Universal Design for Learning

 

Universal Design 

The UDL Guidelines are a tool used to help with creating lesson plans that have scientific insight into human learning. The UDL has been updated several times and will continue to be updated. UDL 2.0 consists of three principles: engagement, representation, and action and expression. When using the Graphic Organizer, you need to look at it horizontally and vertically. Vertically the 3 Principals are broken down into detailed checkpoints, and the horizontally “access” row includes suggestions on how to increase access to the learning goals.  The goal of UDL is to create that expert and forever learner.

Part 1:

I am a second-grade self-contained teacher and after looking through the principles of UDL I feel that I am doing more of the UDL framework than what I realized. In principle 1 I am using a variety of methods to introduce and teach new topics. It may be through text, videos, and hands-on activities, as well as providing vocabulary, sentence stems, decodable text, and checklist options for all students. I have taught my students to use our Schoology program to go back and watch videos, read books, and look at photos of lessons we have done in class in case they need to hear or see them again. I have also taught my students how to change the speed of videos so that if it's too fast for them to process information they can turn it down. Also, teaching them how to stop video to take notes if needed. With principal 2, I find that I do use a wide range of ways for students to respond from writing out a response to using text-to-speech on their iPad using the seesaw app or recording themselves responding to an assignment. With principle 3 I use a lot of classroom collaborations, and I allow for varied levels of responses as my students are all at different levels.

 I want to add right now more feedback that is given at a faster rate and more detailed for my students, especially for those who move faster than others. I want to work on responding quicker so that they can move to the next goal. This has been hard, but it is something I am working on daily to improve upon.

One checkpoint that I want to find out ways to teach is coping skills. I feel students today need more help with learning coping skills, and I need to find help on how to properly teach these skills. Another checkpoint I need to improve on is finding more physical engagement activities that I can add to the lessons.

Part 2:

With Universal Design I would like to know more about the neuroscience behind it because I think from the little that I have learned about the brain about learning we have been taught wrong. From the beginning of my bachelor's degree, I remember being taught that our future students will fit into one of these specific learning styles such as visual, auditory, tactile, or kinesthetics. Yet, I questioned this from the beginning, yet this is what we were taught. With growing knowledge of our brains and learning we can learn that there isn’t a set learning style that is set in stone for people. As I dived deeper into neuroscience about learning and UDL I found some interesting facts from a variety of websites, articles, and videos which are all cited at the end of my report. The biggest takeaway from all these sources is that no brain is alike. We may all start in the being with a similar foundation yet as we grow and have our own experiences our brain neurons develop differently since we experience things differently.

A while back a teacher at my school shared a quote she had heard, and I find it is a great example of how we all experience life differently. “Siblings never know the same parents.” (Unknown source) At first, after hearing this quote I wasn’t sure what to think but after really thinking it through I saw how this was so accurate. The analogy that I created based on what I thought the quote meant is that for example, the oldest child gets the novice parent, the one who doesn’t know how to raise a child yet, so mistakes are made, and at times expectations are set high or there aren’t any at all. Then the second child comes along, and the parents are a little more prepared yet not because now they have two tiny humans that are seeking their attention at the same time for separate reasons. This child may also get away with more because parents are tired, and/or have learned from the first child. Yet, that third child comes along, and all bets are off. Parents aren’t as worried about certain things their children are doing and/or allow them to get away with more than what previous children did. Partly because they are tired, and partially because through raising children they have learned that there are simply some things that children need to learn for themselves. Yet, you could dive even deeper into this analogy because it will change even more based on gender, the spacing between siblings, race, culture, and many other factors. I know that this is a different topic but if you think about yourself with your siblings, you see how you each had different experiences and you all think of your parents differently. You may have some similarities but at the same time there are those differences, and when I stop to think of what I have learned about the brain it’s the same. When looking at the brain and learning we all have similarities but many differences because of our life experiences.

Taking what I know as a teacher plus what I learned reading UDL and the Learning Brain, I found that what we stress about the most as educators is correctly aligned with what UDL is trying to help us understand. As educators, we are always striving to be better teachers and find ways to research all our students. That is what UDL is trying to teach us with their scientific approach, and we need to understand the variability and plasticity of our brains as well as that our brains are goal-driven. “Luckily, learners' variability is predictable, and it can be organized across three brain networks targeted by the UDL framework.” (Cast, 2018) In, Unlearning: Brain Science, UDL, and Practical Steps to Change Your Mindset and Classroom, it reiterates that you must know about how a brain develops and that we as educators need to change our mindset first. After reading this article I want to get Posey and Novak’s book Unlearning: Changing Your Beliefs and Your Classroom with UDL. Just like we have been talking about throughout this entire module we need a variety of ways to learn even for ourselves and during my research, I found this short video allows me to hear and see visuals to help understand more of the brain. There are so many articles and videos out there that really help you understand the connection between UDL and neurosciences. The last video I want to share is another example of really understanding the importance of UDL so check out this Tedx Talk by Michael Nesmith,(2016) who is a deaf, American Sign Language speaker working as a creative director at Amazon.

References:

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from   

             http://udlguidelines.cast.org

CAST (2011). Universal design for learning guidelines version 2.0 [graphic

         organizer]. Wakefield, MA: Author.

Cast | Key questions to consider when planning lessons. (n.d.). https://udlguidelines.cast.org/binaries/content/assets/common/publications/articles/cast-udl-planningq-a11y.pdf  

CAST (2018). UDL and the learning brain. Wakefield, MA: Author. Retrieved from

http://www.cast.org/products-services/resources/2018/udl-learning-brain-     neuroscience

Cast | key questions to consider when planning lessons. (n.d.-a). https://udlguidelines.cast.org/binaries/content/assets/common/publications/articles/cast-udl-planningq-a11y.pdf

Posey, A., & Novak, K. (2020). Unlearning: Changing your beliefs and your classroom with UDL. CAST Professional Publishing.

Unlearning: Brain science, UDL, and practical steps to change your mindset and classroom. CAST. (2022, February 11). https://www.cast.org/impact/work-stories/unlearning-brain-science-udl-practical-steps-change-mindset-classroom  

YouTube. (2021, November 15). Neuroscience and UDL. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJqo_E-FEd0  

YouTube. (2016, October 13). Why we need universal design | Michael Nesmith | tedxboulder. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVdPNWMGyZY&t=226