You are here:

NCAC: Research & Solutions: Consensus Building: Universal Design Workshop

New Brain Research and Next Stage Technologies Draw Fifteen Education Associations to a Universal Design Workshop

Article from Teaching Exceptional Children, Vol. 33, No. 3, Jan/Feb 2001, pgs 92-93. Copyright 2001 by The Council for Exceptional Children. Prepared as part of the National Center for Accessing the General Curriculum Open Doors To Learning Project. Reprinted with permission. Link to CEC at: http://www.cec.sped.org/

October 12, 2000 Fairfax, Virginia

d

Workshop participants Virginia Williams from the National Council of Teachers of Math and Tyson Brown from the National Science Teachers Association see firsthand how universally designed features open the curriculum to diverse learners.

In a timely workshop preceding the 25th anniversary of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act in November, representatives from fifteen national general education associations were drawn together to experience new insights about e-text in schools and the changing world of inclusive education. At its heart, the workshop revealed how new brain research and next stage technologies are transforming the curriculum with practical innovations that stand to improve results for very diverse learners.

The day-long event Oct. 12 focused on Universal Design for Learning and unveiled ways to push open the doors to the curriculum that historically have been wedged shut for too many students. The event was held by the National Center for Accessing the Curriculum (NCAC) in the Cable in the Classroom's learning laboratory at George Mason University's Helen A. Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities in Fairfax, Virginia.

NCAC is a 5-year cooperative agreement at CAST, the Massachusetts-based Center for Applied Special Technology. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the U.S. Department of Education funds the NCAC and its partners including the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), Harvard University's Children's Initiative/Harvard Law School, Boston College, and the PACER Center, a parents organization. The presenters, David Rose, CAST's co-executive director, and Chuck Hitchcock, NCAC director, spoke to the varied interests of the audience from curriculum development and educational technology, to educational leadership and professional development.

What Is UDL?

d

The National Center's first workshop totally engages educators Bill Valmont from the International Reading Association, Brenda Bannon Ritland of George Mason University's Graduate School of Education, and Kathy Frame of the National Associates of Biology Teachers with information now available on CAST's Web site and with software products built with universally designed features.

Universal Design for Learning is an evolving approach to teaching and learning that affects the development and presentation of curriculum and assessment. Drawing from current brain research and new media technologies, the UDL approach enables teachers to respond to individual learner differences with an educated flexibility. For example, teachers have discretion about how information is imparted to each learner. Moreover, each student works with those ideas or facts and then communicates what he or she knows using the methods that by-pass common barriers to learning and expression. The foundation for UDL is a digitized curriculum combined with teachers who are versed about the strategies, methods, and tools of universal design in education.

UDL is catching on because it raises the bar on individualizing, differentiating, or personalizing instruction. The cohort of UDL teaching strategies seems to be appropriate for students, teachers, and parents with different backgrounds, learning styles, abilities, and disabilities in widely varied learning contexts. California and Texas, for example, are translating their support for universally designed features by asking for or requiring them from publishers in order for products to meet their states' standards for approved purchases.

As yet there is no completely universally designed curriculum and no instructional products are perfectly accessible, according to the NCAC. For now, a UDL curriculum must be built over time and with direct help from educators who ask for digital companions for all printed materials they buy. Educators also must request from publishers that their software products offer universal design's flexible features that scaffold and support diverse learners.

Some products are better than others, according to Hitchcock and Rose, and there is no single source for these products. Moreover, there are tools-such as readers of electronic text or electronic note-takers that can be bundled with other software. These measures can improve accessibility to the curriculum and reduce the time-consuming demand on teachers to modify the curriculum and make accommodations child by child. Ultimately, built-in features rather than bundling products is the better option, according to Hitchcock.

What Is Next?

d

CAST Co-Director David Rose captivates an audience as he explains that Universal Design for Learning is an evolving approach that draws on new brain research and next stage technologies.

Workshop participants were urged to take steps with help from NCAC and CAST to turn their association's members into savvy purchasers and users of technology products. Hitchcock also directed attention to Bobby, the no-cost web accessibility tool located on CAST's web site. Bobby helps associations, school districts, and other organizations of all kinds to increase the accessibility of information they provide to the public or their members. Bobby provides instant feedback and reports out whether a current web site allows or prevents people with disabilities or those with low bandwidth from accessing information on its pages.

CEC will be reporting to the participating organizations and other interested groups about the progress being made on many fronts as universal design in education evolves and transforms publishing, purchasing, teaching, and learning.

The following is a list of participating organizations:

• American Federation of Teachers
• National Association of Elementary School Principals
• National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Middle School Association
• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,
• National Association of Biology Teachers
• National Business Educators Association
• National Council of Teachers of Math
• National Science Teachers Association
• International Reading Association
• The American Library Association
• The Kennedy Center Education Office
• National Dance Education Association
• National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

In addition experts in instructional design and special education attended from George Mason University, The Council for Exceptional Children, and OSEP.

The National Center for Accessing the General Curriculum is funded by the Office of Special Education, U.S. Department of Education, award #H324H990004.

Photographs by Michael Behrmann.

More information about the National Center and UDL is available on the CAST Web site at http://www.cast.org