Lecture 2 Chapter 6 UDL

All right, let's get to it.

If you haven't heard about it yet, you're gonna hear about it in this course,

it's universal design for learning.

Let's find out more.

So universal design for learning,

it, it will provide the basis for

most everything that you do instructional.

Um From here on out,

universal design for learning is research based.

It is a framework that

really encompasses just about everything.

It's gonna encompass the way your classroom is set up,

it's gonna encompass um the curriculum that you teach and all of the instruction,

it is meant to be accessible for all students,

including everyone

with or without disabilities.

So what I like to use as an

example of universal design really comes from architecture.

So if you think back um a long time ago in this course, um if you remember anything,

you might remember that in chapter one,

we talked about the Americans with Disabilities Act didn't

spend a lot of time talking about it,

but

the ad A has had a tremendous influence on the way we

design buildings and the way we look at things um even education.

So universal design for learning

kind of gets its start there.

And the example that I like to point out to students is you're

all familiar with walking in all of the buildings at the university,

um on campus. Right?

When you walk into those buildings,

particularly when you look at the buildings that are newer or by newer, I mean,

designed somewhere post 1990

you'll notice that as you walk in

there are doors but just off to the right of those doors,

sometimes on a free standing post, sometimes on the wall mounted,

uh near the door will be a large button.

And on that button, you will see a graphic of a wheelchair.

So that button is part of the university's

compliance with the Americans with disabilities act.

So that button if you push it,

makes the doors open, right?

You see it on the university campus buildings,

you see it whenever you go to a grocery store or any type of major department store,

you probably won't see it

in some of those buildings or settings that we

looked at with your first activity in this class.

Um But for any of those buildings where public access is

um, necessary and where the public interacts.

Um because they need to, for business purposes, ad a rules. So

sure people who are in wheelchairs use that button in order to get into the building,

but

I use that button.

Sometimes I have my hands full of things and I might

use my elbow or my hip to hit that button.

So the door opens for me,

I'm betting

you use that button too.

Sometimes maybe you break a leg. God forbid

or you're on crutches or, you know, you've had an uh an injury from sports

and it's hard for you to balance everything that

you have in your hands and open the door.

You might use that button.

That is universal design.

It's an example of what we're talking about here

that makes that building accessible to everyone,

not just people that have disabilities,

but maybe people that are busy

uh running late or have too much stuff in their hands.

So the same thing is going to apply to your classroom.

The way you set up and design,

your classroom needs to be accessible for all the students that you teach,

not just specifically for students who may be

in wheelchairs or who may have special needs,

but to all the kids in your class.

So your instruction needs to be the same as the way you set up your classroom.

You're not gonna set up your classroom so that you can't navigate the aisles or

the areas that you have set up for learning.

If you are a person, let's say you're a larger person,

are you going to set up your classroom?

So that every time you have to maneuver around the room,

you knock into tables and chairs,

no,

you're gonna allow adequate room.

That may also be really helpful if you have a student who uses a walker or a wheelchair

or who carries equipment with them.

So

that's kind of what universal design is all about.

Now,

when we talk about it applied

specifically to learning and instructional practices,

we're talking about three basic principles,

memorize these,

these are important, this is important stuff.

OK?

I will have this on a test

hint, hint. OK.

Providing multiple means of engagement.

What does that mean?

It means

more than one way to hook kids into what you're trying to teach them.

So you can have videos like this one,

you can have videos like the ones I post below.

You can have hands on activities, you can have field trips, you can have books,

you can have music, you can have many different ways

of engaging kids in any given activity, right?

And good teachers

always provide more than one way to engage kids

provide multiple means of representation.

Hm.

Isn't that kind of the same as multiple means of engagement?

Well, it can be there,

there is some overlap but here's where you want to make absolutely certain

that you have multiple ways for kids to be able to access this.

So think about learning differentiation,

think about the different types of learners you have in your class.

Think about the learners who may be auditory, the learners who might be visual,

the learners who are definitely hands on or kinesthetic type learners.

That's what representation is all about. So the same lesson

represented in more than one way,

multiple means of action and expression,

more than one way to let you know what they know or what they learned.

So for a lot of our kids, um and a lot of school is based on reading and writing, right?

Um So

that works well for a lot of people, but not for all people.

So having more than one way to show the

teacher that they understand what's going on is crucial.

So that way it might be through writing,

it might be through test taking, it might be through writing a paper,

maybe it's drawing a picture,

maybe it's acting something out in a play,

maybe it's writing a song or singing a song,

maybe it's doing something completely different

to be able to demonstrate that they understand

what's happening with the material, with the lesson

and the objective that you're trying to teach.

So these are the three principles just remember,

multiple means just means more than one way right

now, whenever we say multiple, we'd like to have more than two ways,

right? Engagement, representation and action or expression.

So I usually just break that down into expression

more than one way to get them hooked in more

than one way to present the lesson and more than

one way for them to show you what they know

kind of a big deal.

So this is it in a nutshell, multiple means of engagement.

Students be able to engage in multiple ways,

motivating them to learn. So every kid's uh hot button is different,

right? You gotta hit that hot button for some kids. It's games for some kids, it's

um being outside for some kids, it's movement,

it, you know, some kids like to curl up with the book. Everybody is different,

multiple means of representation, various options.

So how are you gonna interact with what it is that you want them to learn?

So they got options.

Maybe they wanna watch a video,

maybe they wanna go to this station over here that has them making a craft.

Maybe

they want to go on a nature walk and find something that way,

multiple means of action and expression. How can they demonstrate what they know

really important stuff?

So

how are you gonna plan for that?

That's your job as a teacher

and that will be your activity for this unit? You will be planning an activity

that implements these three principles.

So we're gonna get you started doing that

and while you're out observing on your field work, observe what teachers are doing.

How are they using these UDL principles in the classroom

best to learn by watching.

So to plan,

you need to have clear outcomes. What do you want them to do?

What do you want them to know this,

this harks back to everything that we've talked about so far.

Know what the learning styles of your kids are

know that you've got various different kinds of learners,

various different levels of understanding.

There is infinite variety

in your classroom.

Make sure that you know how you're gonna figure

out if kids know what you just taught them.

How are you gonna know

in this course?

Like most college courses you take some sort of a

quiz or you have some sort of a project,

right?

And pretty typically that's how we assess learning,

but there's also different forms of formative assessment we can do on the fly.

Did you get that?

Yes

or no?

Right.

Are you understanding that?

Oh, my watch says it doesn't understand, I better clarify it for him,

instructional experience.

So making sure that you are giving the kids those

instructional experiences that they need to have to gain understanding

about what you're teaching,

right?

So you have to provide those things for them

and reflection about what you've done.

So you're gotta reflect, you have to understand if what you did was effective.

Did it reach all the kids that it needed to reach?

Did everybody come away with an understanding of the concept?

So when you do that reflection,

which you should be doing throughout your teaching practice,

you will gain new understanding in the things that you need to do.

So

how do we do this? How do, how do we get this UDL stuff down?

Well, remember we've talked a lot about cooperative activities,

cooperative activities amongst all the professionals.

So co teaching

really helpful for UDL.

So you as the general education teacher are

gonna plan that curriculum around whatever the specific subject

and principle is that you're trying to get across

and that special education teacher is gonna help you with

some of them modifications to that lesson to make sure

you hit those three UDL principles that you've presented things

in multiple ways.

So there's representation and engagement and ability to express understanding.

So using coal

planning or co teaching are great ways to get to that.

So it just helps for you to understand some of

the necessary steps that have to be taken to make sure

that your Children with special education needs are being hit by

all of the great things that you're trying to teach them

explicit instruction.

Remember we talked about that don't make it vague,

don't leave it to the imagination,

make it clear.

Break it down step by step. It may seem redundant to you,

but I can guarantee you there is some child out there and it

may not even be your special education student who needs that explicit breakdown

of exactly what it is that you want.

That's why we have rubrics in college. What do you want from me?

Mrs Reed when I do my activity?

Well, look at the rubric,

you know, that doesn't give you an idea. Ask me a question, right?

So you gotta make it clear

and you have to have lots of opportunities to learn.

So that

instruction has to be embedded everywhere.

Reading is not a one time activity 20 minutes a day at eight o'clock in the morning,

it's an all day long activity.

Math is not a one time activity at 1 p.m. after lunch.

When everybody's falling asleep,

there should be math throughout the day because

math is real and it occurs everywhere.

It has to be in all of your activities across the day.

You can incorporate all of those basic lessons that

you are trying to get across to your students.

Throughout the things that you do on a day to day basis,

you gotta

embrace assistive technology.

So there's lots of different forms of assistive technology.

And as I mentioned previously, we will talk about all of those different forms

and specifically discuss

different types of groups who are heavier uses, users of this type of technology,

but

there's lots of different kinds.

So there are things that help students access the environment. My button

example that I gave you so

that button by the door, that's environmental access.

There can be other forms of environmental access,

how kids are able to navigate through the environment that they have.

So there can be forms of assistive technology that help with that.

If you think about a child who uses a wheelchair or any

type of mobility assistance that helps with environmental access and mobility,

sitting in the right position or being in the right position for something.

So a student may use assistive technology to help them stand

or to help them sit upright

in a position

that's really common,

particularly in earlier years for students to have specialized chairs that help

them maintain upright body posture so that they can be attentive to learning

communication,

lots of stuff.

If you go to the web building downstairs and B 30 that's where you'll find my office,

you'll also find

tons of examples of assistive technology for communication,

probably the most high tech and in some of the in some instances,

some of the most low tech solutions are located there.

So speech language,

pathologists will use everything from simple pictures or

written words all the way up to computer technology

to assist students who need help communicating with others

learning technologies.

There can be technologies, there,

there can be books on tape for kids

who are not really particularly very good readers.

Um You can have books read to you.

There can be braille technology for students who

have um are blind or visually impaired.

There are big um light

devices that a student can use if they have low vision,

high contrast materials, lots of those kinds of things.

Um learning adaptive books that are used to assist students.

There's many different types of assistive technology. It's vast

and endless and continuously changing.

And then

how about using kids

to deliver some of your information?

Kids are motivated by other kids?

So having peers step in

and teach a lesson can be highly effective uh

in supporting your students who might have disabilities.

So these are some of the ways that you'll

use these types of things in instructional planning.

Now,

now that that's kind of fresh in your mind,

I want you to go to your activity.

That's gonna be what's next for you.

Lecture 2 Chapter 6 UDL

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated