Tag: universal design for learning

There is more than one way to peel a potato. A comical idiom to explain there is more than one way to achieve the goal. This is the theme of UDL checkpoint 5.1, which is about multiple means of communication.

There is no single method of communication that works for all students to express their knowledge and understanding. Rather, only some methods will work for some students in some learning situations. While some learners express themselves with great clarity through the medium of art. But when it comes to written composition, for example, they may face a barrier in communication.

As such, educators must provide alternatives for students to express themselves. This  provides a way for the student to communicate their skills, knowledge and understanding of the learning. It also reduces intrinsic bias against or towards students who do not or do possess skill in a single-mode-of-expression only option.

There may be times when a specific method, mode, or skill is required to communicate learning. In order to manage this, consider the following process.

The Process

• • Define the learning goal
  • Identify the non-negotiables
  • Support a range of methods for the student to communicate their learning

Options for Students to Communicate Learning

Physical communication methods:

Find other practical, easy-to-implement strategies for incorporating UDL strategies into learning engagements in the Universal Design for Learning section of this website. 

The third pillar of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines urges educators to provide learners with multiple means of action and expression. This pillar recognises that there is not one means of action and expression that will be optimal for all learners. Whether due to a physical, cognitive, learning or preferential impact, learners ability and interest in expressing their knowledge and skills differ.

Guideline 4 relates to physical activity. Within this guideline, there are two checkpoints. We explore Checkpoint 4.1 in this post. Checkpoint 4.1 provides guidance on varying the methods students use for responding to and navigating the physical environment.

Practical Strategies

For motor skills that may serve as a physical barrier to learn, consider, multiple methods of achieving the outcome. For example, if writing is impacting access, a range of low-tech or high-tech alternatives are available:

Low-tech solutions can be used for a multitude of barriers:

Adaptive scissors, for example, can remove a potential barrier for some students.

A range of seating options are available to manage a student’s seating position and sensory input  – wobble stools, cushioned seating, adjustable height seating are some examples.

If the writing surface is problematic, consider alternatives – paper quality and size and mini-whiteboard choices can help.

Investigate writing implements – is the pen or pencil troublesome – can a longer/shorter, thicker/thinner/triangular, less inky/smoother flowing tool assist? Would the student benefit from a pen/pencil grip?

Consider the input source. For example, is the text large enough? Is it supported with adequate graphics to support understanding? Are manipulatives of adequate size and weight for the task?

Higher-tech options include assistive technologies that support physical access to learning.

The use of computer technologies can be helpful. Within such access, deeper layers of support can be implemented, including keyboard adaptions, eye-gaze communication, speech-controlled input and adaptive switches.

In addition to providing multiple means for the student to act on their learning and express themselves physically, also consider the barriers to learning that may be met by a student facing physical barriers. CAST, the home of UDL, recommend providing alternatives in expectations surrounding work rate, timing allocated to tasks, speed of task completion, and extent of the physical requirements involved in interacting with learning materials, manipulatives and other equipment, and technologies involved in the lesson.

There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.

Consider our emergency workers. Each time they are out on a call, the context and situation are new. They must take their skills and learnt strategies and apply them in a situation that potentially they have not experienced before. We can be grateful to the concept of transfer of learning that these emergency crews can take their skills, strategies and knowledge and apply it to new problem-solving situations.

Transfer of learning is an integral part of the learning process. It relies on cognitive accessibility, a term to describe the memory systems’ capacity (both long-term and working memory) to support recall and transfer of skills. When a student has memory systems that are less effective in supporting the transfer of learning, supports are required.

So how can we support our students? Employing techniques designed to enhance students’ memory is one area supported by CAST, the home of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). They suggest using mnemonics, strategic note-taking, visual imagery, and explicitly teaching for transfer as classroom-based strategies. Access CAST’s reference list to locate evidence for a range of strategies to support memory and transfer.

Practical Strategies

For those looking for simple-to-use, immediate action to provide transfer of learning comprehension supports for students, consider the following, adapted from CAST:

1. Support your students’ development of their organisation skills. Strategies include using checklists, graphic organisers, diary/calendar notes, sticky notes and electronic reminders

2. Support your students’ memory of information and strategies through the use of mnemonic strategies. Examples include using visual imagery, incorporating paraphrasing strategies, and employing retrieval practice.

3. Ensure students are provided regular and spaced explicit opportunities for review and practice. Then, guide opportunities in the longer term to revisit key ideas and encourage students’ to link these to new concepts.

4. Enhance students’ note-taking practice by providing scaffolds such as templates, graphic organisers and concept maps.

5. Develop a culture of connecting of valuing connections between new and prior knowledge. One of my skilled colleagues teaches her primary school class to make a specific hand signal when something they learn connects to their own prior knowledge of experience. This supports connection-making and enables the class to engage with the materials without verbally interrupting. Other scaffold methods include using word webs or part-filled concept maps.

6. Employ creativity through analogy, metaphor, drama, music, or film. for example, to embed new ideas in familiar contexts.

7. Provide explicit, supported opportunities to generalise learning to new situations. FOr example, provide opportunities to explore new problem-solving situations that use a particular strategy – this could range from maths to empathy! Also, support students to apply their learning to practical, real-world applications within the learning environment and beyond.

There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.

A colleague completed her PhD in the field of dyslexia. Thanks to her expertise – her knowledge, skills and experience in this field – her ability to synthesise new information about reading difficulties, to make meaning, is masterful.

By identifying key features in information, she refines what is important. This facilitates efficient comprehension of the information, supporting her to embed relevant information from the new source with her existing knowledge. The result is a broadened knowledge base and a deeper understanding of the information. Subsequently, she takes complex ideas and distils them succinctly and with clarity.

To share or apply knowledge efficiently shows a deep understanding. For educators, this is an outcome desired for our students. But when they are not experts in every skill, concept or content area being taught, how can we support our learners to recognise valuable information? To support the assimilation of valuable information into their knowledge banks? To disregard the insignificant and focus on the substantial?

Practical Strategies

CAST, the home of UDL, recommends educators provide explicit cueing to assist students to distinguish critical information.

This may be supported by emphasising key elements in information sources (for example, text, graphics, diagrams, formulas). This may be achieved visually or verbally, through the students highlighting these points or the educator making bold or italic key information, or through expressing the points aloud.

When using highlighters, different colours may be used to distinguish different classifications of information.

Scaffolding including learning routines, mastery routines and graphic organisers may be valuable for students to identify important concepts and emphasise relationships between them.

Concept or brainstorming maps, webs or trees support learners to visually document key concepts and relationships.

Use many examples to illustrate real-world examples of concepts. Be sure to support the development of mastery by providing non-examples, too. The Frayer Model is a graphic organiser tool useful for developing critical vocabulary.

Additionally, educators should prompt students to make explicit connections between previously learnt content, knowledge and skills. This supports the consolidation of the existing content or knowledge whilst also providing an opportunity for the students to build relationships to new concepts.

Do you want to learn more to help develop your students into expert learners? There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.

What is your story of a misunderstood emoji or text message abbreviation? My uncle, upon learning of a significant and upsetting event, signed off his text message with ‘LOL’! Whilst confusing, it was bemusing that he would ‘Laugh Out Loud’ at this unfortunate scenario. Of course, it transpired that he thought LOL stood for ‘Lots of Love’.

Although this example is a simple and funny example of potential barriers to communication, it is symbolic of the challenge some learners face. Symbols, icons, emojis, labels, vocabulary, acronyms, abbreviations, and more are often taken for granted, But they may act as a barrier to learning for some. For reasons including word knowledge, world experience, background, language, context and learning ability, some learners may find such terms or symbols a barrier to accessing meaning.

Small, easy-to-implement strategies have the power to diminish potential barriers for these learners. A range of experimental studies, scholarly articles and studies support the strategies below.

Practical Strategies

CAST recommends the following strategies to minimise potential barriers for some learners;

• • Pre-teach vocabulary and symbols, especially in ways that promote connection to the learners’ experience and prior knowledge
  • Provide graphic symbols with alternative text descriptions
  • Highlight how complex terms, expressions, or equations are composed of simpler words or symbols
  • Embed support for vocabulary and symbols within the text (e.g., hyperlinks or footnotes to definitions, explanations, illustrations, previous coverage, translations)
  • Embed support for unfamiliar references within the text (e.g., domain-specific notation, lesser-known properties and theorems, idioms, academic language, figurative language, mathematical language, jargon, archaic language, colloquialism, and dialect)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a single, global guide to web accessibility that meets the needs of individuals. Recommendations cover a wide scope and greater detail than those above. Although designed to support creators to make web content more accessible for people with disability, the features are useful options for all learners. Refer to WCAG Guideline 3.1 for information regarding the goal of making text content readable and understandable.

There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.

Picture yourself, head cocked, eyes squinting, posing thoughtfully in front of a newly acquired work in your favourite gallery. Overheard, muted voices share their musings on the meaning of the work. At odds with your initial perception, you struggle to make sense of the piece. Reading the print description and listening to the narration on the audio guide provide some insight. You learn there is so much more embodied in the artwork than meets the eye .

Now consider learners for whom visual representations are not accessible. Vision impairments, visual processing disorders, or just difficulties in interpreting visual information all create barriers to learners in accessing information.

Visual information is often complex – representations and relationships between objects, graphics, tables, infographics, illustrations, datasets and more –  lead to difficulty for some in synthesizing and making meaning. Additionally, visuals, such as artworks or symbolic representations often contain multiple meanings. Context, experience and prior knowledge may be required in order to comprehend the intended meaning.

Providing supplementary sources of information to complement visuals reduces barriers to learning.

Practical Strategies

CAST, the home of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) recommend the following practical strategies to reduce the barriers to learning that visuals may impose:

• • Provide descriptions (text or spoken) for all images, graphics, video, or animations
  • Use touch equivalents (tactile graphics or objects of reference) for key visuals that represent concepts
  • Provide physical objects and spatial models to convey perspective or interaction
  • Provide auditory cues for key concepts and transitions in visual information
  • Follow accessibility standards when creating digital text 
  • Allow for a competent aide, partner, or “intervener” to read text aloud
  • Provide access to text-to-speech software

There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.

 

Although not COVID-safe, one benefit of buffet-style eating is that diners customise their meal to their specific needs or pleasures. The diner controls what options they select in order to benefit from the experience. Similarly, in teaching and learning, learning content must be provided in multiple ways and be as customisable as possible.

Representation in UDL is about making learning accessible by providing multiple ways to grasp skills and understand information.

Representation is the second principle of the Universal Design for Learning framework. It focuses on the goal of developing expert learners who are resourceful and knowledgeable. Representation regards the manner that learning and the transfer and generalisation of learning occur.

To cater to the variability of learners in how they grasp skills and understand information, learning must be represented in multiple ways. Checkpoint 1.1 in the UDL Guidelines focuses on making learning accessible through the way print and digital information is shared and perceived.

Digital information, when created effectively, provides many opportunities for flexibility. Information is controlled by the learner when features such as colour contrast, text size and positioning of pop-outs, for example, are designed to be customisable. Print materials are generally more difficult to adjust due to their static nature. However, consideration when designing, such as ensuring effective contrast, helps minimise some challenges for learners.

Practical Suggestions for Designing Web or Print Content

CAST, the Center of UDL, suggests considering the following aspects in designing digital and/or print materials:

• • The size of text, images, graphs, tables, or other visual content
  • The contrast between background and text or image
  • The colour used for information or emphasis
  • The volume or rate of speech or sound
  • The speed or timing of video, animation, sound, simulations, etc.
  • The layout of visual or other elements
  • The font used for print materials

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a single, global guide to web accessibility that meets the needs of individuals. Its recommendations cover a wide scope and greater detail than those above. Although designed to support creators to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities, the features are useful options for all learners.

Tips for designing an accessible online course

This paper tells how a UDL framework can make online learning activities accessible for everyone.  The tips are base on experiences of students with disabilities, online instructors, course designers, and IT accessibility experts. The topic of this paper is particularly relevant because of the conversion of thousands of on-site courses to online formats in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The paper takes universal design principles and UDL principles and links them to the WCAG. 

The important point is, don’t wait for a student to ask for an “accommodation”. This approach makes learning easier for everyone. The title of the paper is, Tips for Designing an Accessible and Inclusive Online Course. 

 

Who remembers the classic mix-tape? Originating in the ’80s, the mix-tape was a compilation of music usually recorded on a cassette tape. An essential for lovers and road-trips, the mix-tape provided variety, keeping listeners engaged! Taking the mix-tape approach and applying it to learning is the theme of this week’s post. We focus on Checkpoint 8 in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework. It is about engaging and supporting learners to keep motivated. The strategy is to vary learning demands and resources to optimise challenge.

CAST explains that learners vary in their skills and abilities as well as the kinds of challenges that motivate them to do their best work. All learners need to be challenged, but not always in the same way. They need varied levels and types of demands. Learners also need to have the right kinds of resources to successfully complete the task. Creativity allows for many versions on a theme, too. Here are two practical strategies to get started.

Choice Menus

A choice menu is a suitable strategy for learners at any school level or in higher education. A choice menu, also termed a learning menu or choice board, offers a range of options. Learners can choose an option to demonstrate their knowledge of skill. Learner preferences should be included to support learner variability and optimise choice. The requirements of the task can be varied, and so too, the format in which it is completed.

A strengths-based strategy approach supports learners to play to their strengths by selecting a format and medium that will best represent their skill or knowledge. Variety can also be offered in the complexity of the class. Using the idea of ‘menu’ means we can think in terms of simpler bite-size options, meatier main course options, and dessert for extending the learning or assessment.

Flipped Classroom

Flipped classrooms, alternatively referred to as an inverted classroom or blended learning, involves the learner exploring content independently, prior to the lesson with the teacher. The strategy enables students to access a variety of content at their own pace. Less time is required on acquiring knowledge so there is more time to apply the knowledge and skills in meaningful ways. The increased opportunity for interaction heightens engagement and student interest.

This strategy is often undertaken in university study, especially when taken online. Particularly relevant to schools now, too, with the increase in online distance learning due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Find further strategies on recruiting interest in learning and promoting student engagement on the CUDA’s UDL page.