll keep working with the students and their families to build the skills and interest to make that happen.

Additional CAST resources to explore

From the series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

Discover how to use Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to plan lessons, reduce barriers to learning, and engage all students.

Show articles Hide articles

Articles in this series: Reaching and Teaching All Students With UDL

About the Author

About the Author

Allison Posey, MEd, CAST, Inc. is a curriculum and design specialist at CAST.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Brittney Newcomer, MS, LSSP is the director of instructional design at Understood for Educators, which she joined after serving in public schools for more than a decade as a teacher, evaluator, and curriculum manager.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL): A teacher's guide

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework developed by CAST, an Understood founding partner. UDL guides the design of learning experiences to proactively meet the needs of all learners. When you use UDL, you assume that barriers to learning are in the design of the environment, not in the student.

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Introduction

The word "expert" probably conjures up a person who has mastered a particular skill or domain of knowledge, a professional, or a highly skilled amateur who can perform at a high level. But if we think a moment, we realize that expertise is never static. Developing expertise in anything is always a process of continuous learning-practice, adjustment, and refinement. In the context of UDL, we focus on learning expertise: the lifelong process of becoming ever more motivated, knowledgeable, and skillful.

The goal of becoming an expert learner in this sense applies to people of all ages and situations. All participants in any educational environment should be learning, growing, and improving. Thus, when we speak of expert teachers or expert learners, we do not mean that they necessarily know more than other teachers or learners. We mean they are people who continually develop in the context of their professional community, the classroom, informal settings-indeed, wherever learning takes place.

For the purposes of this book, we define expertise not as a destination-signifying the mastery of content knowledge and skills-but rather as a process of "becoming more expert" on a continuum of development. Expertise looks very different from person to person because each of us has different proclivities, opportunities, stages of development, and domains of engagement.

Everyone can become an expert learner because everyone can develop the motivation, the practice, the reflection, the self-efficacy, the self-regulation, the self-determination, the executive functioning, the comprehension, and the situational awareness that help to make experts what they are.

In educational settings, the goal of developing expertise applies to all participants: students, teachers, and all of the personnel in the system itself. If everyone is focused on developing expertise as a learner, the context is suffused with great models. Continual improvement, engagement, and growth are available to and expected of everyone.

...We define expertise not as a destination but rather as a process of becoming more expert on a continuum of development.

This emphasis on process does not negate the importance of mastering specific content and skills, but it does require us to consider these kinds of mastery in a broader context. The ultimate goal of our efforts as educators is to engage, challenge, and support each learner to become the best s/he can be. Mastery of specific content and skills serves as grist for the mill, the practice ground for developing oneself into someone who wants to learn and knows how to learn continuously throughout life. Viewing education this way profoundly changes the way we go about it. We no longer hold narrow views of what it means to succeed. Mastering content and skills or reaching particular standardized milestones are not the only measures of being a successful learner. Learning expertise cannot be measured simply by evaluating competencies and outcomes at a single point in time because learning is a process of continual change and growth.

To enable everyone to develop learning expertise we need to design learning environments that are smart and flexible enough to support this ongoing, continuous development at every level. For students, the focus of learning is the general curriculum; for educators, the focus is on teaching about learning; and for the system as a whole, the focus is on fostering collaboration and community to maximize learning opportunities for all.

In this chapter you'll first read about expert learners, then expert teachers, and finally expert systems. We separate these for the purpose of study. However, in reality they interact so closely that they are not functionally separable. By the end of the chapter it should be clear that in order to have expert learners, teachers, and systems, all three must work together as a flexible, supportive community.

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The word "expert" probably conjures up a person who has mastered a particular skill or domain of knowledge, a professional, or a highly skilled amateur who can perform at a high level. But if we think a moment, we realize that expertise is never static.

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All too often, when I speak with teachers about integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into their classrooms, I get feedback that it simply isn't possible.
"I can't provide options; I teach math." "I have standards I need to meet, so options are off the table!"
UDL is a standards-based curriculum design. This means it can be incorporated into any learning environment, regardless of subject, content, or standards. Let me explain.

When creating a UDL lesson plan, you need to start with the standard. First, determine if your standard is a content standard or a method standard.

Content standards are those that show a student has attained knowledge. For example, your student may need to know what photosynthesis is and how it works, know what started the Civil War, or be able to explain the characterization of Boo in To Kill A Mockingbird.

Method standards, on the other hand, demonstrate that a student has learned how to do something and has attained a skill. These standards are action-oriented: your students may need to know how to divide with decimal points, conjugate irregular verbs, conduct a series of steps for a scientific experiment, or come up with an intelligent response to a primary source document.

Think about the end goal you want the students to achieve. Ask yourself, "at the end of this lesson or unit, what do my students have to know or what do they need to be able to do?" Brainstorm all of the possible ways that a student could potentially show you that they have met the standard. Dig deep; it isn't easy at first!

For example, if a student needs to demonstrate he has met a content standard, you could have the student give a speech for the class, create a skit with other students, design a poster, comic strip, or multi-media presentation, or write an essay. There are so many options available for a student to convey knowledge to you.

If you need a student to demonstrate she has met a method standard, you could give the student the option of working alone, working in a group, using an exemplar or graphic organizer or math reference sheet, or working alongside the teacher.

The level of choices you provide will be determined by the standard. So, next time you find yourself reviewing a standard, don't jump to a quick conclusion about how your traditional assessment is the only way to measure if the student has met the standard. Instead, ask yourself, "is there any other way my students could show me they have met this standard?" Sometimes the answer will be no. But when we tap into our creative sides, we often find that the options we can provide are broad (and fun!).

By incorporating options into your classroom, you will captivate and motivate your students. It isn't an easy transition for all teachers. Just like students, there is a lot of variability among teachers. For some it will come easy and naturally, and others will need to try, try, and try again. Regardless of where you start, you will eventually find how well UDL works for you, your classroom, and students. Once you see the results, I promise you won't turn back.

For more information on how to design universally designed lessons for all standards, grab a copy of UDL Now!

UDL is a Standards-Based Curriculum Design

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UDL is a Standards-Based Curriculum Design - Novak Educational Consulting

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All too often, when I speak with teachers about integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into their classrooms, I get feedback that it simply isn't possible. "I can't provide options; I teach math." "I have standards I need to meet, so options are off the table!" UDL is a standards-based curriculum design.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching that aims to give all students equal opportunities to succeed, no matter how they learn. While some teachers in traditional schools may use UDL principles and practices on their own, traditional and UDL approaches to education are very different.

This chart, created with the help of the CAST, highlights some of the differences between traditional classrooms and UDL classrooms. CAST, an Understood founding partner, developed the UDL framework.

In the traditional classroom

In the UDL classroom

Teaching focuses on what is taught.

The primary focus is on teaching the subject matter students need to learn. Lessons are designed and taught with a "typical" student in mind.

That often means the teacher will present the material in one way for the entire class.

A lesson on the Civil War, for instance, might involve the teacher lecturing the class and writing facts and dates on the board.

Teaching focuses on both what is taught and how.

The primary focus is on finding ways to teach the material to the many types of learners in a classroom. Teachers plan lessons to address a wide range of needs and strengths. There's no "typical" student.

The teacher will present the material in a variety of ways. A lesson on the Civil War might include a traditional lecture. But there might also be a video for students to watch or an online class forum for discussion. There might even be a board game that students play to understand the history of the war.

Accommodations are for specific students.

Accommodations are only for students with an IEP or a 504 plan, the goal being to help these students learn the same material as their classmates.

For instance, a student with accommodations listed in an IEP or 504 plan might get an alternate format for a book, like an audiobook. But alternate formats aren't available to the whole class.

Accommodations are for all students.

The accommodations some kids might get in their IEPs and 504 plans are available to all students. The idea behind this is that all kids may benefit from multiple formats. Some say, too, that providing accommodations for all can reduce stigma students may feel about using accommodations.

For instance, if a lesson relies on a book, the book will be available to the entire class in multiple forms. That includes text-to-speech, Braille, digital text and large print.

The teacher decides how the material is taught.

The teacher teaches in one way for the whole class, and all students are expected to learn in that way.

The teacher works with the student to decide how the student will learn the material.

Teachers and students work together to set individual learning goals. Each student gets to make choices about how to accomplish personal goals. The aim to is to have the student understand how she learns and become an "expert learner."

The classroom has a fixed setup.

It looks like a traditional classroom-desks lined up in rows or grouped in pods. The teacher stands in front and teaches to the whole class at once.

The classroom has a flexible setup.

The room is laid out with different spaces for different kinds of work-quiet, individual work, small and large group work, and group instruction. Teaching is flexible, depending on the lesson and student needs. The teacher moves around from space to space, helping students as they work.

There's one way for a student to complete an assignment.

There's usually only one way for a student to show what he knows.

For instance, a book report might be assigned only as a written essay.

There are multiple ways to complete an assignment.

There are many options for students to show what they know, because students have different strengths in how they express themselves.

For example, students can choose the format for their book report, such as a video, slideshow presentation or essay.

Grades are used to measure performance.

Students get periodic feedback on how they're doing through tests, quizzes, projects and assignments. But grades typically aren't used as part of an ongoing discussion about goals and learning.

Grades are used to reinforce goals.

Students get continuous feedback on how they're doing. They're encouraged to reflect on their learning and whether they met lesson goals. Grades feed into that discussion.

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The Difference Between Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Traditional Education

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching that aims to give all students equal opportunities to succeed, no matter how they learn. While some teachers in traditional schools may use UDL principles and practices on their own, traditional and UDL approaches to education are very different.

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CRT and the UDL Connection

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UDL Talk: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the UDL Connection

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Interested in UDL but pressed for time? Well, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) has you covered! This introductory course has been designed to succinctly and effectively communicate why UDL is so important to 21st-century education, the core tenets of what UDL is and is not, and how to begin your UDL journey.

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Interested in UDL but pressed for time? Well, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) has you covered! This introductory course has been designed to succinctly and effectively communicate why UDL is so important to 21st-century education, the core tenets of what UDL is and is not, and how to begin your UDL journey.

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Welcome to the Intro to UDL resource blog for HCPSS. We hope these resources will help prepare you to meet the challenge of engaging all learners with diverse needs, abilities and backgrounds and will provide you with practical, hands-on solutions for reaching and teaching 21st century learners.

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Jen Pusateri - Personal Reflection UDL vs Traditional

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Jen Pusateri - Personal Reflection UDL vs Traditional

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Previously we shared our "UDL Accommodations Faculty Meeting Protocol" designed to help educators better understand how to incorporate accommodations and scaffolds to improve outcomes for all learners. (If you haven't already, check it out here!). The protocol begins before the meeting - asking all educators to bring a lesson plan. At the conclusion of the meeting, teachers are encouraged to choose an assignment or assessment of their own that could benefit from scaffolding and more flexibility and revise it.

We practice what we preach and provide exemplars to help you to design your lessons from the UDL lens - starting with makeovers on math lessons. Oftentimes, math remains a bit of an outlier when beginning to implement UDL. At first glance, it may not seem as easy to redesign lessons for inclusion when speaking in terms of numbers. Math teachers may feel concerned that, by offering a choice of activities, students may miss out on needed skills practice. They may worry that during a self-differentiated learning experience, students will not use the most effective strategies. They may ask whether giving access to reference sheets and other tools will lead to students who can't remember formulas and procedures for high stakes tests. And we hear you! With the help of the brilliant Nathan Lang-Raad and Karen Gartland , we have pulled together tips to implement the UDL Guidelines with a specific math focus which your math teachers can use to review their lessons.

We assure you that implementing the UDL Framework within math is very possible and helps to create a better experience for all of our learners! Through the use of UDL strategies, we encourage learners to make meaning from mathematics and persevere in their work (MPS1), to communicate their ideas and to critique other's reasoning (MPS3) , and to select and utilize appropriate tools (MPS5). By growing students' skills in the practice standards, we enable them to become expert learners of mathematics. To demonstrate this, my colleague Libby Often and I started with three different lesson plans. Check out the UDL Makeovers below.

UDL Lesson Plan Makeovers

UDL Makeover for Grade 3

Original

UDL Makeover

Methods
Grade 3 Eureka Math, Module 4, Lesson 11

Fluency practice

Application problem

Concept development

Problem Set

Student debrief

Fluency practice options

Provide an option for students to participate in one of the fluency activities outlined in the Eureka lesson. Create stations with directions on all four activities. Encourage students to choose the activity that would challenge and engage them.
Application problem options

Problem A: The banquet table in a restaurant measures 3 feet by 6 feet. For a large party, workers at the restaurant place 2 banquet tables side by side to create 1 long table. Find the area of the new, longer table.

Problem B: One-fourth of the banquet table has an area of 9 square feet. If the width of the table is 3 feet, what is the length? What is the area of the table?

Concept development options
Provide explicit instruction for learners on 36 square units. Next provide the following options to continue with 24, 48, and 72 square units.

Stay with teacher in small group

Watch recording of Grade 3.4, Lesson 11 with Duane Habecker who creates mini-lessons on youtube for every Eureka lesson. The video can be paused, replayed, etc for those who need repeated viewing of the concept. Note: The Edpuzzle platform allows educators to extend the work of a video, by placing multiple choice or open-ended questions at strategic points throughout the video.

Use the Zearn website to review and extend the work of the lesson. Zearn is a free website that mirrors the Eureka lessons

Student debrief options
At the end of the lesson, allow students to participate in the debrief by reflecting in writing, on Seesaw, or by chatting with a partner or small group regarding one of the following questions:

How did the Application Problem connect to today's lesson?

How did the Fluency Practice help prepare you for the lesson?

Assessments
Problem Set
Problem Set

Complete on paper or on Edulastic

Provide extension activities for when students finish including the following options:

Go back to fluency activities

An Open Middle problem. UDL tip: Provide challenge options that delve deeper into mathematical concepts and create connections across domains

A math fact fluency game/activity

Ensure that the following materials are available:

Manipulatives

White boards

Number lines

UDL Makeover for Grade 6

Original

UDL Makeover

Goals

Goal: To identify and represent rates and to use them to solve problems

Subgoals: Define rates as a special kind of ratio, identify and solve unit rates

Prior Knowledge: Students have already defined and used unit ratios and equivalent fractions

This will be used for: Students will use this knowledge to solve problems involving scale factor, and to represent linear relationships where the rate represents the slope of a line

Begin by activating prior knowledge. Put on a timer for 5 minutes. Ask students to review what they know about unit ratios and equivalent fractions. Options: they can talk with a partner, write/draw the answer and/or review their notes/online textbook for a refresher.

Next, introduce the goal of the lesson: Options: Ask students to explain the goal to each other or write it in their own words.

Provide the vocabulary words (Rate, Ratio, Unit Rate, Units of Measure, Quantity) and ask students to complete a vocabulary rating scale

Methods

Launch: Remind students of a commonly used rate, miles per hour. Ask students to list QUANTITIES that they see every day (e.g. desks, students, pages, hours) Then create ratios that compare these quantities (e.g., desks: student, pages: hours).

Explore worked examples

Student work from online textbook

Students summarize what they learned

Students create ratio poster and discuss

During the launch, provide explicit instruction where you pre-teach vocabulary, model a worked problem, and ask students to reflect on their level of understanding.

Provide 10 minutes for self-differentiated learning where students can work with you in a small group diving deeper into vocabulary (this connects back to the vocabulary rating scale), watch a Brainpop video on ratios, or watch the Khan Academy video on intro to ratios.

When you ask students to summarize what they learned, provide the option for them to write a summary or share a short video summary and post on a Padlet, for example.

Instead of requiring all students to make the same poster, provide them with options to create a representation of ratio, rate, and unit rate. Students can draw the poster, create an infographic on Canva, write a poem about the three concepts, or make a short video like the Khan Academy video .

Students can share their representation in small groups and have a discussion. Be sure to provide discussion questions like, "How did this assignment help you better understand the difference between ratio, rate, and unit rate?"

Assessments

All students complete:

Homework from online textbook

Summative Assessment: Quiz and Unit Test on Ratios and Rates

When you assign homework and assessments, ensure students have appropriate scaffolds.

When students take the unit test, encourage them to use the online textbook, their notes, and the representation they created about ratio, rate, and unit rate.

Include a super challenge problem on the assessment for bonus points so see which students are prepared for an additional level of challenge.

Provide an opportunity for a retake if they attend an extra help session first and reflect on the mistakes they made on the assessment.

UDL Makeover for Grade 9

Original

UDL Makeover

Goals

The original lesson has clear goals.

Illustrate the solution set to a system of linear inequalities on a coordinate plane

Use systems of linear inequalities to solve problems in context

Begin by activating prior knowledge. Put on a timer for 5 minutes. Ask students to review what they know about systems of linear equations.. Options: they can talk with a partner, write/draw the answer and/or review their notes/online textbook for a refresher.

Next, introduce the goal of the lesson: Options: Ask students to explain the goal to each other or write it in their own words.

Provide the vocabulary words (plane, intersection, system of linear equations) and ask students to complete a vocabulary rating scale.

Methods

Warm-Up

Introduce vocabulary

Provide explicit instruction

Practice - provide a point in the solution set

Warm-Up/ Vocabulary Considerations Explicit Instruction Considerations

Fun tip: Pre-survey students to determine interest areas and provide warm up word problems that incorporate their interests.

Provide explicit instruction where you pre-teach vocabulary with visuals, examples, non-examples, etc., model a worked problem, and ask students to reflect on their level of understanding.

Provide 10 minutes for self-differentiated learning and at the end of the time, ask them to complete the warm-up.

Work with you in a small group diving deeper into vocabulary (this connects back to the vocabulary rating scale)

Review a tutorial on systems of linear equations on PurpleMath

Watch the Khan Academy video (2 minutes) on systems of linear equations

Provide options for students to review sections in online textbooks, supplemental curriculum resources, etc...

Provide an engaging scenario (word problem) and provide options for students to discuss, brainstorm, write how they would approach solving the problem.

Remind students of the different strategies that are available to them when deciding where to shade (i.e, choosing a test point, changing the format the inequality is written in)

Encourage active engagement during explicit instruction through modeling, asking students to writing/type notes, and asking students to annotate diagrams either in hard copy or digitally.

You may want to provide colored pencils to help students differentiate shading but also provide the option to use different patterns for students who may be colorblind.

Use the practice problem as a formative assessment to ensure that students are comfortable with graphing equations and inequalities. The results of the formative assessment will allow you to create flexible groupings. Students who are successful with practice problems can move on to classwork, while students who struggle will continue to work in a small group for targeted instruction.

Assessments

All students complete:

Classwork/Homework Considerations

Make explicit connections between homework problems and explicit instruction, as in, "Problems 1-3 are similar to the practice problem we completed today," so they have an example as they are working.

When students complete homework, encourage them to use the online textbook, their notes, reference sheets, Desmos link...

Include a super challenge problem on the assessment for bonus points so see which students are prepared for an additional level of challenge.

Provide an answer/solution key to at least some of problems so students can ensure their strategy is correct.

Encourage students who are struggling to begin to review solution key and describe the set they do not understand as an alternative homework assignment.

Key Takeaways

Always post lesson goals and target success criteria. By sharing goals and standards with students, it sends them a powerful message that you value them as learners, that you trust them to keep you accountable, and that you believe they deserve to know about their education. Providing goals and success criteria offers the opportunity to highlight and reinforce mathematical vocabulary and procedures.

Reactivate student knowledge! Without any reinforcement or connections to prior knowledge, information is quickly forgotten-roughly 56 percent in one hour, 66 percent after a day, and 75 percent after six days. Before you build on a previous lesson, reactivate that knowledge. Math teachers are especially aware of how counting numbers leads to integers and on to irrational numbers -- without a strong base, the building will fail.

Remind students of the different strategies that are available to them to build expert learners and problem solvers.

Encourage active engagement during explicit instruction - and provide options for expression! Students need to recognize the math that exists in the world around them. Remember, what is necessary for some is important to provide as options for all.

Remember, you do not need to implement all UDL tips at the same time. As you reflect on your lesson planning process, and reflect on grade-level standards, consider incorporating 1-2 strategies in each lesson until it becomes more a part of your practice. If you begin simply by asking students where in their lives they have used ratios, or when they have needed to estimate the price of snacks they picked up at the store, you encourage them to model their lives with mathematics (MPS4). As you provide direct instruction in specific procedures, ask them to compare them to prior knowledge and reflect on the efficiency of those procedures (MPS3 and MPS8). Also, be sure to ask students to reflect on the options and choices that are most relevant, authentic and meaningful as that will help you to plan future lessons that embrace variability, target grade-level goals and foster student expert learning.

Implementing UDL is a process. Start small. Look at one of your lessons and give it a UDL makeover. We would love to hear from you. Share your work @KatieNovakUDL or submit your lesson plan for a possible feature in an upcoming post.

Looking to implement Universal Design for Learning in your learning community? Contact us.

Take the next step on your learning journey.

Learn how to engage in best practices from the Standards for Mathematical Practice and UDL strategies to increase your ability to effectively engage your students in learning mathematics. Discover more about the self-directed courses:
Mathematics for ALL: UDL for Middle School Mathematics for Everyone: UDL for Elementary Mathematics. Libby Often is currently the Mathematics Department Chair at Lowell High School in Lowell, Ma. She is a graduate of the EdD program in Math and Science at UMass Lowell. Her work has been published in Techniques magazine, published by ACTE, and the Annual Colloquium Journal, published by UML GSE. Connect with Libby @e_often.
30 Continuing Education Hours | Option for 3 Graduate Credits + 15 Additional Continuing Education Hours With Completion of Final Project

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UDL Lesson Plan Makeovers: Math Lessons (+ Math Resource Download)

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Learn to universally design your math lesson plans. See the results of the elementary lesson plan, middle school lesson plan, and high school lesson plan

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This page features Math lesson plans that follow the principles of Universal Design for Learning, and the accompanying materials. It is not necessary to write such detailed lesson plans in order to...

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Overview

CRA is a sequential instructional approach during which students move from working with concrete materials to creating representational drawings to using abstract symbols. Using this concrete-representational-abstract sequence helps students develop the thorough mental representations that are foundational for conceptual understanding.

Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom

Watch how these students use the CRA approach to solve a fraction problem. By going through this instructional sequence, they demonstrate their flexible understanding of numbers and Operations.

When teaching a math concept such as Operations or Place Value, teachers can first model it with concrete objects like manipulatives. Then, when students demonstrate mastery with these objects, teachers can work with students to draw pictures that represent the concrete objects. Finally, teachers can introduce the concept with only numbers and math symbols to target abstract understanding.

Design It into Your Product

Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

Learn how Teachley integrates representational and abstract forms to build mathematical understanding. By displaying both manipulatives and number symbols, students develop their conceptual understanding of Operations and are able to learn from multiple representations.

Products can use CRA to sequence and present their lessons using digital features such as virtual manipulatives and drawing tools.

Additional Resources

Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Factors Supported by this Strategy

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