Moving Toward the Vision of the Universally Designed Classroom

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CAST Director of Research, Dr. Bart Pisha, helps an eleventh-grade student develop strategic reading skills using the CAST eReader and a specially formatted digital version of the student's textbook.

It is 10:30 on a Monday morning and the first grade teacher announces that it's "Drop Everything and Read" time. At the announcement, 22 children move to various locations in this inclusive classroom. Some of the students pick up a book from the library area and move to the rug, while others take a book out of their desks and begin to read. A few children go to the classroom computers, put on headphones, and select a book from a software program for kindergarten to third grade-level learners that offers numerous children's books in accessible electronic format.

All of the children are engaged in the reading activity, but each has his or her own approach. Some of the students use a finger as a pointer to track the printed words, while others read the words aloud to themselves. A student who is blind reads a Braille version of the story she has chosen, created for her by her teacher using a scanner, digitized text and an embossing machine.

Over at the computers, one of the first-graders follows along as the computer program highlights and reads aloud the words of the story he has selected. When the student gets to the end of the story, he begins again with the read-aloud feature turned off. Instead of listening to the computer read the story, he records his own voice as he reads the words aloud. Coming to an unfamiliar word, he clicks on it with the mouse, and the computer reads the word to him. Although this six-year-old struggles with word decoding skills, he, too, can participate in the class reading activity and achieve at a successful level.

Seated in a wheelchair at the computer next to him, a girl whose motor impairments make it difficult for her to use a conventional keyboard, uses the software program's single-switch scanning feature to read the same story independently.

In contrast to both of his classmates, a precocious student at the next computer uses the software program to read a chapter book. Setting the highlighting to a fast pace, he moves quickly through the book with little difficulty. While this student has many attention-deficit (ADD) characteristics that often interfere with his ability to focus in unstructured activities, by adjusting the program to his abilities, he, too, is successful in reading independently.

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There is more than one way to become successful at reading independently in the UDL classroom. Using headphones, these students boost their reading skills by listening to stories as they read along on the printed page.

In this universally designed activity, print-based text is not the only medium for learning, or even the preferred one. Instead, each student is encouraged to use the medium that works best for him or her, even when the goal of the activity remains constant.

Central to the effectiveness of this approach is the integration of technology into the learning environment. As a classroom tool, the computer can allow all students to achieve success in learning, including the struggling reader and the student with physical disabilities. With a variety of books available at different reading levels, both on and off the computer, students do not feel stigmatized when they are reading at one level while others may be reading at more advanced levels.

Much, of course, depends on the philosophy and approach of individual teachers. While most teachers have relatively little say over what curriculum comes into their classroom, they do have a great deal of control over how curriculum materials are managed and transformed into effective instructional practices. It is a challenge for the teacher to ensure that all the students in his or her class, regardless of their reading ability, are successful. Using an approach that draws on the concepts of Universal Design for Learning™ (UDL), this first-grade teacher manages to create a framework in which 22 students achieve success and improve their reading skills.

The first universally designed classroom

CAST's vision of the universally designed classroom began in the late 1980's with one student in an inclusive classroom. Matt, a kindergartner with cerebral palsy, couldn't talk or move any part of his body except his chin and eyes. Because he could not write or communicate verbally, Matt could do little to indicate his intelligence until CAST brought a computer into his classroom. By putting intelligence tests on the computer and hooking Matt up to an adaptive device that allowed him to operate the computer with his chin, CAST clinicians could demonstrate what they already knew - that Matt was a very intelligent youngster. "Our first idea was to provide assistive technologies," recalls David Rose, EdD, CAST's co-executive director. "But we soon realized it was a time-consuming and not very cost effective way of working with Matt. So we began to redesign the classroom materials."

When CAST created electronic versions of books for Matt to read on the computer screen, an unexpected thing happened. "Very soon all the children in the classroom were grouping around Matt and the computer. These kids wanted to learn to read and write the way Matt was learning to read and write."

Over time, these early observations led CAST to the design and co-development, with a commercial software manufacturer, of a reading program intended for a mainstream environment with adaptations for individual learners built in. "Our work with Matthew taught us a lesson," Rose concludes. "If you are careful to design products that are good for students with special needs, these products are good for all students."

Moving toward the vision

While no classroom can yet claim to be fully universally designed, CAST has spent the last 15 years conducting research and demonstration projects in schools, both locally and nationally, which are designed to bring classrooms incrementally closer to the UDL vision. One such project, for example, teamed CAST with an educational publisher and Wakefield High School (Wakefield, MA) to develop a new technology-based instructional approach for students with learning disabilities. Called "The Strategic Reader," this research and development project combines the text-to-speech, highlighting, and study supports of the CAST eReader™ with a specially formatted digital version of an educational textbook to create an electronic textbook with embedded study supports. The study supports are designed to help students with learning disabilities differentiate key points from supporting details, and to effectively organize the information they find.

The Strategic Reader project demonstrates that providing classroom materials in accessible electronic format does not, by itself, ensure accessibility for students with disabilities. Instead, it is often necessary to provide a framework of multiple scaffolds and supports to help the student access the materials at hand and work at an individually appropriate level of challenge. A "scaffold" is a temporary support designed to bring the learning task within reach. This concept relates to the "zone of proximal development (ZPD)," a term coined to mean the optimal level of challenge, where the learning task cannot be achieved independently, but can be achieved with support, neither too easy nor too hard. As learners progress, the ZPD changes, becoming a "moving target" that requires highly adjustable materials to support it.

To engage all learners, the universally designed classroom must include an array of programs and resources that allow students to work in their own ZPD, and that reduce the degree of support as their skills improve. In the case of the Strategic Reader project, researchers hope that the resulting instructional approach will not only increase students' access to social studies material, but will also help them develop effective strategies they can apply to all their reading. "The interactive instructional modules we're developing will teach the students how to identify key concepts by themselves," says Bart Pisha, EdD, CAST's director of research and principal investigator on the project.

What success would look like

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In the universally designed classroom, teachers create a framework for success by responding to a wide range of learner needs.

The Strategic Reader project is one of several current programs supported by a new CAST initiative, the National Consortium on Universal Design for Learning. Under the direction of Grace Meo, MEd, this pilot initiative seeks to establish a consortium of schools dedicated to a common goal: implementing Universal Design for Learning in the classroom and sharing the resulting best practices with other educators. After a two-year trial run in New England schools, CAST plans to expand the program nationally. The Consortium, along with the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum, a CAST-led initiative sponsored by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), is working toward the day when all core curriculum is digitized, allowing the kinds of flexibility needed for UDL implementation, and when teachers and students receive ample technological support.

When asked how CAST would determine that Universal Design for Learning was having the sought-after impact in the classroom, Meo came up with the following list as indicators of success:

• Higher attendance, fewer behavior problems;
• Special education teachers and regular education teachers working side by side;
• Students demonstrate appropriate progress when evaluated;
• Special needs students are provided with full accommodations and alternatives, and find an appropriate level of challenge; and
• Curriculum designers understand how to integrate UDL into materials and classroom practice.

Serving 5,500 students, the Concord, N.H. public school district is a member of the CAST Consortium and one of a handful of school systems across the country to implement UDL district-wide. Elementary School Special Education Coordinator Donna Palley helps teachers throughout the district to implement the UDL approach in their classrooms. A large part of this effort is the conversion of core curriculum materials to accessible digital format. "The practical aspects can be challenging," admits Palley. "Digitizing materials can be overwhelming for teachers who do it on their own." But Palley is committed to UDL, seeing it as "a very real way to have a significant impact on the development of skills and abilities in all kids." To Palley, the most exciting thing about the approach is how it bridges the gap between regular and special educators. "Unlike some of the other approaches we've tried in special education, UDL is an authentic opportunity for regular and special educators to work together. Regular classroom teachers see the special educators using UDL and want to be part of it. It really breaks down barriers."

At present, the universally designed classroom is still largely a vision for most schools, but with the establishment of the Consortium and the resulting opportunities to conduct further research and to develop new tools and approaches that benefit all students, including those with disabilities, CAST believes this vision is attainable.

Palley, whom CAST recently named the Consortium's first "UDL Fellow," believes parents have the most important role to play in the adoption of UDL by schools throughout the country. "Parents have a huge impact on school change, and a huge responsibility and an opportunity to take this information to their school district and to ask for it to help their child."

Lucinda M. O'Neill is a staff writer at CAST, the not-for-profit Center for Applied Special Technology in Peabody, Mass. Contact CAST at 39 Cross Street, Peabody, MA 01960; Phone 781-245-2212; Fax: 781-245-5212; E-mail: cast@cast.org; Web site: http://www.cast.org.