Universal Design for Learning: A Workshop in Three Parts

1. Universal Design for Learning:A Workshop in Three Parts Kathy Howery University of Alberta Calgary AT Presentation

2. The Series • Day 1 - Introduction to Universal Design for Learning • Day 2 - The UDL Guidelines & Tools • Day 3 - Building a UDL Implementation Plan for my district/school/classroom.

3. Today’s Session • Setting the Context • Introducing Universal Design for Learning • Exploring some key concepts and ideas.

4. Let’s Consider: What do you think about when you hear Universal Design for Learning?

6. Why does this Matter? • Diversity • Ableism • Accommodation vs. Accessibility • Making Differences Ordinary • 21st Century Learners

7. Diversity • Today’s classrooms are comprised of wide diversity of students who are coming to school not proficient in the language of instruction, who are identified with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, or other disabilities and growing numbers of children who are identified as “at-risk” due to other factors such as socio-economic, cultural and environmental backgrounds.

8. Inclusive Education • “The new challenge of inclusion is to create schools in which our day-to-day efforts no longer assume that a particular text, activity, or teaching mode will “work” to support any particular students’ learning” Ferguson, 1995

9. Setting the Direction • This new framework aims to recognize and respond to disability and diversity within our education system by ensuring that educators, schools, and school authorities have the support they need to develop and deliver an inclusive education system. • The desired end point of this work is that the needs of all students will be met within an inclusive education system

10. Ableism • An ableist society is said to be one that treats non-disabled individuals as the standard of ‘normal living’, which results in public and private places and services, education, and social work that are built to serve 'standard' people, thereby inherently excluding those with various disabilities. Wikipedia

11. Ableism in Education (Hehir, 2008) Applied to schooling and child development… the devaluation of disability results in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that: • It is better for a child to walk than roll • Read print than read braille • Spell independently than use a spell checker • Hang out with with non-disabled children rather than only with other disable children.

12. What is Disability?

13. What makes someone Handicapped? While for the individual, the impairment has a permanent aspect, disability would depend from the activity the individual wishes to uptake. The handicap aspect is the disadvantage he encounters in relations with other individuals, so called 'able' people. http://www.drnbc.org/child.cfm?DPAR_PARENT_ID=2&DCHD_CHILD_ID=248

14. What about in the Educational Environment? Handicap = a Mismatch between learner needs and education offered Handicap is artifact of lack of appropriate relationship between the learner and the learning environment or education delivery. Jutta Treviranus

15. There can be many kinds of Barriers that can disable our functioning or “handicap” us.

16. The bias toward “Naked Independence” • Education places a premium on knowledge that is contained in one’s head • The AT world termed this form of bias ‘naked independence’, as it exults the performance of able-bodied individuals and devalues the performance of others who must rely on external devices or tools.

17. What if … Failure is Not an Option Naked Independence • Scaffolding vs. Augmentation • Cheating?

18. Assistive Technology Assistive Technology for Learning (ATL) is defined as the devices, media and services used in learning environments to overcome barriers for students with physical, sensory, cognitive, speech, learning or behavioural special needs to actively engage in learning and to achieve their individual learning goals.

19. ACCESSIBILITY (Universal Design for Learning) ACCOMMODATION (Assistive Technology for Learning) APPROACH ADVOCACY (Barriers to learning exist) APPROACH CHANGES OVER TIME Moving to Accessibility – A3 Model

20. Accommodation vs. Accessibility • Accommodation is grounded in the medical model of disability… a professional typically identifies the individual’s functional limitations or “deficits” and prescribes adjustments that allow the person to participate to some degree in the “normal” environment” Sheryl Burgstahler

21. Accommodation vs. Accessibility • Whereas accommodation is a reactive approach to provide access to an individual, accessible, usable, and UD processes are proactive approaches to ensure access for groups of potential participants. Sheryl Burgstahler

22. Accommodation vs. UDL Source: AHEAD Universal Design Initiative Team

23. Achievement Gap Current schooling practices are not effective for some groups of students Continuing to do what we have always done will perpetuate rather than eliminate the gap Repeated failure over time creates an achievement gap that is exceedingly difficult to erase

24. Technology enables Access • Technology can play a crucial role in providing access to the curriculum for students who wouldn’t, under typical conditions, be able to participate fully in the classroom. • As a regular part of the classroom environment, assistive technologies have potential to improve learning for all students.

25. Assistive to Accessible Mere access is not in itself the solution to student engagement. CEC

26. Making Differences Ordinary!!

27. Making Differences Ordinary How do we make differences ordinary? Keep classroom supports natural and unobtrusive • Fit into the details of the day-to-day classroom instruction • Be perceived by teachers as effective for typical students as well as for students with disabilities (differences) • Enhance the teacher’s current repertoire of instructional methods.

28. UDL - What is it? • Let’s review and consider

29. What is UDL? • UDL is a much-touted approach to providing appropriate and accessible education to all students, including those with disabilities, in the context of the demands of the 21st Century educational environment

30. Universal Design • Extension of architectural concept of Universal Design • Designing for the divergent needs of special populations increases usability for everyone.

31. Universal Design for Learning Extends this idea to the classroom: • Access to the building • Access to the learning

32. The Promise of UDL… When new technologies move beyond their initial stage of development, innovations in curriculum design, teaching strategies and policies will be driven by the needs of students “at the margins”, those for whom present technologies are least effective- most prominently, students with disabilities. The beneficiaries of these innovations will be ALL students. Rose & Meyer, 2000

33. UDL definition “ the proactive design of curricula (including learning goals, instructional methods and materials, and assessments) that are accessible and usable by all students with little or no need for additional accommodations and are compatible with available assistive technology” inForum, June 2008

34. Will UDL replace assistive technology? No. Assistive technologies will always have a role in the education of some learners. Children with physical disabilities need properly designed wheelchairs, adaptive switches to control devices, or speech synthesizers.

35. UDL Principles Three principles that enable every student to access and participate in all facets of learning:

36. UDL Universal Design for Learning calls for ... * Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge, * Multiple means of action and expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know, * Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners' interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation.

37. Universal Design for Learning Each student, regardless of disability, difference, or diversity, needs access to the curriculumthat is meaningful and that allows the student to use his or her strengths.

38. Curriculum? • How do you define curriculum?

39. The Curriculum Programs of Study Assessment Resources Instruction

40. Disabled Curriculum • The traditional, one-size-fits-all curriculum is proving to be an entirely inadequate solution for problems that plague our schools in this era of standards-based reform.

41. Universal Design for Learning • UDL provides a blueprint (framework) for creating flexible goals, methods, materials, and assessments that accommodate learner differences. CAST, 2002

42. UDL - What do we mean? • UDL assumes a continuum of learning differences in the classroom • UDL relies on curriculum being presented in a flexible, engaging and challenging manner. • UDL maintains high expectations for all students. • UDL is inclusive by design.

43. What do we mean by Universal?
 • To many people the term seems to imply that UDL is a quest for a single, one size-fits-all, solution that will work for everyone.In fact, the very opposite is true. • The essence of UDL is flexibility and the inclusion of alternatives to adapt to the myriad variations in learner needs, styles, and preferences.

44. Key Concepts in UDL • Leveraging Diversity • Clearly understood Goals • Teaming • Flexibility • Proactive Approach • Change the Environment not the Learner

45. Leveraging Diversity

46. Change comes from the Margins

47. What (Assistive) Technology do YOU use?

48. Closed Captioning

49. Pencil Grips / Large Print Books

50. Sound Field Systems