The CAST Summer Institute, 2001

CAST's First Institute on Universal Design for Learning: Opening Doors for Educators

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For Geneva Oatman, Assistant to the Special Education Officer for the Chicago Public Schools, CAST's first Institute on Universal Design for Learning gave a new perspective on how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help all students. "Chicago already has a big assistive technology division for students with low-incidence disabilities; I now see the application for high-incidence as well. UDL can help keep these high-incidence kids in regular education settings." In a city of 601 schools with 56,000 special needs students and a vast shortage of special education teachers, UDL offers promise for decreasing the burden on special needs programs by helping students succeed in general education classrooms.

For Carol Leffler, Chair of the Assistive Technology Department in Schaumburg, Illinois, the CAST Institute provided an opportunity to learn from educators like Donna Palley, a special education coordinator who has successfully integrated UDL methods into classroom practice in the Concord, New Hampshire Pubic Schools. Following Concord's example, the Schaumburg district has embarked on a large-scale project to digitize the middle school curriculum. Digitized text is a critical aspect of UDL because it makes the content flexible for students with disabilities. Leffler also realizes that full inclusion goes far beyond digital text. "My vision for our entire project is to make the curriculum accessible for all kids, not just to create digital text," she said.

For Eileen Daneri, a teacher of the deaf and hearing impaired in the Amherst, Massachusetts Public Schools, the training she received at the CAST Institute allowed her to "move from an assistive technology, tool-based mindset." In fact, the whole philosophy of UDL felt natural to her. "I just keep seeing this door opening and walking in, and you're living it; you're breathing it. Yeah, there's work involved; its not magic. But it can happen."

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CAST hopes to open doors for many educators through its Institutes on Universal Design for Learning. The goal of the institutes is not only to give educators like Oatman, Leffler, and Daneri background information on UDL, but to help them develop concrete "action plans" they can use to implement UDL in their own school districts.

Fifty-two classroom teachers, special educators, assistive technology specialists, and administrators attended the first UDL Institute, held at the ultra-modern Ipswich High School in Ipswich, Massachusetts over four days last August. During intensive, full-day sessions, participants were taught UDL theory by CAST Co-Executive Director Dr. David Rose, learned about recent changes in disabilities law from Director of Professional Development Skip Stahl, discussed the challenges and needs within their own districts, and shared their experiences in making the general education curriculum accessible for students with disabilities.

Most importantly, the participants crystallized their vision of what education can be for students with diverse learning needs by developing UDL action plans-plans that help individual educators and districts create UDL goals, take stock of current challenges within their schools, and develop strategies for introducing UDL into classroom practice. Action plans are designed to be flexible and to help schools proceed based on their own needs and resources. CAST's Director of Programs & Services, Grace Meo says, "CAST's philosophy is that professional development must extend far beyond four days of training. These action plans offer scalability and sustainability; we teach people how to move forward on their own, rather than create a plan for them."

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Working from UDL templates designed by CAST, the teachers developed customized action plans to fit their own school situations. For Harriet Anagnostopolous, a language arts teacher in the Lowell, Massachusetts Public Schools, this meant receiving a gradual introduction to technology, a topic she feels she "didn't know enough about." Her colleague Noreen Conlon, a Title I teacher, felt the plan was instrumental in giving her strategies "for students for whom other approaches haven't worked." Conlon cited the Class Learning Profile template as particularly helpful -- a plan that prompts teachers to look beyond students obvious challenges and identify individual strengths and preferences. "Sometimes it takes a long time to discover a students strengths. The profile helped me to look at a students strengths and weaknesses and gear supports and challenges accordingly."

Grace Meo feels that teaching educators to develop UDL action plans can have far-reaching effects both here and abroad. "We had teachers from Virginia, Texas, Georgia, even Japan," she says, "These forward-thinking individuals will go back to their districts with innovative ideas that will touch the lives of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of children."