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NCAC: What is UDL?: Frequently Asked Questions

Universal Design for Learning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Prepared by CAST for the ASPIIRE Project and used with permission (v.09.06.00)
Updated by NCAC (v.8.16.01)

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FAQ 1: What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?

The concept of Universal Design originated in the field of architecture. Designers had long recognized that there were architectural features, stairs for example, providing access for some individuals while creating barriers for others. Adding accessibility features - such as ramps - often solve the problem but such retrofitted solutions are expensive, functionally inadequate, and aesthetically disastrous.

Architects practicing universal design, on the other hand, create structures that are intended to be used by all individuals from the outset, including those with disabilities. By considering, during design, the varied needs of those who would use their buildings, these architects create spaces that are economically viable, aesthetic, and functional for everyone. In fact, they are often enhanced for everyone - as witnessed by the fact that ramps are often the most popular entrance for people with carriages, strollers, walkers, and wheeled suitcases.

Like buildings, curricula have often been designed in such a way that they are accessible to some students and not to others. In recent years the inequity of this position has become clear and the concept of universal design began being applied to the curriculum. Especially with the malleability of new digital media it became possible to provide materials in which the content, the means of expression, and the balance of support and challenge are all customizable to support individual learners. By doing that, we are able to make learning, not just buildings or materials, more accessible to all students. That is what is meant by Universal Design for Learning.

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FAQ 2: What is the connection between access to the general curriculum (IDEA '97) and Universal Design for Learning?

Each learner, with or without identified disabilities, presents a unique pattern of skills, weaknesses, interests and needs. IDEA '97 cites the need to adjust various aspects of curriculum and instruction to meet these individual differences and thus ensure access to the general curriculum; yet traditional curriculum materials and methods are not inherently adjustable.

The only practical and affordable way to implement the requirements of IDEA is to provide materials that are flexible, and thereby accessible to different learners. Because learning is not just a question of access to materials, clear strategies for adjusting learning goals, teaching methods and materials, and assessment methods, as well as professional training in individualizing learning, are also necessary.

The cornerstone of Universal Design for Learning is flexibility. The UDL approach uses the inherent flexibility of digital media and networks to fashion tools, content, and instructional approaches that support individualized learning. Thus UDL concepts form the basis for the development of adjustable materials, instructional approaches, assessment methods, and professional development that can meet IDEA's call for access to the general curriculum for students with disabilities.

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FAQ 3: What is the difference between physical and cognitive access to the general curriculum?

Broadly speaking, physical access to the curriculum includes sensory and motor access (such as the ability to see text and images, hear sound and speech, and manipulate materials and expressive tools). Individuals with physical or sensory disabilities may encounter barriers when using traditional materials such as books, paper and pencil, keyboards, audiotapes without text equivalents, or videos lacking captions or video descriptions.

Examples of cognitive access to the general curriculum include the ability to understand assignments, plan and execute approaches to tasks, use materials effectively, comprehend content presented in various media, organize work, understand and use feedback, and express ideas effectively. All students, but particularly students with learning disabilities, attention deficits, developmental disabilities, or affective difficulties, may encounter barriers when using traditional materials or digital materials if they are not designed in a flexible manner.

Students need both physical and cognitive access in order to succeed in the general curriculum. A student with a learning disability may be able to see text clearly (physical access) but may have difficulty understanding and keeping track of the assignment or purpose for reading, finding main points, organizing notes, and expressing understanding (cognitive access). Conversely, a student with cerebral palsy may fully understand an assignment and have clear ideas for executing it (cognitive access), but be blocked from expressing those ideas by inappropriate tools (physical access).

Where are there guidelines for increasing the accessibility of curricula? Various organizations, such as the TRACE Center at the University of Wisconsin, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media and CAST have been developing guidelines and tools to support physical access to electronic curricula and media. Good examples of curricular adaptations for physical disabilities can found through two companies: Intellitools and Don Johnston, Inc.

Guidelines for cognitive access are less well developed. NCITE, see below, has provided a good summary of research-based accommodations for students with cognitive disabilities within traditional media. CAST is applying the Universal Design for Learning framework to the development of guidelines for the kinds of flexibility needed to support cognitive access to the general curriculum as it becomes more available in digital form.

To support cognitive access for diverse learners, teachers and curriculum developers need to individualize all aspects of instruction and provide scaffolds to support cognitive difficulties. While a great deal more research is needed, a few examples of cognitive supports follow:

• Providing ""multiple representations" is one key way to increase access for many students. MathPad, from Intellitools is a good example. It creates a workspace for doing mathematical computations (like adding or subtracting) that displays the math simultaneously or sequentially in several representations - e.g. in numbers and images or graphs. This can be extremely helpful for students with various learning disabilities. As an added strength, the program is accessible to students with physical disabilities as well.
• Providing "multiple means of expression" is another key way to increase both physical and cognitive access. In the program Write:Outloud® by Don Johnston, students with many kinds of writing difficulties find supportive scaffolds that help them express what they know or think. Write:OutLoud is a simple word processor, but it is a talking word processor, and there are features like word prediction that allow students for whom typing is laborious (students with physical disabilities) or spelling is difficult (students with dyslexia) to express themselves competently and efficiently.
• The NCITE group at the University of Oregon has gathered together examples of researched-based accommodations to support cognitive access. They emphasize 6 features in particular:
  1. Focus on Big Ideas
  2. Present Conspicuous Strategies
  3. Provide Mediated Scaffolding
  4. Support Strategic Integration
  5. Prime Background Knowledge
  6. Initiate Judicious Review

A full discussion of these strategies can be found in an excellent book, Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate Diverse Learners, by Ed Kameenui and Doug Carnine.

Many other examples are provided by the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. This Center has been established specifically to provide information about the best ways to increase access to, participation in and progress with the materials and methods of the general curriculum.

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FAQ 4: How has the IDEA mandate for access to the general curriculum changed the role of the special educator?

Traditionally, the role of the special educator has been distinct from the role of the regular education teacher, focusing on remedial instruction of skills rather than on curricular content, often in a separate physical setting. Both IDEA and Universal Design for Learning support a new role for special educators. IDEA specifies that "joint participation and leadership of general and special educators in curriculum standards development, professional development, resource allocation, and instruction are critical in helping students with disabilities access the general education curriculum…"

Because IDEA mandates access to the general curriculum and the attainment of goals connected to curriculum standards for students with disabilities, special educators will work collaboratively with regular educators to customize the general curriculum to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Not coincidentally, special educators may also collaborate with regular educators to customize goals, materials, methods and assessment for students without identified disabilities. Each learner has unique strengths, weaknesses, interests and needs, and the skills of the special educator can assist the regular educator in helping all students reach curricular goals.

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FAQ 5: What barriers need to be removed from current general curriculum materials to make them accessible for all learners?

The single most significant barrier in the general curriculum is the fixed medium of presentation. For example, printed materials, the most pervasive means of providing curriculum, cannot be modified from their original format, nor can the information provided be enhanced or made more supportive for diverse learners. Videotapes, audiotapes, and even some software are also generally "fixed" in their presentation, making them accessible and appropriate learning tools for some, but not for all.

The presentation of curricular materials and tools in digital, networked form is the first step in overcoming the barrier of fixed media. Digital form is necessary because it provides the underlying flexibility needed for customization. Text, images, sound, and video, when digitized, can be converted to other forms for accessibility to different learners at the teacher's or learner's request. This ability to be transformed, and to be presented in multiple forms simultaneously, is unique to digital media.

Networked form is necessary because it provides:

• The opportunity for students to access their curricular materials and projects from multiple sites (school, home, travel, multiple classrooms);
• The possibility of ongoing, embedded assessment (with student process and student work collected in one place and feedback offered in an ongoing way);
• A wide variety of content, supporting varied student interests;
• Vast information resources, and multiple ways to access that information to support different learners' modes of finding information;
• Supports such as online dictionaries, thesauri, and encyclopedias, and the ability to have text read aloud to scaffold students with difficulties and to expand information and ideas for all students.

However, simply providing materials in digital, networked form does not guarantee the flexibility of use needed to truly individualize learning. This flexibility must be built in by software and curriculum designers so that materials are truly adaptable and can be applied by teachers to individualize goals, methods, and assessment.

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FAQ 6: What are the differences between assistive technology and Universal Design for Learning?

Children with physical or language disabilities need properly designed wheelchairs, adaptive switches to control their environment, speech synthesizers, and other assistive devices. Assistive technologies will always have a role in the education of learners with disabilities, and Universal Design for Learning will not eliminate the need for personal assistive devices.

However, exclusive emphasis on assistive technologies places the burden of adaptation on the learner, not the curriculum. The idea that students must procure or "be prescribed" special individual tools whenever they cannot use standard curricula undermines learning for everyone. Exclusively print-based tools and methods, uncaptioned videos and software, images and posters that lack text descriptions, all create a culture of failure for many of our children. UDL curriculum materials assume diverse learner goals, learner profiles, and assessment methods, and therefore are designed with flexibility as the keystone. UDL materials offer options to transform content presentation and provide redundant, multimedia presentation; options for varied learning supports and modes of student expression; and varied means of building student engagement. Instead of one assumed standard with variations, variations comprise the standard.

As Universal Design for Learning becomes viable and pervasive, the power of assistive technology can be devoted to providing more efficient interaction with a curriculum that is already access-aware. For the students who need it, assistive technology will no longer be required to overcome barriers in a poorly designed curriculum, but it will enhance active interaction with a curriculum that has been designed at the outset to be accessible to all.

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FAQ 7: How can technology help teachers individualize teaching materials to make learning engaging and challenging for all students?

Technology tools, if designed according to WAI and UDL guidelines, can be created to support the individualization necessary to engage all learners, as illustrated by the following examples:

Pam, a student with learning disabilities for whom English is also a second language, uses the CAST eReader^TM to help her complete a reading assignment. eReader's spoken voice and synchronized highlighting features help her track the words on the page, pace her reading, and associate the way a word looks with the way it sounds. After reading the story several times with the spoken voice option turned on and the highlighting speed set to slow, she turns the read aloud feature off, increases the highlighting speed slightly, and reads the story again, in this manner working gradually to increase her reading comprehension and speed. Seth, a student with low vision whose word comprehension skills are excellent, uses eReader to adjust the font, style, size and color of the digital text, and the background and highlighting colors, to achieve maximum contrast and readability.

Jeremy, a poor speller who does not enjoy writing, uses the auditory feedback offered by Write:OutLoud (Don Johnston) to engage him in the task of writing an English composition. As he types his composition onto the computer screen, the program reads it aloud by word, sentence, paragraph, or even letter-by-letter, helping him identify sentence construction problems and spelling mistakes. When he misspells a word, it flashes on the screen, indicating his error. Using the program's talking spell checker, he calls up a list of suggested words to replace the misspelled word, and in the case of homonyms, short definitions to distinguish one word from another. Jeremy selects the word whose pronunciation (or definition) indicates it is the correct word, and completes the composition without spelling errors. Daniel, whose physical disabilities prevent him from using a mouse or computer keyboard, uses Ke:nx with Write:OutLoud to gain single switch access to program controls and the onscreen keyboard. In this way, he too can access the writing supports of the program to help him complete his written work.

Ellen, an eighth-grader with learning disabilities, finds it challenging to utilize the rich resources of the Internet because there is so much information to look at and so many visual distracters. But finding and organizing information from the Web is getting easier for her since her school library installed CAST's eTrekker software on the library computers. She signs on, opens eTrekker, and types in her research question: What did Harriet Tubman do in the Civil War as a nurse? eTrekker checks Ellen's spelling and identifies the key words in her question as "Harriet Tubman," "Civil War," and "nurse." She presses the Search button and ten Web sites, with preview information, are listed. eTrekker's interface presents a search engine environment free of distracting advertisements and extraneous information. Ellen selects a few sites to visit, goes to those sites, and using the reading supports of the CAST eReader, which she has also opened on her computer, selects the "read" feature to have the information read aloud to her. eTrekker keeps her research question and keywords on the screen, helping her to maintain focus on the nursing aspect of Tubman's life, rather than her role in the Underground Railroad. Ellen highlights and pastes information onto the onscreen notepad and generates some of her own notes on the topic. As she finishes her Internet search, eTrekker stores her research question and keywords, the Web sites she visited, and her notes so that she can easily retrieve them.

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FAQ 8: How can the Internet and multimedia be used to individualize learning for students with varied backgrounds, learning styles, abilities and disabilities?

The flexibility of digital media and the varied resources available on the World Wide Web provide great opportunity for individualization. However, care must be taken to structure any learning experience so that the focus remains on the particular goal at hand. This requires preparation and careful consideration of each learner's needs and skills.

Example: A seventh-grade science class, with the help of the teacher, uses Inspiration® (Engaging Minds), a concept mapping program, to create a "launch pad" of selected Web sites to use when researching the topic of whales. Inspiration enables this diverse group of 7^th graders, with varied abilities and preferences, to work together to fulfill the goal of the assignment: to find out the best place in the world to film whales for an upcoming movie, and how much such a project will cost. One student, a reluctant reader who does poorly in print-based assignments, excels when it comes to interpreting the data presented in maps and graphs depicting whales' migratory patterns. Another student's math skills come to the fore as she analyzes how much it will cost to get a crew to the Gulf of Maine to film humpback whales in action. As the students gather their data, they weave their separate findings into a cohesive whole using Inspiration. When their research is complete, another student uses his visual talents to present the group's findings in a dazzling PowerPoint® (Microsoft) presentation.