UDL: Principles and Practice

In many classrooms, the focus is on an illusory average student.

Many curricula are designed for that student.

Cognitive neuroscience has shown us that there really isn´t

an average student anywhere, and that´s why it´s an illusory student.

Universal Design for Learning, though, is particularly focused on making sure

that we get those students who have been marginalized,

for whom that designing for the average student

has never worked well.

And that certainly means students who have been struggling,

students for whom English is not their first language,

students with disabilities.

They´ve been typically marginalized by this illusory average curriculum.

Secondly, though, students at the other margins,

students who are called ‟gifted and talented,”

are also students who´ve been under-served

by this mainstream curriculum.

They haven´t been challenged, they´re bored,

they´re under-served as well.

UDL is a framework based in cognitive neurosciences

for designing learning experiences that work across a wide spectrum

of learners.

Its main purpose is to make sure that everybody is a successful learner,

and reaches what we call being an ‟expert learner”--

that is, they know a lot, they know how to do a lot,

and they love learning and want to do it more.

The key to Universal Design for Learning

is that we´re designing learning experiences

which, from the beginning, are designed to be universal

and to make sure everybody learns.

And that design is primarily based on the power to be very flexible

in allowing choices, in allowing different paths,

in allowing for things to be presented in different ways

so that we reach those other two things:

universal and everybody learns.

The three principles of Universal Design for Learning

come from careful analysis of what learning really is.

And particularly the research that has been done by

thousands of other researches in cognitive science,

cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology,

which have carefully looked at what comprises learning,

how does learning really work, and what are its differences

among individual learners?

From that work, we´ve abstracted out three simple principles

that are involved in any learning situation:

How does the learner pick up information,

how do they express and act on that information,

and how were they engaged by the learning situation?

There are three broad principles.

The first has to do with how we present information

to the learner.

And we talk about multiple means of representation.

As it turns out, there´s no one way that we can present information

so to be successful for everyone to learn it.

So we talk about multiple means of representation.

So in UDL, we talk about providing multiple representations

so that we´re sure everyone will be able to make sense

of the symbols, the language, the drawings and so on.

Take, for example, in teaching mathematics,

it´s typically very strong to use multiple representations--

not just the symbolic expression of the numbers,

but manipulables, things that the children can operate on

and see directly and perceptually rather than their symbolic form.

So that´s a great example of providing multiple representation,

both the symbolic number and a physical manipulative.

The second principle is provide multiple means of action and expression.

And that takes into account the fact that students vary greatly

in how they express what they know, how they can act skillfully,

how they can communicate in language or in drawing and so on.

And students differ widely, so we say we must provide

multiple means of expression over the course of our teaching and learning.

The third principle is multiple means of engagement.

And in many ways, it´s the most important principle.

If we don´t engage students in learning,

don´t make it important to them, make them motivated for it,

then none of the other forms of representation or expression

will be that important.

Within Universal Design for Learning,

when we look at a curriculum, we think of four main components,

and each of them need to be universally designed.

The first component is: What are its goals?

How do we translate standards into things that are important to do

in the classroom?

Secondly, what are the materials that are gonna be in that classroom?

Everything from a chalkboard to a textbook to a work book

to something on the wall.

Are these materials key to learning, and if so,

are they universally designed for learning?

Third, the methods.

How does the teacher go about teaching

when she or he is working at helping students learn?

Does she set up collaborative groups?

Does she lecture?

Does she provide experiences out in the world?

And lastly, and very important to Universal Design for Learning,

is the means of assessment.

How are we sure that learning really occurs?

When we began our work, we, like most people,

were focused on learners who were doing poorly,

who looked like they had disabilities.

Over time, we began to change our focus

because we could see when we were in classrooms

that the classrooms were in fact disabling,

that they were not designed properly to ensure that every child would succeed.

And we began more and more to see that the curriculum itself was disabled

and that the work of the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines

is to reduce the disabilities in the curriculum itself

so that more students succeed,

more students have optimum challenges,

and come out as expert learners in the end.