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This digital travel companion guides district leaders and teams through four phases of implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL), with connections to state and national support along the way.

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When downloading, you may receive an error message that says the file is too large to download. Click download anyway.

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 Edutopia on voice and choice in learning

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 Edutopia on voice and choice in learning

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Top 5 UDL Tips for Developing Expert Learners

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Top 5 UDL Tips for Developing Expert Learners

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Home
Personalize Learning, LLC has restructured, and the company's founders, Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey, have separately expanded on what they do best. All students who are googling "write my essay" can find help at this essay writing service. The Personalize Learning, LLC website will continue to be available with existing resources, blog posts, and new contact information. For more information regarding the founders' services, please refer to their contact information below: Barbara Bray
Cell: 510-593-7835

Office: 510-635-0585

Website: Rethinking Learning

Podcast: Conversations on Learning
Kathleen McClaskey
Cell: 603-494-0346

Office: 603-424-4534

Website: Make Learning Personal

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What does it mean to Make Learning Personal?
The term "Personalized Learning" is very controversial and confusing. We created this site to dispel some of the myths about personalized learning and for you to:

learn about the latest research on personalized learning.

follow the thought leaders in the field of personalized learning.

hear from teachers and learners who are personalizing learning.

use strategies and tools to support changing teacher and learner roles.

OUR VISION

Each learner...

is unique and is on their own personal learning journey.

follows their passion so they discover their purpose.

has the skills to drive their learning.

owns their learning that happens anywhere at anytime.

OUR MISSION

Guide the transformation of schools to sustainable personalized learning environments.

Build a worldwide community of practice on personalized learning.

Share research and models of personalized learning from around the world.

CORE BELIEFS

Successful learners understand how they learn best.

An abundance of resources are available now to make learning personal.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the framework to make learning personal for ALL learners.

Technology levels the playing field by removing barriers to learning.

Learners learn best in a creative, flexible environment.

Use the term "learners" instead of referring to them as "students."

Learners have a choice in how they acquire information and knowledge.

Learners have a voice in how they express what they know and understand.

Learners who own their learning are intrinsically motivated to learn and succeed.

The community can be the school. Everyone is a learner and a teacher.

Learning is a process and failure is a learning opportunity.

Everything can be a teachable moment.

Making learning personal is a cost-effective way to teach and learn.

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personalizelearning-com - Write Essay for Me

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Home Personalize Learning, LLC has restructured, and the company's founders, Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey, have separately expanded on what they do best. All students who are googling "write my essay" can find help at this essay writing service. The Personalize Learning, LLC website will continue to be available with existing resources, blog posts, and [...]

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Learn the difference between assistive and accessible technologies from Joy Zabala 

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Learn the difference between assistive and accessible technologies from Joy Zabala 

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Diversity as an asset instead of a deficit 

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Diversity as an asset instead of a deficit 

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A teacher works to see the upsides in students' learning difficulties-and uses them to help all students succeed.

Nineteen years ago, I taught two Latina girls in one of my eighth-grade English classes. Julia and Lourdes (these aren't their real names) always talked to each other in the back of the classroom. I used proximity and the dad stare, and frequently asked them to pay attention, but nothing worked. I was at my wits' end. Finally, I pulled them aside after class and tersely said, "I'm constantly at you about talking. Would you please tell me what's going on?"

Julia said, "You talk really fast." Lourdes added, "We're making sure we understand."

The girls told me they were trying to translate everything that was said in class into Spanish in order to comprehend it, and then formulate their responses. Julia actually drafted her writing assignments in Spanish to get her thoughts out and then translated them into English to submit to me. I was amazed and astonished by their grit and ingenuity.

Zaretta Hammond, the author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, describes culturally responsive teaching as knowing your kids well and being able to leverage whatever they come to you with as a strength in the classroom to help them learn. Instead, I had fallen back on stereotypes and biases, which led me to deficit thinking. Before I talked to Julia and Lourdes, I viewed English language learners as having a problem that needed fixing. Instead, those girls' use of Spanish was a strength I could capitalize on to help them learn English.

Find Ways to Create Time to Think

I realized that instead of discouraging conversations between these two students, I needed to create opportunities for them to engage in discourse so that they could check their understanding.

I restructured the class to create more discourse opportunities for all students. During lectures, I built in time for think-pair-share, where students first think of a response, discuss it with a partner or small group, and then share out to the whole class. This gives students time to activate prior knowledge and to think about their responses. It also deepens their comprehension by exposing them to their peers' ideas. And when I incorporated think-pair-share into the regular class routine, Julia and Lourdes's talking went from being a problem to a strength.

Be Open to Listening to Your Students' Needs

After talking to Julia and Lourdes, I realized that English language learners-who made up 15 to 30 percent of my class on any given year-often could not understand me. I began paying attention to the cadence of my voice and slowed down so my students could better understand me. I used wait time -giving students time to think before I called on them to answer a question-so they could process their thoughts. And I began asking students to explain my instructions to the class to ensure that everyone understood them.

I also worked out a system with Julia and Lourdes so that they could let me know when they needed help. They could raise their hand at any point during a lesson and say, "Slow down, please."

I extended this practice to the entire class; students not only had permission to interrupt me if they needed clarification but were expected to. Students who felt uncomfortable speaking up in class came up with personal signals they could use with me, including a finger wave, a raised eyebrow, and a traffic system with colored index cards-red to let me know I needed to stop, yellow to ask me to slow down, and green to indicate I could move on. One student who preferred not to speak texted me during class when she had a question.

Leverage Your Students' Identities to Support Learning

Many years later, as a veteran teacher, I had a high-functioning autistic boy in my English 10 class. Because of his limited social skills, students didn't want to work with him, and he didn't like presenting in front of his peers. At first, it was challenging, but eventually he became someone his peers requested for collaborative projects because he had the ability to recall details from research. His academic ability helped bridge social divides between him and his classmates, and I also approached a popular football player to invite the autistic student to contribute his ideas during discussions and help give him a voice.

My autistic student was also great at coaching other students in collaborative learning because of his ability to read closely and point out details that others missed. By capitalizing on his strengths, he was able to show his worth and create situations where he could best show his understanding. Instead of having him present to the class, I measured his speaking standard and knowledge by listening to him coach other students. By the end of the year, he did deliver a speech, but I modified the assignment-he chose five people he felt comfortable with and delivered the speech to them during his lunch period.

Seeing Your Students' Strengths

Students don't need to be fixed. They need teachers who make data-informed instructional decisions to match best practices to students' needs. They need teachers who offer high support while holding them to high expectations by implementing appropriate scaffolds and rolling them back as the students demonstrate greater proficiency. And they need teachers who acknowledge their mistakes and engage in ongoing professional learning.

Instead of thinking of my students' diverse identities as problems to fix, through professional development I have come to understand their differences are strengths. My English language learners speak two languages, and my autistic student may have an incredibly analytical mind. All of my students possess various seen and unseen abilities. After years of practice and self-reflection, I have come to realize that if anything needs to be fixed, it is my bias.

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Learning to See Students' Deficits as Strengths

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A teacher works to see the upsides in students' learning difficulties-and uses them to help all students succeed. Nineteen years ago, I taught two Latina girls in one of my eighth-grade English classes. Julia and Lourdes (these aren't their real names) always talked to each other in the back of the classroom.

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Learn more about Clusive, our free, online, accessible learning environment.

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Why It’s ‘Self-Reg,’ Not Self-Control, That Matters Most for Kids, 

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Why It’s ‘Self-Reg,’ Not Self-Control, That Matters Most for Kids, 

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As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out - at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation - we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through.

After all, isn't it our job to teach our kids to learn some self-control?

But what about the kids who not only can't calm down, they have no idea what it means to calm down? What about the kids who are continuously over-aroused, stressed to the point where their nervous systems need not words but step-by-step embodied guidance to even begin to calm?

In the just-published Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life, psychologist Stuart Shanker of York University and the MEHRIT Centre in Canada asks us - parents, teachers, coaches, anyone who mentors kids - to think not in terms of self-control but of self-regulation.

Shanker writes: "Self-control is about inhibiting impulses; self-regulation is about identifying the causes and reducing the intensity of impulses and, when necessary, having the energy to resist."

Looking at five domains in a child's life - biological, emotional, cognitive, social, and prosocial - and how they interact, we can begin, he says, to reframe our own perceptions of what's going on with our kids, as a starting point to help them gain greater calm and attention, and also empathy for others.

The biggest lesson that I've taken from Self-Reg is that when a child insists that a teacher's voice is harsh, or a restaurant or classroom is unbearably bright or loud, we need to recognize (even though we might not experience things that way at all) that the child is very probably not lying, exaggerating or trying to be oppositional. Instead, the child's biological sensitivities may make her exquisitely reactive in a way that triggers a constant cycle of over-arousal-crash-over-arousal as she tries to cope. That's where Self-Reg comes in, with strategies for regulating the out-of-whack nervous system.

And the worst thing we can do is to ask our kids to calm - or even go to sleep - by playing with computer or gaming devices. That sort of activity only feeds brain and body hyperactivity, and when the child eventually becomes depleted, he will crave even more arousal.

Stuart Shanker and I have collaborated on research and writing projects in anthropology and psychology. Last week, after I read Self-Reg, I asked him some questions via email:
I was very struck by your point that many young children today simply don't know what the sensation of "calm" feels like. How did we get to this point, and what are the first steps that parents and teachers can take, in turning that around?
Kids get stuck in what neuroscientists call a "higher set point" - think of a car with a higher idling speed - and seek out experiences to keep their engine racing. They become so accustomed to this state that they find slower-paced activities aversive. They push their nervous system to its limits, crash, then push to the limits again. Parents need to slow things down with them. Find shared calming activities - like going for a walk, listening to music, baking - where the reward is being in this state together. The big thing is, they need to feel what it's like to be calm, not be told to "calm down."
The "Interbrain" is a key concept in your book. Can you talk a bit about what it is and why it matters so much?
The Interbrain is like a wireless brain-to-brain connection that operates, not just between a "higher-order brain" that possesses self-regulating skills and a developing brain just acquiring them, but throughout the lifespan. Our need for strong Interbrain connections is a biological imperative, and when that need wanes, this is a sign that the stress-load is too great. The old "genetic" way of thinking about the brain as an isolated organ governed by ancient mechanisms actually describes what human functioning is like when social engagement has broken down because of heightened stress.
Do parents or teachers ever snort disbelievingly at your insistence that there are no bad kids, or tell you, "look, these kids need to toughen up - if we fix for them every little sensory annoyance they'll never function in the real world?" I think it can be hard for all of us, at first, to grasp the idea you write about, of an escalating cycle of over-arousal that may be set off by sensations that - to a hyper-sensitive child - aren't small at all.
One of the most rewarding experiences has been to see teachers who did more than just snort go on to become Self-Reg champions. We place so much emphasis on how a child's learning of "calm" has to be experiential, but the same point applies to Self-Reg: You have to feel and not just read about the changes that occur when you help a child self-regulate in order to get past your initial resistance. What you are describing in your question is that true empathy for children that is our species' greatest strength.
It seems a profound realization for all of us as parents to hear what you say in Self-Reg: "All too often we confuse our needs with the child's. We seek to make children more manageable, rather than self-managing." Your program aims to change that, and has caught on not only in Canada but internationally. Why do you think this shift from managing kids to helping kids with self-reg is touching such a chord?
I think there are two reasons. The first is, because the stress that children are under today has become far too great, and for that reason, we are seeing so many problems in mood, behavior, and attention as well as a sharp rise in physical health problems. To understand why this is happening we have to recognize the many different kinds of stress that kids are under, hidden as well as overt, and learn how to distinguish between misbehavior and stress-behavior.

But the second part of the answer is that our own stress drops dramatically when we shift from trying to enforce compliance to reducing the causes of challenging behaviors and teaching kids how to do this for themselves.
Barbara J. King is an emerita anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary. She often writes about the cognition, emotion and welfare of animals, and about biological anthropology, human evolution and gender issues. Barbara's most recent book on animals is titled How Animals Grieve and her forthcoming book is Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: .

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Why It's 'Self-Reg,' Not Self-Control, That Matters Most For Kids

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As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out - at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation - we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through.

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Do you stick to your long-term goals? Or do you constantly get distracted by new ideas and projects?

Do you keep showing up when things get difficult? Or do you procrastinate and give up?

Your answers to these questions are important because they say a lot about the level of success you're likely to experience in life.

"80% of success is showing up"

That quote belongs to legendary actor, author, filmmaker, comedian, playwright, and musician Woody Allen (1).

When giving advice to aspiring writers, he elaborated on his statement this way (2):

My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book.

Some people talk. They are the ones who "strike out" and get stuck.

Other people do. They are the ones who make consistent progress and get real results.

So, what separates these two groups from each other? In one word, the answer is...

Grit

In short, grit is "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." (3)

The psychological definition of grit contains two components:

1. The ability to stick to long-term goals.

2. The ability to keep going despite adversity.

Angela Duckworth is a professor of psychology and pioneer in grit research.

In study after study, she has found that "where talent counts once, effort counts twice." (4)

She explains that finding with this formula:
TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT
When you apply effort to a talent, you get a skill. And when you apply effort to a skill, you get achievement.

Without effort, your talent is just untapped potential.

And without effort, your skill is just something you could've done, but never did.

That is why grit counts twice, and that is why it's such an important factor.

5 Ways to Grow Your Grit

Grit is the best predictor of success that researchers have found.

It helps kids do better in school, high-school students graduate, university students get higher grades, soldiers follow through on demanding military training, and adults succeed at work and stay in their marriages (5).

No matter what long-term goals you're trying to achieve, you need grit to get there.

And the good news is that you can grow your grit.

By looking at life as a marathon rather than a sprint, and by developing certain factors that are indirectly connected to grit, you can realize your potential. Here's how:

1. Pursue Your Interests

You're going to have a hard time sticking to goals that don't fascinate you.

So, the first step to growing your grit is to find something interesting.

But that doesn't mean sitting around thinking about what your passion is.

According to Angela Duckworth, it's much more efficient to get out there and try different things until you've found something you're passionate about.

Once you've done that, it's time to find a role model, mentor or coach to help you improve.

2. Practice, Practice, Practice

Hard work leads to competence, and we're much more likely to stick with things we're good at.

The most gritty people always want to improve, no matter what it takes or how good they already are.

So, when you've found your interest, put in the work to get a little bit better every day.
Compete with who you were yesterday.
Do a slightly harder workout. Meditate a little longer. Stick with a boring task even though you don't want to.

Consider these challenges mental resistance training.

3. Connect to a Higher Purpose

People who connect what they do to a higher purpose are grittier.

It's not enough to have a compelling interest.

You also have to take a step back and understand how what you do contribute to the well-being of others.

That is not only useful for increasing your grit. It also helps you enjoy the task more.

So, reflect on how what you do benefit the people around you.

4. Cultivate Hope

If you want to reach your goals, you first need to believe it's possible.

Limiting beliefs about your abilities being fixed and unalterable affects your grit negatively.

And they are also plain wrong.

Research has shown that you have the possibility to change your brain and learn new skills throughout your life.

Your brain is "plastic"(6), and you can reshape it through effort and experience.

So, go after your goals with the belief that you can improve if you work hard at it.

Because you can.

5. Surround Yourself With Gritty People

The people around you have a huge influence on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

When you spend enough time with a particular group of people the way, they do things become the way you do things.

Their norms and values will rub off on you and become your new standard.

So, one of the most efficient ways to grow your grit is a kind of positive peer pressure.
Surround yourself with gritty people, and it's only a matter of time before you're just as gritty yourself.
How to Grow Your Grit, In Summary

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. - Jonah Lehrer

Successful people stick with their long-term goals instead of getting distracted, and they keep showing up, even when it's difficult.

If you lack those abilities, you can grow your grit in these five ways:

1. Pursue your interests. Find something that fascinates you.

2. Practice, practice, practice. Get a little bit better every day.

3. Connect to a higher purpose. Ask yourself how you are helping other people.

4. Cultivate hope. Remove your inaccurate, limiting beliefs.

5. Surround yourself with gritty people. Create positive peer pressure.

80% of success is showing up. With that in mind, what will you stop talking about and start doing?

Footnotes

1. Woody Allen

2. On Language; The Elision Fields

3. Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals

4. Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success by Angela Duckworth

5. The grit effect: predicting retention in the military, the workplace, school and marriage

6. Neuroplasticity

Picture by Francesco Gallarotti.

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This is How to Grow Your Grit: 5 Secrets From Research

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Do you stick to your long-term goals? Or do you constantly get distracted by new ideas and projects? Do you keep showing up when things get difficult? Or do you procrastinate and give up? Your answers to these questions are important because they say a lot about the level of success you're likely to experience in life.

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When Students Learn to Choose, They Choose to Learn

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When Students Learn to Choose, They Choose to Learn

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I was recently working with a group of high school teachers, and they voiced a concern that I've heard many times. "Our kids are so compliant," they groaned. "They don't have any internal drive at all. They just ask, 'What do I have to do to get an A?' or when we try to give them some choice or control over their work, they plead, 'Can you just tell me what to do?'"

Sadly, this sentiment was echoed by a friend of mine who is a college professor. "My students come without any ideas of their own. They simply want to be told what to do and then do the least amount possible," she complained. "I'm looking for students who are ready to take a stand - take chances - and the kids I get want me to hold their hand and lay out every detail of their work for them."

There are two things that I find unsettling about this:

1. Skills such as innovation, drive, flexibility, and a strong work-ethic are often cited as the most important skills needed in today's economy.

2. Perhaps more troubling is that kids don't initially enter school like this. Have you spent time in preschool classrooms? Have you ever met a four year-old who isn't overflowing with creative ideas and intrinsic motivation? In his wildly popular TED talk, Ken Robinson makes the uncomfortable assertion that schools squash creativity instead of nurturing it. I've seen this over and over again. In elementary schools, we train kids to be teacher-pleasers. In middle school, we teach them how to jump through hoops to get grades, and by high school, they have learned how to simply comply to get by.

It doesn't have to be like this!

One of the ways we can help students retain their intrinsic motivation and independent thinking (or help older students regain it) is through offering more choices about their daily learning - an idea I explore thoroughly in my new book, Learning to Choose, Choosing to Learn: The Key to Student Motivation and Achievement. After all, if we want students to develop skills of creative thinking, innovation, persistence, and flexible thinking, we'd better start giving them chances to have more control over their learning. This can be as simple as allowing students choose a good place in the room to work or helping them decide whether to work alone or with a partner. It could also be something more complex, like taking on an independent research study as part of a thematic unit.

A central idea of this book is that using choice as an instructional strategy involves more than simply giving students choices - we have to teach students how to choose well. How do we do this, you wonder? I'd like to share a couple of ideas for you to consider.

IDEA 1: Use a three-step process for facilitating choice: Choose-Do-Review.

Choose: When offering students choices about their learning (for example, two different ways to practice a math skill or three different articles to prepare for a class discussion), give them a bit of time to examine the options and think about which might be a good fit for them.

Do: As students are working, support and guide their work. If needed, you might help students refine, change, or reflect on choices they have made.

Review: After students finish their work, give them time to reflect on the work they have done and the choices they made. This helps build skills of metacognition and enables students to become better at making choices in the future.

IDEA 2: Scaffold choices for students, according to their needs and experiences.

Too many choices or choices that are too open-ended or complex can be overwhelming for students who don't have much experience with making decisions about their learning. Consider starting the year off with small, bite-sized choices and then, as students are ready, offer more open-ended or complex choices.

IDEA 3: Deemphasize teacher-pleasing. Emphasize student ownership of work.

When students are hyper-focused on doing what teachers want, they can't focus on their own needs or interests as learners. We need to help students take more ownership of their learning, which means that we need to own the work a little less. Replace teacher-centric phrases such as, "I'm looking for students to..." with "Think about your goals as a learner."

Deemphasize traditional grades, especially ones geared toward boosting student compliance such as class participation, bringing in homework, or showing effort. Don't incentivize learning. As soon as we say, "Do your work and you'll get extra recess" (or bonus points, or a piece of candy, or a dollar for the school store) we have just stripped the work of intrinsic motivation. If you're interested in exploring some of these ideas in more depth, you might check out a couple of Pinterest boards I have put together:

IDEA 4: Create good choices.

Without good options from which to choose, it is hard for students to get better at making effective choices. Good choices match three key criteria:

1. They connect with content. Good choices are directly connected with the learning goals of a lesson, activity, or unit.

2. They match students. Good choices must resonate with students. They align with their interests and needs. They are a good fit developmentally. They allow students to tap into their passions and quirks.

3. They match logistics. Good choices have to be manageable for us as teachers. They must fit within the time we have (for planning as well as class time), the space we have, and should involve materials that are easily accessible.

So, if you want your students to practice skills of effective-decision making and feel more authentic ownership over their work, if you want to help students tap into (or reignite) their intrinsic motivation for learning, consider not just offering them more choices about their daily work-help them learn how to choose well. Your students might surprise you with how ready they are to learn!
Mike Anderson is an education consultant, and the author of ASCD's April 2016 editor's pick member book, Learning to Choose, Choosing to Learn: The Key to Student Motivation and Achievement. To learn more about Mike and his work, visit his website: leadinggreatlearning.com.

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When Students Learn to Choose, They Choose to Learn - Learning Personalized

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I was recently working with a group of high school teachers, and they voiced a concern that I've heard many times. "Our kids are so compliant," they groaned. "They don't have any internal drive at all. They just ask, 'What do I have to do to get an A?'

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5 Tips for Getting all Students Engaged in Learning 

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5 Tips for Getting all Students Engaged in Learning 

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5 Tips for Getting All Students Engaged in Learning - Brookes Blog

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What's lesson one for teachers who want students to successfully grasp, retain, and apply new material? First-say Whitney Rapp and Katrina Arndt, authors of the inclusion book Teaching Everyone-you need to recruit their interest. And that means finding ways to make learning "relevant, authentic, and valuable" in students' lives.

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Presented by Andratesha Fritzgerald

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Universally Designed Environments as a Key to Engagement - Tesha Fritzgerald

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Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors 

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Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors 

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Presented by Rudine Sims Bishop

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Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors

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Blog by Katie Novak Comparing Differences between Equity, Equality, and Expert Learning 

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Blog by Katie Novak Comparing Differences between Equity, Equality, and Expert Learning 

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One of my best friends, Kate, regularly blesses us with drool-worthy confections worthy of winning fine arts awards. She is the ultimate expert baker. Every cupcake, cookie, and cake is perfection - moist, crunchy, chewy - and just as it should be in its perfect form.

I, on the other hand, am no expert baker. My cookies are flat, my brownies are dry, and I only make cake from a box. I know why. It's not worth the effort. I rarely measure with the precision baking requires. I don't invest in high quality ingredients. I just don't love sweets that much and early on, I decided cooking was not what got me excited (it may have to do with my family's lack-luster reactions to the "spaghetti pie" I baked for them in 7th grade!)

Expert learning is not about being good at everything. It's about focusing on your individual needs, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and relying on supports in areas where you aren't as strong. It's about doing things the way you need to do them to reach your highest level of success. Expert learners, according to the UDL definition, are:

Purposeful & motivated

Resourceful & knowledgeable

Strategic & goal-directed

If I wanted to become an expert baker, for example, I certainly know I am capable of doing it, by relying on expert learning. For example, I know I am not a natural at pairing ingredients. Recipes would be my first scaffold. I don't like having gadgets in my kitchen (a real barrier to baking!), but I recognize that investing in the right tools would assist me with mixing, frosting, and decorating. I would need to be more careful in my approach: no ingredient substitutes; sift my flour; level my dry measurements with a knife. I know this because I have made mistakes with baking and learned from those mistakes.

When we teach our kids, we often rely on a one-size-fits-all lesson plan. We teach for the kids who are ready to learn, giving them all "equal" treatment. But the fact is, not all kids are dealt the same set of cards. When we focus on equity, we provide kids with the supports they need to be successful by removing barriers. Some kids may get more support, and others will get less, to put them all on equal ground. Expert learning goes a step further to allow kids to have a say in the supports and tools they need and allows them to focus on their needs and preferences as an individual. It isn't about just changing the level of support, it's about changing the kind of support as well.

In our upcoming book, "Unlearning," Allison Posey and I discuss equality, equity, and expert learning in great detail. We wanted to share this visual from the book, which is an update on the ol' baseball equality vs. equity visual to show how expert learning builds upon the original concept of equity by promoting engagement and involvement. Without further ado, here it is: Expert learning, Equity & Making Cookies.

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The difference between equality, equity, and expert learning

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One of my best friends, Kate, regularly blesses us with drool-worthy confections worthy of winning fine arts awards. She is the ultimate expert baker. Every cupcake, cookie, and cake is perfection - moist, crunchy, chewy - and just as it should be in its perfect form.

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New restaurant staffed with deaf waiters

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Universal Design for Learning Implementation and Research Network

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UDL From the Parent Perspective - Universal Design for Learning Implementation and Research Network

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So you know about Universal Design for Learning from the education perspective, but what do parents know about UDL? Here are a few resources aimed towards parents that explain what UDL's purpose is in the classroom: Inclusive School's Sarah Humphrey

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October 2019

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A UDL mindset expects every class to be comprised of students with a range of needs, interests and abilities and for those needs, interests and abilities to vary from subject to subject, topic to topic, teacher to teacher and so on.

Why is UDL helpful?

When a teacher enters a class with a UDL mindset they see learner variability as the norm rather than the exception and they intentionally plan for that. Planning for learner variability means offering flexibility and choice in the ways students can work towards the same learning goal and helps to keep expectations high. Just like the choices available for accessing a multi-storey building - people can choose to use the stairs, a ramp, a lift, an escalator based on their needs or preferences.

How is UDL different to differentiation?

If a task is universally designed, then consideration is given to the potential barriers in the curriculum, instruction and materials and how these can be removed to ensure every learner can succeed (Humphreys, Jimenez 2018). The teacher considers different options to motivate learners (engagement), different ways to support understanding (representation) and different ways for learners to show what they know and understand (action & expression). The way this differs from differentiation is that instead of the teacher giving an individual child an additional or adjusted task/method, the child can select from the 'buffet' of options made available to the whole class. The advantages of making the supports available to everyone are that:

what is essential for some students can now be beneficial for others

the goal is separated from the means creating opportunities to achieve the same goal but in different ways. In other words there is more than one way to skin a cat.

supports to address the needs of all learners are embedded in an inclusive lesson design and not added-on as something extra or different.

How is UDL relevant to my child?

UDL is relevant to every child since the goal of UDL is to develop expert learners. Expert learners are defined by CAST as being "purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, strategic and goal-directed". With UDL students learn to take responsibility for their own learning. This could be the way they select technology to support their writing, the way they use marking criteria to self-reflect and improve their work, or the way they seek support to manage frustration or stress.

How can UDL support parents to engage with their schools?

If your child is experiencing difficulties at school socially, emotionally or academically UDL is an approach that can help guide conversations with your school. Focus on what your child can do, what the current barriers are in the learning environment, and work together to come up with solutions. Even if your school has not heard of UDL, you can apply a UDL approach to how you respond to and ask questions.

Some examples that may help:

When you hear this... Your child's handwriting is very slow/difficult to read.

Ask this... What is the purpose of the task they have been given? What are the alternatives to handwriting and when could they be used?

Examples of a UDL response in practice... Teacher makes the learning intention very clear to the class and gives students the choice of how they demonstrate their learning e.g. handwriting, word processing, using mind-maps or illustrations, working in groups with assigned roles such as narrator and scribe.

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UDL and Parent Engagement - Authentic Parent Voice

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a very practical framework that can be used to guide inclusive education. UDL is not only about a way of 'doing' but also about a way of 'thinking'.

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Interview with Zach Smith Supporting Students with Disabilities 

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Interview with Zach Smith Supporting Students with Disabilities 

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The Differences Between Accommodations and Modifications

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The Differences Between Accommodations and Modifications

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The Difference Between Accommodations and Modifications

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Accommodations and modifications may be part of a child’s IEP or 504 plan. Learn how they’re different and how each can help students learn.

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How I Learned to Foster Relationships Through UDL and SDI

My first few years as a special education teacher were rocky. I was rich in confidence and poor in knowhow - a very dangerous combination. Having grown up with three adopted siblings with Down syndrome - Meghan, EJ, and Maddy and two adopted siblings from Ethiopia - Mariam and Nathan, I knew the "one size fits all" approach did not work but I had no earthly idea what to do about it. I remember dinner table conversations recounting the most recent IEP battle where a school was trying to push Meghan, EJ, or Maddy out of their grade level classroom. I remember conversations with Mariam and Nathan about teacher after teacher having no idea how to connect with black students and my siblings dealing with being warned who the racist teachers were in their first few days of high school by teachers on their campus. In many ways I came into the profession angry, but limited in knowing how to channel these emotions into a changed system. With these sets of experiences and since there were no inclusion teacher positions in my area, I started my first job working in a lovely little school in California's Central Valley as a teacher in a self-contained special education classroom.

My first strategy was to find some sort of way to teach that accounted for diversity. Something that could support a teacher in their ability to teach rigorous content to a diverse set of learners with varied strengths and support needs. I remember being at Fresno State and sitting in Emily Nusbaum's special education class in 2006 and first learning about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This instructional framework started with the simple idea to teach content in a varied set of ways by providing multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression. I found UDL's power to actually be its simplicity. I could take the lens UDL provided and apply it to any instructional model. With each new lesson, I could go deeper into the UDL principles, starting with the guidelines and moving to the checkpoints - building my skills incrementally as I learned from each student in my classroom.

So at this point you may be asking where the "rocky" part of my story comes in. A more inclusively designed self-contained classroom wasn't my goal. In fact, I found the better and more dynamic my teaching practices were, the more enticing it was to push students out of their general education classrooms. Dynamic instructional design was not enough because the system did not have a way to cross pollinate practices. A truly inclusive system needs dynamic instruction to be the starting place for general education and not found only as a practice of its margins. I quickly realized I had to find a way to build more inclusive experiences for my students. Experiences learning in flexible general education classrooms that were ready to meet the needs of any student walking or rolling through the door. This led to my second strategy (and in many ways my toughest learning lesson) - I studied everything I could in how to build inclusive practices. I learned all about individualized participation plans, IEP matrices, goals with built in generalization clauses, ecological inventories and many more strategies. My students came to their general education classes with a folder full of IEP-based and individualized resources. The papers were always crisp and clean, and every teacher had a thoughtfully selected area of the room where those resources were to be housed.

Now this is probably where veteran teachers reading this start to roll their eyes 🙄 because do you know where those beautifully prepared folders ended up staying? You guessed it, in those neatly selected areas of the room - eventually being covered in dust. I made the mistake of starting with the tool instead of starting with the relationship. My wonderful general education peers were so kind and many I'm sure glanced at the resources, but realistically they didn't have time to pour over them like I was hoping they would. They had common formative assessments to grade, phone calls to make, lessons to design, report cards to craft, and many other duties related to their teaching a class of 30+ students. I was trying to support them from my vantage point as a special education teacher. I wasn't taking the time to build professional relationships, learn the challenges they were facing in their classrooms, and discover their hopes and anxieties related to the students coming from my classroom. I could sit back and complain about the several millimeter thick layers of dust covering my students' inclusion folders or I could get to know my general education peers and unearth the root cause for why these supports were not being consistently put in place.

"Relationships need to drive everything when thinking about building more inclusive and better designed instruction."

I made the rookie mistake of starting with a tool over the relationship. Those first few years of teaching taught me relationships need to drive everything when thinking about building more inclusive and better designed instruction. And in order to cultivate these relationships (whether with our students or our peers) we need to be humble enough to learn other's perspectives and discover what they daydream and have nightmares about. It wasn't until I scheduled weekly meeting times with those teachers and learned more about their instructional expectations, support needs, hopes, and anxieties related to including students with disabilities that I was able to design tools they actually found useful. It was in these meetings where we eventually co-designed ongoing collaborative communication tools/strategies that actually worked and were much more relevant, intuitive, and actionable then anything I could have prepared on my own. And to add icing on the cake, the time spent in collaboration ended up saving me time because I now knew where the actual pain points were for my teammates and overtime we built a strong enough rapport to address instructional issues head on rather than guess what the other teammates were thinking. Gradually we also learned from each other more broadly, my general education partners began incorporating UDL as they discovered the positive ways a flexible model impacted students coming into their classroom and I started to develop a more rigorous series of expectations for my students to apply UDL to as my general education partners exposed me to the non-negotiables of their content standards. Together we took steps to be a more deliberate problem-solving organization, where the diversity of our students and our positive working relationships pushed us to be better as individuals and better as a team as we learned from each new student and their unique needs.

So in closing, learn from my mistakes - foster relationships before strategies and support tools and apply UDL within the context of your collaborative team to create engines of innovation, problem-solving, and inclusivity. You'll be better for it and your students will be empowered as your team learns from them and their amazing variability.

To learn more about ways to foster general education and special education partnerships in both in person, virtual, and hybrid learning spaces please check out my new asynchronous course - Universal Design for Learning & Specially Designed Instruction.

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My Rookie Mistake in Special Education - Fostering Relationships

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The importance of fostering relationships through Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

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"My Struggle with the Word Disabled"

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If you've heard me present, you'll hear me say, "It is not our learners who are disabled. It is our systems, our curriculum." This is not to say that our learners don't have disabilities because they do. Disability is a source of identity, pride, and civil rights. As a mom of a daughter with a disability, I wouldn't trade her, or her disability, for anything in the world. My struggle recently is whether disability and "disabled" are the same thing.

By writing this post, I hope to continue difficult conversations about disability so as a field, we can get this right. I will share my own thinking, not because it is right, but because it is mine. Also, I encourage you to share your own thinking. Because your voice matters.

To give some background, I posted the following quote on Twitter, "Learners are not disabled. Curriculum is. Systems are. But kids are not."

UDL founders, David Rose and Anne Meyer have said since UDL's infancy that "disability is contextual." In the book, UDL Theory and Practice (Meyer, Rose, and Gordon) the authors reflected on the beginnings of UDL and noted:
In the early 1990s, we shifted our approach to address the disabilities of schools rather than students. We later coined a name for this new approach: universal design for learning (UDL) .... Today, the public mindset is beginning to shift away from a medical model of disability towards a recognition that context and self-awareness as a learner both play a huge role in whether any given condition is disabling or not.
My thoughts are impacted by these foundational beliefs as well as a focus on "people first" language. We often don't call our students "disabled students" but students with disabilities. This perspective is addressed in a blog written by Tilly Griffiths in the Stanford Daily. "I have a disability, but I'm not disabled."
To me, the term "disabled person" with which I am most familiar back in the UK implies that a person's disability is all-encompassing and defines their entire existence. "Disabled" can easily be interchanged with similar words that suggest a wholly non-functioning, incapacitated state and, from personal experience, I know this to be far from the case. In contrast, the term "person with a disability" more commonly used in the U.S. implies that just one or more particular aspects of that person causes them to face additional challenges and, for me, this would be my weak muscles and inability to walk. This choice of syntax not only makes the individual the primary focus of the statement instead of their disability, but also more accurately portrays the nuanced nature of disability. It is not my intention to distance myself from my disability entirely as I am eager to acknowledge this as a significant part of who I am, however it is just that - one part of a complex and wonderful whole.
When I say curriculum is disabled, I think of the word differently than disability. What I know is that curriculum doesn't work for many students, for many reasons, when it is one-size-fits-all. To me, that makes it disabled. But then some amazing colleagues, who respect me enough to push my thinking, shared the following. I honor and respects their points of view and expertise without reservation, so now the difficult conversations begin. These colleagues shared their thinking with me on Twitter (see below).

So now, I am reflecting and struggling with the use of the words "disability" and "disabled." I would love to hear your perspectives, and I am happy to share them. If you have articles, tips, or just want your voice to be heard, please write to me.

Share your thoughts with me @KatieNovakUDL on Twitter - post text, audio, or video me and I will post your insights and perspectives in a series of blogs and we can be transparent about our conversations and why they matter. This, at its core, is what expert learning is all about. I recognize I have a platform and want to use it to push our field forward. So grateful for all of you.

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My Struggle with the Word Disabled - Katie Novak

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My struggle recently is whether disability and "disabled" are the same thing? It is not our learners who are disabled. It is our systems, our curriculum. This is not to say that our learners don't have disabilities because they do. Disability is a source of identity, pride, and civil rights.

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UDL Strategies to Provide Specialized Instruction

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UDL Strategies to Provide Specialized Instruction

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New restaurant staffed with deaf waiters

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

Coming soon! UDL Guidelines 3.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review the Summary

Explore the Full Draft

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

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Short video lecture by Todd Rose who discusses why variability matters. Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, does a great job of helping understand why there is no such thing as average. 

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Short video lecture by Todd Rose who discusses why variability matters. Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, does a great job of helping understand why there is no such thing as average. 

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We are all learners with aspirations and passions that deserve to be supported in every way possible. Learning changes lives by helping us develop the will, knowledge, skill, and capacity to achieve our aspirations. Learning needs to happen in different ways so we use various strengths and resources…

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FREE E-Book Written by CAST

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Read Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice for Free in Clusive! - CAST

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Our flagship publication is now available at no cost on our flexible and customizable digital reading tool.

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Educational Benefit and the Standards- Aligned IEP 

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Educational Benefit and the Standards- Aligned IEP 

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The Evolution of Inclusion: The past and future of education

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Recorded by James McKenna

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When downloading, you may receive an error message that says the file is too large to download. Click download anyway.

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California Private School Conference - Educators

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Student Centered Planning for Students with Significant Disabilities 

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Student Centered Planning for Students with Significant Disabilities 

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Placement in the Least Restrictive Environment 

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Placement in the Least Restrictive Environment 

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Research Support for Inclusive Education 

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Research Support for Inclusive Education 

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Least Restrictive Environment: What You Need to Know 

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Least Restrictive Environment: What You Need to Know 

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Least restrictive environment, or LRE, means a child who gets special education should learn alongside general education peers as much as possible. Learn more.

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How one school that does not subscribe to the practice of "teaching to the test" improves student outcomes 

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How one school that does not subscribe to the practice of "teaching to the test" improves student outcomes 

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Nothing lights up public education arguments quite like tests. They're the heroes and/or villains of so many narratives about public schools, unavoidable variables in our arguments about everything from pre-K to early literacy, charter schools, federal accountability, teacher evaluations, and more. They determine how we define quality, success, effectiveness, efficiency, academic growth, and proficiency in public education. Everyone-whether they love or hate tests-uses data from assessments to decide what works in schools.

The heated debates about standardized testing might, however, obscure the real issue. In Chicago, one elementary school is complicating these conversations. Through its testing practices, it's suggesting that the real question isn't one of whether schools should test or not, but of how the schools prepare their students.

Split Down the Middle

One of the central testing debates revolves around "student achievement mandates"-assessments that states and/or the federal government require students to take during their time in public schools. Specifically, under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), all states administer annual literacy and math assessments to all students in third through eighth grade, and at least once during their high school years. States must also administer a science assessment once in late elementary grades, once in middle school, and once in high school. These are the most controversial assessments in use in the United States today, largely because they form the backbone of the systems that track how schools are doing at advancing student achievement in these subjects. To varying degrees, depending on the state (and other factors), schools where students persistently struggle on these assessments can face pressure and accountability consequences if they do not.

This system aims to provide a public mechanism for pressuring schools to prioritize academic achievement for all students. Unsurprisingly, most civil rights groups have championed these standardized tests as a critical safeguard against educational inequity, in light of the country's long, embarrassing history of marginalizing and/or ignoring many groups of students-particularly students of color-and their educational needs. They argue that these tests shine a light on inequities that would otherwise go unnoticed.

But that hasn't prevented intense arguments since the current form of the federal testing mandate launched almost twenty years ago. Above all, critics have complained that school quality shouldn't be reduced to academic achievement in just two subjects. They warn that these tests unduly punish students growing up in low-income households and students from other historically underserved racial or ethnic groups. They claim that federal pressure has forced schools to shift their models to focus on literacy and math-to "narrow the curriculum" and teach to these tests. They fret that federal support of states' standardized tests is reducing public education to a rote, bloodless, boring experience. Above all, they argue that this narrowing trend is especially common in schools with high percentages of low-income students, who have historically performed poorly on these assessments.

But what if these arguments miss the point? What if the tests aren't the problem...but, rather, how schools have responded to them?

An Alternative, "Whole Child" Approach to Education

Earlier this fall, I visited John C. Haines Elementary, one of the highest-performing campuses in Chicago Public Schools. According to the state's standardized tests, Haines students are doing extremely well-they score in the top 10 percent of Illinois schools for academic performance in math and reading, and fully 51 percent of Haines's students from low-income families scored proficient or better in literacy, compared with just 23 percent of Illinois' low-income students. Similarly, 61 percent of Haines's low-income students scored proficient or better in math, compared with just 17 percent of Illinois' low-income students. Incidentally, nearly 90 percent of Haines students come from low-income families, and almost 30 percent are currently classified as English learners.

How does a school get these kinds of results? Does Haines drill students each day on sample test questions? Does it impose draconian disciplinary regimes to maximize order and student attentiveness?

No. As I wrote in an article for Edutopia last month, the answer at Haines may surprise educators who feel pressured to teach to state academic tests. Instead of intensive test prep,
Haines offers an effective, alternative path, one in which learning isn't reduced to rote drills and test prep worksheets. By engaging students' identities and giving them a voice in shaping their classrooms, Haines prepares students to succeed academically and to think about how their actions can shape their broader community.
At every turn, Haines treats students as individuals who have their own interests and their own ideas about how they learn best. It recognizes that their social and emotional development is a foundation for academic growth-and understands that math and reading skills develop best when they're part of bigger projects.

In essence, Haines educators do the opposite of the just-so curricula-narrowing story about what happens to schools that are forced to regularly administer standardized tests: instead, Haines offers a broader, "whole child" approach to learning that treats academic achievement as one part of healthy, successful development. "The vision and the mission of the school really kind of break down to giving our students all the experiences in their education," says eighth-grade social studies and language arts teacher Cristina Sicora.

In essence, Haines educators do the opposite of the just-so curricula-narrowing story about what happens to schools that are forced to regularly administer standardized tests: instead, Haines offers a broader, "whole child" approach to learning that treats academic achievement as one part of healthy, successful development.

For instance, the walls and staircases are covered with images from diverse cultures' mythological stories, as well as with multilingual messages about persistence and hard work. Given that many Haines students are children of immigrants-and/or immigrants themselves-many teachers select books (and build units) with the U.S. immigrant experience in mind. They pay special attention to texts that relate to students' languages and cultures. "I make it personal, about them, and then their interest is piqued because then they're always doing that comparison with their lives," says seventh-grade English language arts (ELA) teacher Rebecca Grober. "These kids...they have it, they're deep."

This rich, whole-child approach shows up in other ways, as well. School leaders incorporate project-based learning into their curricula. In past years, students have identified a range of neighborhood concerns-such as homelessness and cigarette smoking near the school-and used these as prompts for interdisciplinary academic units with real-world activism as their goal.

The student-empowering element of Haines's model extends to its disciplinary model. Classes run according to their "social contracts," which are systems of rules that each class develops through discussions at the beginning of the school year. In Danielle Scaletta-Bruno's third-grade class, the contract has a list of imperatives: "Be polite. Be respectful. Be here and present. Be helpful." It also asks signatories to "apologize and forgive," and "Always try your best."

Its impact on the class's culture is apparent. One September afternoon, she calls her students to the class rug. "Pretzel feet," she calls out, and her students respond in an echo. "Chocolate cake hands. This is how we understand." Scaletta-Bruno then describes what's next. It sounds more like a community update than a direction. First, she explains her initial lesson plans for this part of the day, but then explains that there have been a few hitches-there are a few students who still need to finish work from their last project, for instance. The class is studying plural nouns, so she asks them to show, using their fingers, their confidence levels with the latest material on a scale of one (still feeling uncertain) to three (could teach someone else). Finally, in just fifteen to twenty more seconds, she sorts the class into groups and sends them off to work on differentiated projects around the room.

The entire process is informal, efficient, and calm. When Scaletta-Bruno speaks, students are attentive and engaged. When they're working independently, most are focused on their tasks. When they finish, students seamlessly transition onto Chromebooks where they work on personalized activities targeted to their needs. "It's a great school," says student Serenity Jones. "We do a lot of learning."

The social contracts make Scaletta-Bruno's efficient, light-touch disciplinary approach possible. Children in this class-and across Haines's campus-are focused, curious, and collaborative partly because they are working in a learning environment of their own construction. Instead of being disciplined into learning by pressure from above, they are engaged in learning as part of a group shaped by rules that they had a hand in drafting. "When students have their own ownership of creating rules, it creates a community in the classroom," says principal Catherine Amy Moy Davis, "And it also fosters a different type of learning for our students, because it came from them."

Embedding Learning, Raising Achievement

Refreshing as it may seem, Haines's approach is hardly a novel one. Research suggests that schools that narrow their curricula to focus on test prep do not generally improve students' test performance. That is, too many American schools are actually misreading their situation: the best way to help students do better on standardized math and reading assessments might well be to spend less time teaching these subjects in artificial isolation. Students learn important academic (literacy, math, science, critical thinking, and more) skills by engaging with rigorous content and complex problems that they actually care about. They develop a more comprehensive understanding of academic content when they can link it to their own cultural identities and communities through intentional engagement with these resources.

Many American schools are actually misreading their situation: the best way to help students do better on standardized math and reading assessments might well be to spend less time teaching these subjects in artificial isolation.

In other words, Haines does well on academic tests by resisting the temptation to organize their school around those tests. And parents are starting to notice. While Haines is a neighborhood school, its performance on academic assessments is drawing interest from families who live all over the city. "When I checked them out online, you know, I looked at the test scores," says Serenity's mother, Tiffany Jones. "And I thought that Haines did pretty well, considering that they're not taking the cream of the crop kids, that they're taking everybody and working with what they're given."

Try to imagine, then, if this approach to the academic assessments took hold on more campuses around the country. What if schools across the country spent more time and resources expanding their curricula and less energy narrowing their schools into test prep factories? What if they gave students more room to explore, meditate, collaborate, and participate in rigorous academic inquiry with their peers? Haines's example suggests a paradoxical answer: by focusing on students instead of tests, schools might do better with both.

Tags: standardized testing, standardized test, Every Student Succeeds Act

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This School Didn't Teach to the Test-And Scored Better

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Nothing lights up public education arguments quite like tests. They're the heroes and/or villains of so many narratives about public schools, unavoidable variables in our arguments about everything from pre-K to early literacy, charter schools, federal accountability, teacher evaluations, and more. They determine how we define quality, success, effectiveness, efficiency, academic growth, and proficiency in public education.

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Four Common Characteristics of Personalized Learning 

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Four Common Characteristics of Personalized Learning 

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Log in to your Aurora Institute account.

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CAST

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Step By Step Instructions to Creating UDL Assessments

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Step By Step Instructions to Creating UDL Assessments

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Assessments, But Then Make it Universally Designed

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Your guide to universally designing an assessment. We have to use assessments as not only an evaluation tool but as an integrated component in the process of learning. So how do we ensure that learning is part of an assessment? UDL!

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This video is a short explanation of learner variability from Matt Bergman, a leading teacher in the nation in UDL implementation.

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This video is a short explanation of learner variability from Matt Bergman, a leading teacher in the nation in UDL implementation.

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What is learner variability? What does brain research say about it? What is systematic variability and how does it impact our classrooms?

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Addressing the Variability of Learners in Common Core Aligned Assessments

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Addressing the Variability of Learners in Common Core Aligned Assessments

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Short video lecture by Todd Rose who discusses why variability matters. Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, does a great job of helping understand why there is no such thing as average. 

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Short video lecture by Todd Rose who discusses why variability matters. Todd Rose, the author of The End of Average, does a great job of helping understand why there is no such thing as average. 

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We are all learners with aspirations and passions that deserve to be supported in every way possible. Learning changes lives by helping us develop the will, knowledge, skill, and capacity to achieve our aspirations. Learning needs to happen in different ways so we use various strengths and resources…