Tag: universal design for learning

To develop purposeful and motivated learners, educators provide multiple ways to engage their learners. One of these ways is to provide options to help learners sustain their effort and persist with their learning. Checkpoint 8 in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework covers this point.

The framework explains that learners require support to remain focused on the goal they are striving towards, and its value. This is the learner to sustain effort and concentration in the face of many distracters. General suggestions, relevant to both school and higher education settings, include:

• • Prompting or requiring learners to explicitly formulate or restate the goal
  • Displaying the goal in multiple ways
  • Encouraging chunking of long-term goals into shorter-term objectives
  • Incorporating the use of prompts or scaffolds for visualising desired outcomes
  • Engaging learners in discussions of what excellence looks like
  • Generating relevant examples that connect to their background and interests

Some specific strategies include Discrete Trial Training (DTT) and rubrics.

Discrete Trial Training

First, Discrete Trial Training. DTT takes a skill and pulls it apart into its basic components. Starting at the most fundamental component, the student learns or acquires that skill (acquisition), practices the skill to mastery (fluency), maintains the skill across time (maintenance) and transfers the skill to a new situation (generalisation).

A technique used in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), DTT has been used for decades in supporting learners with autism. However, DTT is possible to incorporate into any learning setting.

As DTT is concise and provides step-by-step support tailored to develop a skill efficiently, it is useful in supporting students to succeed with small components of a larger goal. Positivity and brevity are key features, making learning, and ultimately goal achievement, more attainable through its step-by-step format, thus supporting the development of purposeful and motivated learners.

Rubrics

Next, rubrics. Most educators will be familiar with rubrics. A rubric is an assessment tool that can also be used to track development through a task. Rubrics are primarily used to collect data on students’ progress related to a specific skill or assessment task. Rubrics support students to understand the requirements of a task, how it will be marked, and most importantly in terms of making learning goals salient, how well the student is progressing toward achievement of the task or skill.

In summary, because rubrics can be used as formative and summative assessment tools, they can be used across the who learning activity/assessment duration to support learners to track their progress, sustain their effort and persist with their learning.

Well-considered rubrics are powerful tools for focusing on goals or outcomes. They can even be co-created with the learner to make the student goals even more salient.

Other strategies to heighten engagement in learning

In previous posts, we have explored tools and strategies to enable educators to recruit students’ interest in their learning. Click the link to read more about these strategies:

• • Spark excitement and curiosity for learning
  • Optimize individual choice and autonomy
  • Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity
  • Minimize threats and distraction

Online learning requires educators to be active and directive in facilitating learning. Setting guidelines and expectations up front is paramount to include and engage all students. Just as in the face-to-face environment, when we educate online, relationships are still at the heart of learning. Creating a presence in the online environment is a key element.

Katie Novack and Tom Thibodeau share ways to create an online presence in their book UDL in the Cloud. They also show how to identify potential barriers to learning, develop a detailed syllabus that inspires and motivates students, and delivery strategies and help to scaffold students’ time management skills.

Inclusive Schools Australia has done some of the preliminary thinking with a one-page quick-start guide to inclusive online learning. It gives examples of specific activities aligned to UDL checkpoints.

Then, to go deeper, Educause provides the transcript and slides of a webinar they hosted by CAST. It aims to support educators to reach all students in the time of COVID-19. The learning shares how UDL can be applied to remote instruction. It discusses some best practices and provides resources to integrate UDL into courses and programs.

This is valuable for considering ways to address access, build meaningful learning, and support independence in course or program design under the current conditions.

The National Center for Assistive Education Materials has a dedicated resource hub for information on assistive technologies. This is useful information on how to use assistive technologies or other resources to support learners to access online learning. The site hosts webinars focusing on tools and resources to support the transition to remote learning in response to COVID-19. The list of resources is extensive. Of particular value are the webinars on making accessible videos, captioning videos and making documents and slides accessible. Recordings, slides and handouts are available to watch or download.

Read more about UDL and online learning in a previous post.

My pathway to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was long and winding. I first came to Universal Design (UD) through architecture and the built environment. Discovering universal design felt like a deep breath out. It is all about designing with respect and consideration for all – designing with accessibility, usability, pleasurability for all who may use the building. It. Just. Made. Sense.

Naturally, the application of UD to learning makes sense as well. If you value the diversity that each of us brings to our teaching and learning, it’s good to have a tool that frames and guides teachers and learners. It helps maximise and utilise this diversity.

UDL aims to change the design of the environment rather than to change the learner. When environments are intentionally designed to reduce barriers, all learners can engage in rigorous, meaningful learning. CAST

The UDL framework is a three-part guideline. It promotes multiple options for key parts of a learning experience:

1. 1. engaging students
   2. explicit teaching
   3. students’ action and expression of their learning

UDL celebrates learner variability. It supports practical, realistic and achievable means of providing learning experiences that cater to a broader range of students. 

Getting Started with UDL

Universal design for learning can be implemented in any learning scenario: pre-school, school, higher education, online or face-to-face.

Due to the depth of the framework and changing existing practice, getting started with UDL can be daunting. However, some simple steps can help you get started.

First, clearly define the learning goal. Next, consider learner variability and identify barriers that learners may face in reaching the goal. Then, plan flexible and meaningful assessments. Actively design the learning experience using the UDL principles of Engagement, Representation and Action and Expression, and finally, reflect on the learning engagement.

The CAST website is the birthplace and home of all things UDL, including suggestions for implementing each of the UDL framework checkpoints. You can also read more widely on the premise and goals of UDL so that for you, too, IT. JUST. MAKES. SENSE!

See more on Universal Design and more practical suggestions on Universal Design for Learning on the CUDA website.

In a time when cultural diversity and the recognition of systemic inequity is in our shared consciousness, how does UDL support cultural diversity?

Joni Degner cites a range of measures in her article, How Universal Design for Learning Creates Culturally Accessible Classrooms, including:

• • co-designing learning and seeking student input and feedback,
  • seeking out students’ lived experiences and personal stories,
  • recognising students as cultural resources in developing culturally responsive learning,
  • developing a culture of connection, and
  • considering the language and discourse in which our students are immersed

Drawing on the UDL framework, embracing diversity in content and practice is the recommendation in the article, Diversity and Equity in Learning. Key suggestions include:

• • Assume students are diverse in ways that you cannot see. This may be related to race, national origin or socioeconomic status. Or it may relate to ethnicity, physical and neuro-disabilities, sexual orientation, or spiritual beliefs. There are many other possibilities, too.
  • Design group assignments and intentionally mix groups. At times, require students to work purposely with others they may not know. Ensure students in the minority are not isolated. Encourage or help set up diverse study groups.
  • Examine and consider revising texts, resources, guest speakers, examples, and authors. Include contributions from diverse scholars.

Against these suggestions, how do your teaching and learning experiences shape up?

To further your practice or understanding, read the article Culturally Responsive Teaching and UDL. It explains key terms and theories and links to the research. The article supports the understanding of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) in addition to UDL. Loui Lord Nelson and Patti Kelly Ralabate also focus on CRT and UDL in their book, Culturally Responsive Design for English Learners.

See more on UDL on the CUDA website.

 

You may well be wondering what Marie Kondo and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have anything in common! Well, I could make an analogy about tidying up our teaching practice. Or, cleaning out old beliefs about UDL being for ‘Special Education’ only! But the analogy is that UDL and Marie Kondo are both about sparking something within us.

This post explores Guideline 7 in the UDL framework. It relates to engaging learners. Specifically, the guideline is about recruiting the learner’s interest. Just as Marie Kondo implores us to value items that ‘spark joy’, in Guideline 7, the UDL Framework recommends working with students to ‘spark excitement and curiosity for learning’.

But how? Engagement is based around three checkpoints in the UDL Framework.  The first is optimising individual choice and autonomy. This is about empowering learners to take charge of their own learning. Second is optimising relevance, value, and authenticity for learners to connect with learning to experiences that are meaningful. The last checkpoint is to minimise threats and distractions in order for students to feel safe and take risks in their learning.

In her book, Design and Deliver: Planning and Teaching Using Universal Design for Learning, Loui Lord Nelson dedicates a chapter to ‘Engagement.’ She links to the research in addition to providing examples of what the checkpoints look like in practice. To resonate with a range of educators, some examples are given for learning experiences with younger, middle years and then high school students.

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

 

Students around the globe are learning online. How do we make the most of online learning technologies and UDL?

David Rose, Jenna Gravel, and Yvonne Domings explain that UDL goes beyond digital technologies.  They discuss this on their question-and-answer on the CAST website. The team acknowledge that modern technology makes implementation and elaboration of UDL easier. Next, they remind us that the UDL principles are guides to successful teaching for all students. As such, educators apply the UDL principles with and without digital technology.

With students around the globe learning online, digital technologies in education have come to the fore. As a result, many resources and critiques of technologies have been shared. Find these on official education sites and social media.

A useful example is the ‘Resources’ section of the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA) website.  In addition, the Digital Technologies in Practice section contains a range of resources.

Without making direct links to UDL, there are many connections to the three UDL principles. One example is in the online information pamphlet called ‘A–Z Digital Technologies vocabulary F–6‘. For instance, this outlines the language of digital technologies, correlating directly with Checkpoint 2 in the UDL framework. Importantly, there are also new links to materials that may help you get a deeper understanding of the key ideas and key concepts of Digital Technologies.

In addition, if you are seeking a starting point for making a connection between online learning technologies and UDL, the article, ‘Making Your Classroom Smart: Universal Design for Learning and Technology’ by Carrie Anna Courtad provides a match between technology tools and each of the three main principles of UDL.

Finally, read more on ICT and UDL on our website. 

When well implemented, the UDL framework and technology combine to assist in smart classroom design.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) helps shape teaching and learning by focusing on flexibility. Making Your Classroom Smart: Universal Design for Learning and Technology discusses the three tenets of UDL. It then outlines how technology supports each of the areas to support smart classroom design.

The three tenets are Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression. The framework recommends providing learners with multiple options for each principle. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) provides the UDL framework and related resources.

The article presents a variety of technology tools to support student engagement. The tools allow for students to self-monitor, attend to their focus and offer cognitive training. Additionally, the author suggests programs that support scaffolding for learning or make the curriculum more accessible.

Technology that provides for multiple examples of the same concept makes print materials accessible, highlights critical elements, and provides graphics or pictures when illustrating concepts are some features recommended to support Representation.

Offering a variety of ways a student can express their knowledge, serves the goal of the Action and Expression component of the UDL framework. Assistive technologies promote opportunities for some students in this area. The report highlights other programmes that allow teachers to build in reflection, and present their knowledge and skills verbally, in writing, or orally. The report provides examples of the technology, their function and cost.

Smart classroom design relies on curricular goals and material designed in a UDL manner before instruction, never retrospectively. The combination of technology to support students’ learning should also include a concrete framework to assist in the well-considered design of technology into curriculum goals and teaching and learning.

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