1. Universal Design for Learning:
A Framework for Teaching All Learners
Please fill out a name tent, permissions, and try to connect to UDL Connect (our online resources for today).
The permissions sheet is helpful as we try to ‘tweet’ and use images for our CAST social media site. If you do not want to be in a photo, please remind us. Thank you!
We will include ‘diving deeper’ notes in this section of the Power Point.
Blackboard image from simplyjaki.com
Friday, Nov 1, 2013
Hartford, CT
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2. Introductions Allison Posey aposey@cast.org
You can also introduce yourselves on our UDL Connect site.
Allison Posey
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3. How many years in education?
Less than 2 years
Between 3 and 10 years
Over 10 years
Over 20 years!
Image: Dead Poets Society via
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4. Who traveled the furthest to get here today?
Less than 5 miles, I practically live here!
Between 5-15 miles
Between miles, but felt like farther!
Over 30 miles, are you kidding me?!
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5. Went trick-or-treating last night?
Dressed up and ate a lot of candy
Went out, but not in costume
Stayed in and handed out candy
Turned out my lights!
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6. Watched the Red Soxs? Every minute of every game
Every game was on in the background
I checked in
Who are the Red Sox?
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7. Where are you in your understanding about UDL?
1 = Just beginning, what does ‘UDL’ even stand for? 2 = I know a little about UDL 3 = Ask me anything about UDL: I could lead this session!
We recognize there will be variability in the understanding and background of UDL.
UDL supports to build background:
The UDL Connect site has additional background videos and articles to read, re-read to build background or to dive deeper
The notes section of the power points will provide ‘diving deeper’ options for those of you who already have a strong background. Feel free to read and explore the content.
Foster collaboration: identify other participants who may be good supports for building understanding and for discussions.
Add to the UDL Connect discussion posts or Tweets with comments and questions you have during the workshop
During work time, ask for additional help from CAST staff
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8. Tweet: #UDL1day CAST social media
UDL Center
AIM Center
Do a search for our three organizations on your favorite social media sites!
PLEASE NOTE: The #UDL hashtag is just an example – choose whatever hashtag you want for the workshop you’re doing. If you do not wish to have a workshop-specific hashtag, please leave the reminder about using the #UDL hashtag in case people decide they want to tweet.
There are too many to list on the slide, it’s easier for people to just do a search for the three organizations. They’re easy enough to find on the four sites listed above (Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube). However, if people have trouble finding the sites, I’ve included the direct links below:
Connect with CAST:
CAST on Twitter: 
CAST on Facebook: 
CAST on Google+: 
CAST on YouTube: 
Connect with the National Center on Universal Design for Learning:
UDL Center on Twitter: 
UDL Center on Facebook: 
UDL Center on Google+: 
UDL Center on YouTube: 
UDL Connect Ning: 
Connect with the National Center on Accessible Instructional Materials:
AIM Center on Twitter: 
AIM Center on Facebook: 
AIM Center on Google+: 
AIM Center on YouTube: 
Use Twitter? Use #UDL1day in your tweets during the workshop!
#UDLchat: 1st & 3rd Wednesdays of the month, 9-9:30pm ET
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9. UDL Connect: http://community. udlcenter
UDL Connect: For Online Resources & discussions
This is a free site that can be used during the workshop and indefinitely after the workshop to build online resources, tools, links and discussions.
Be sure to (1) Sign in to UDL Connect (the entire UDL Community) and (2) join our group (unique materials and discussions for this particular workshop.
You may also explore and join other UDL Connect sites that are of interest to you.
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10. 1. Sign up for the site 2. Join our group: UDL in Hartford
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11. Institute Goals Build background
To learn how UDL addresses challenges of learner variability
To strategize how to apply UDL to practice
To meet these goals, we will provide multiple means of representing content, of being able to act with the content, and to engage with the objectives. (we will model UDL!)
Knowing how people learn  can purposefully design learning environments
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12. This workshop: build awareness
Analogy! This workshop is like your first visit with a travel guide… with this visit, the travel guides will tell you about UDL & a journey you might want to take. At this point, you are not signed up to take the the ‘real’ trip yet! You are just building your background.
Implementation of UDL is a process of change that can take years (even up to to 7 years!) to integrate at the classroom, school, and district level. The phases are recursive and can be revisited many times with growing understanding of UDL. For more information on UDL Implementation, visit the following site:
UDL Implementation, A Tale of 4 Districts:
The goal of this workshop is to Explore UDL.
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13. What are your goals? For this workshop today?
For your professional learning?
Pause for a moment to consider why you signed up for this workshop. What are your personal and professional goals? You can write, draw, record, build (etc!) your goals and we will revisit these throughout the 2 days.
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14. The Marshmallow Challenge Goal: to build collaboration around design
Count off to work with new people- introduce yourselves
Goal: to collaborate with peers around a design that utilizes any combination of materials in the bags to build the TALLEST freestanding structure with the FULL marshmallow on top!
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15. 18 minutes.
✦Measure the Structures: From the shortest standing structure to the tallest, measure and call out the heights. If you’re documenting the challenge, have someone record the heights.
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16. Have fun, collaborate & be creative
RULES:
18 minutes, team of 4
Tallest freestanding structure
Cannot be suspended
Entire marshmallow on top
Use as much/little of the contents in bag (not the bag); can break, cut…
Have fun, collaborate & be creative
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17. What worked? Variability!
Strategy
Representation
Engagement
Variability in many aspects of the process. For example, some may prefer to just try/do while others like to plan. Some may enjoy the group collaboration, others may have preferred to work alone. Some may have had more background or have even done this challenge!
Variability is the ‘rule’– we know we will have variability in every classroom– including this workshop! There is some predictable variability that we can begin to design for even before we meet the students/participants.
UDL thinks about variability along 3 principles: representation, strategies, and engagement.
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18. Watch the TED talk (optional)
✦Kids do Better than Business Students: On virtually every measure of innovation, kindergarteners create taller and more interesting structures.
✦Prototyping Matters: The reason kids do better than business school students is kids spend more time playing and prototyping. They naturally start with the marshmallow and stick in the sticks. The Business School students spend a vast amount of time planning, then executing on the plan, with almost no time to fix the design once they put the marshmallow on top.
✦The Marshmallow is a Metaphor for the Hidden Assumptions of a Project: The assumption in the Marshmallow Challenge is that marshmallows are light and fluffy and easily supported by the spaghetti sticks. When you actually try to build the structure, the marshmallows don’t seem so light. The lesson in the marshmallow challenge is that we need to identify the assumptions in our project - the real customer needs, the cost of the product, the duration of the service - and test them early and often. That’s the mechanism that leads to effective innovation.
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19. Why begin with this exercise?
* Goal driven *
UDL goal for this exercise:
Clear goal
Flexible means
Design to build a context that addresses variability
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20. UDL: Begin with the goal
Many goals: CCSS, district, lesson, department
Write goals clearly, all understand
Consider flexible means to reach goal (UDL)
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21. Goals are important:
Count how many times the players wearing white pass the basketball.
Our expectations and our focus of attention determine what we actually perceive.
Here is another version of this video!
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22. UDL: based in neuroscience on learning
- Variability
Context Matters
CAST
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23. Old view of variability: learning ‘styles’
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24. ‘average’ learner Image from:
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25. New understanding: Variability
For example, these three functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) are an example of individual variability. They show brain activity patterns of three different people performing the same simple, finger tapping task. The level of brain activity during performance of this task is designated using color. As you can see, each of these three individuals shows a unique pattern of brain activation.
For more information on fMRI, visit Neuroscience for Kids:
Image credit: Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning (Permission granted)
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26. Variability in reading & goal
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27. New imaging: variable connectivity
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28. dynamic interaction between
Learning occurs at the
dynamic interaction between
learner & environment (context)
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29. Context matters
Reflect on your practice: how does a student in one class look different when in a different context (ie: on the stage, during lunch, with their parents…)
Examples include:
Baby in water: the step reflex they do not have on land returns when in the context of water!
Tale of 2 mice: these mice are identical twins! Based on their diet, environment, they are now very different: even their DNA is different! For more information, visit (video included):
A fun, elementary age book related is: Fish is Fish book, by Lionni (1970) where fish – who cannot explore land– talks with a frog who has been on land. As the frog describes things on land, the fish constructs new knowledge based on their own current knowledge!
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30. Variability and Context matter. What resonates for your practice?
Video: Link ( to the you tube video, Variability Matters (10:12 minutes)
Todd Rose, from CAST presented at the Cyberlearning Research Summit on January 18, 2012.
As you watch: what resonates? What new ideas were inspired? What applications can be made to practice?
To watch another video (16 min) that explores Variability, watch David Rose and Todd Rose (they are not related!):
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31. Elbow buddy discussion
Share a key take-away: what resonated?
How do concepts of variability & context relate to the Rubik cube or running shoes?
How would you design a ‘universal’ Rubiks Cube?
Think about Todd’s argument:
The design of Rubik cube & options for strategy lead to engagement and mastery.
What happens when we design for the ‘average’? (shoes, for example)
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32. Universal Cube This cube accounts for variability:
-color-coded -textured -shapes
Universal tool -Everyone can use it -regardless of needs or preferences

33. Break
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34. Started ‘in the margins’
Building Background:
Started ‘in the margins’
CAST began as a small group of neuropsychologists in the early 1980s. Based on the medical model of diagnosing individuals with ‘problems’ of learning, the initial team was ‘dissatisfied’ with their recommendations which did not seem to support the student once he/she left the clinic. They found that many of their design modifications, recommended for one student, could benefit others in the classroom as well. Initial work was to take advantage of emerging technologies that could help a student with disability overcome barriers in the environment. For example, a word processor could help a student who struggled with the fine motor skills needed to write with a pen.
“We believed that digital tools could offer the flexibility that could be powerful levers for students who most needed better leverage—students with disabilities.” © 1986 CAST, Inc.
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35. Inspired by Universal Design
… “all new environments and products, to the greatest extent possible, should be usable by everyone regardless of their age, ability, or circumstance.”
Goal for this session: to understand how UD informed UDL in thinking about design, barriers, and goals.
What are some of the barriers to ‘typical’ design?
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36. What is the goal? What are barriers in the design for individuals to reach the goal?
Identify the goal:
Identify barriers that prevent access to the building. Extend the possible barriers to individuals without the obvious disabilities, e.g. someone pushing a baby carriage will have difficulty with access; someone with a dolly will have trouble bringing packages into the building, someone for whom English is not their primary language will not be able to read the “Post Office” sign over the doorway.
Think about design, recognizing that variability is the ‘rule’ and make the design available for everyone.
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37. Design from beginning to reduce barriers so all can reach the goal
This shows the elevator in the Louvre (Paris, France). It is beautifully designed and is easily accessible for all (and is in the same location as the stairwell!)
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38. Choose one & discuss: What is the goal. What barriers are reduced
Choose one & discuss: What is the goal? What barriers are reduced? How do all benefit from design?
Ramps
Curb Cuts
Electric Doors
Captions on Television
Easy Grip Tools…
It is now expected that the physical environment is designed to accommodate the broadest range of users from the start. What are other examples of ways we have reduced barriers for physical accessibility?
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39. UD Assumptions Not one size fits all – but alternatives for everyone.
Not added on later – but
designed from the beginning.
Not access for some – but
access for everyone.
How does this challenge what you thought about learning?
What are your assumptions about learning?
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40. UDL Curriculum: ‘cognitive’ accessibility Goal. Barriers. Design
UDL Curriculum: ‘cognitive’ accessibility Goal? Barriers? Design? Make available for all
The goal of UDL is to take the theory of UD and apply it to learning environments. Thinking about the goals, barriers, and design of lessons, units, homework, etc.
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41. A mindset for designing learning experiences
UDL…
A mindset for designing learning experiences
all individuals can gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning
reduces barriers to the curriculum while maintaining high achievement standards for all
This is the beginning of the concept that UDL is a framework for designing curriculum. The idea is that we want to enable all learners to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning through the design of learning experiences. (‘UDL shifts the focus away from differentiating a text ‘down’ to providing access ‘up’, educator from Harvard Institute, 2013)
We do not view UDL as another initiative, but rather a framework for thinking about and aligning other initiatives.
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42. UDL… Accounts for variability and context
Thinks of changing the curriculum, not
the student
Clear goal, flexible means
This is the beginning of the concept that UDL is a framework for designing curriculum. The idea is that we want to enable all learners to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning through the design of learning experiences. (‘UDL shifts the focus away from differentiating a text ‘down’ to providing access ‘up’, educator from Harvard Institute, 2013)
We do not view UDL as another initiative, but rather a framework for thinking about and aligning other initiatives.
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43. Questions, Reflections?
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44. How do I ‘do’ UDL?
Goal
Variability
Assessment

45. Example: Traditional college paper UDL ‘lens’
Goal: to write about the benefits of dropping the atomic bomb during WWII
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46. Traditional college paper UDL ‘lens’
1. Goal: to write about the benefits of dropping the atomic bomb during WWII New goal: To demonstrate understanding of the benefits of dropping the atomic bomb during WWII
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47. How do I ‘do’ UDL?
Goal
Variability
Assessment

48. UDL Guidelines
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49. Goal of learning: Expert learners
Resourceful, knowledgeable
Strategic, goal directed
Purposeful, motivated
Think of someone you know who is an ‘expert’ learner. What is it that he/she does?

50. Take a moment, locate UDL Guidelines
3 versions: Column, Blank, List
As we highlight key features of the UDL Guidelines, write, draw, share your ideas for ‘how’ you implement that guideline

51. Dive deeper into UDL Guidelines!
Questions? Comments?
Coming this afternoon!
Dive deeper into UDL Guidelines!
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