This document discusses universal design for learning (UDL) and moving it from promise to practice in inclusive education. UDL aims to increase access to learning for all students by reducing barriers through providing multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement. It outlines the three principles of UDL and nine guidelines to support flexibility in goals, methods, materials and assessments. The document advocates designing instruction and curriculum from the start to be accessible and flexible for expected learner variability, rather than making adaptations later. It provides examples of digital tools and apps that can support UDL implementation by allowing flexible representation, expression and engagement. While UDL aims to reduce barriers proactively, assistive technologies will still play a role in supporting some learners. Overall

1. 21st Century Inclusive Education: Moving
UDL from Promise to Practice
Kathy Howery, PhD (c)
University of Alberta
Applications Management

2. Introductions

3. Destination: Inclusive Education
In an inclusive education system all students
belong and receive a quality education
regardless of their ability, disability, language,
cultural background, gender or age.
Alberta Education.

4. Destination: 21st Century

5. Destination: 21st Century

6. Innovation is the creation of better or more
effective products, processes, services,technologie
s, or ideas that are readily available
to markets, governments, and society.
Wikipedia

7. Where does innovation come from?

8. Innovation in Teaching & Learning
• True innovation occurs at the margins
• We are pushed further by:
– Disruptive notions
– Perspectives that do not fit in
– Unpredictable inspirations that burst
our neat categories
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

9. Change comes from the Margins

10. What assistive technology do you use?

11. • Yesterday’s Special Tech = Today’s Tech

12. Today’s Conversation:
Universal Design for Learning

13. UDL in a Can…

14. Something new?
“The new challenge of inclusion is to create
schools in which our day-to-day efforts no
longer assume that a particular text, activity,
or teaching mode will “work” to support any
particular students’ learning”
Ferguson, 1995

15. Who are we designing learning for?

16. The Illusory Average Student

17. Our current system?
Combining the medical model (to be abnormal is to be
unhealthy) and the statistical model (abnormally large
or abnormally small amounts of measured
characteristic)… turns behavior patterns into
pathological signs. (Skrtic, 1986)

18. Changing our Thinking
From DIS-ability to VARI-ability

19. Social construction of (Dis) Ability
• The social model suggests it
is society that causes the
individual with (physical or
psychological) differences to
be disabled. In other words
individuals with impairments
are not disabled by their
impairments but by the
barriers that exist in society
constructed for the “norm”.
• http://www.brainhe.com/TheSocial
ModelofDisabilityText.html

20. Ableism
• An ableist society is said to be one that treats
non-disabled individuals as the standard of
“normal living”, which results in public and
private places and services, education, and
social work that are built to serve 'standard'
people, thereby inherently excluding those with
various disabilities.
Wikipedia
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

21. Aimee Mullen’s on Dis-abled

22. Ableism in Education (Hehir, 2008)
Applied to schooling and child development… the
devaluation of disability results in societal attitudes that
uncritically assert that:
• It is better for a child to walk than roll
• Read print than read braille
• Spell independently than use a spell checker
• Hang out with with non-disabled children rather than
only with other disable children.
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

23. The Illusory Average Student?

25. Let’s think about dis-ability
KHOWERY 21/08/2012

26. Dis-abling barriers.

27. What about in the Educational Environment?
Disability = a Mismatch between learner needs
and education offered
Disability is artifact of lack of appropriate
relationship between the learner and the
learning environment or education delivery.
Jutta Treviranus

28. Think of a time you have been disabled
by Barriers.

30. What is our Model for Design?

31. Enter Universal Design for Learning

32. What do you think of when you think
of UDL?

34. Enter Universal Design for Learning
• An educational approach that aims to
increase access to learning for all students
by reducing physical, cognitive,
intellectual, organizational and other
barriers.

35. Dis-abled Curriculum
• The traditional, one-size-fits-all
curriculum is proving to be an
entirely inadequate solution for
problems that plague our schools in
this era of standards-based reform.
CAST

36. Curriculum?
•How do you define curriculum?

37. The Curriculum
Programs of Study
Provincial
Assessment
Resources
Instruction & Classroom
Assessment

39. UDL Beginnings
• Publishers should prepare and teachers should
select instructional materials that are supportive
and inclusive of students who have wide
disparities in their ability to see, hear, read, etc…
to achieve that end, we recommend that all
developers of instructional materials adopt the
concept of universal design and implement it in
their products.
• Furthermore, we recommend that teacher
training programs prepare teachers for teaching
in environments where the goals, methods, and
materials are universally designed. (Orkwis &
McLane, 1998, p.14)

40. UDL provides a blueprint (framework) for creating
flexible goals, methods, materials, and
assessments
CAST, 2002

41. Learning Resources (Materials)

42. Promise of Digital Media
In our view, what is of most significance to
the future of education, especially for
students with disabilities, is the unequaled
flexibility and transformability of digital
media.
Rose & Meyer 2002

43. Digital Media can Flexible and Transformable

44. Digital Media can Flexible and Transformable

45. Flexible Means of Representation
You Tube Comics

46. Flexible Means of Expression

47. Accessible Digital Materials!

48. http://snow.idrc.ocad.ca/

49. The Future is in the Margins
When new technologies move beyond their initial stage
of development, innovations in curriculum design,
teaching strategies and policies will be driven by the
needs of students “at the margins”, those for whom
present technologies are least effective- most
prominently, students with disabilities.
The beneficiaries of these innovations will be ALL
students.
Rose & Meyer, 2000

50. The promise of new technologies

51. Universal Design in Technology
http://www.apple.com/education/special-education/

52. http://www.microsoft.com/enable/default.aspx

53. SMART solutions for promoting
accessibility
http://smarttech.com/us/Solutions/Education+S
olutions/SMART+solutions+for+accessibility

54. CAST:
Center for Applied Special Technology
Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for
curriculum development that give all individuals
equal opportunities to learn.

55. How do we get there?
• Designing an educational system to teach all
students that will also support individualized and
flexible instruction designed to teach each student
Expected Learner Variability

56. WHO are these diverse students
in Alberta schools?

57. In an Alberta school of 500 students,
we might expect to see…

58. •25 students
with learning disabilities
•40 students
with AD/HD

59. •45 students who live below
the poverty line
•40 students whose first
language is not English or French
•25 students who
are First Nations, Métis
or Inuit (FNMI)

60. •7 students
with autism
•5 students
with FASD

61. • At least 1 student
with a physical disability
• 15 students
with cognitive disabilities

62. •7 students requiring
support for mental health
issues
•8 students with severe
behavioural/emotional disabilities

63. • 100 students who
will not finish high
school within 5 years

64. Diversity could also mean …
Differences in:
– background knowledge
and experience
– learning preferences
– learning strengths
– personal interests and
motivation
– levels of engagement

65. Diversity could also mean…

66. Think Different
• Expected Learner Variability
• Proactive Reduction of Barriers

68. UDL
Universal Design for Learning calls for ...
* Multiple means of representation, to give
learners various ways of acquiring information
and knowledge,
* Multiple means of action and expression, to
provide learners alternatives for
demonstrating what they know,
* Multiple means of engagement, to tap into
learners' interests, offer appropriate
challenges, and increase motivation.
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

69. UDL Guidelines
From the three principles, nine guidelines have
been developed that form the primary
foundation of UDL.
The guidelines articulate the principles but their
main purpose is to guide educators and
curriculum developers in using evidence-
based means of addressing the range of
variability that any classroom typically
experiences.

70. 21/08/2012 KHOWERY

71. Principle 1: Representation
• Students differ in the ways that they perceive
and comprehend information that is presented
to them.
• For example, those with sensory disabilities
(e.g., blindness or deafness), learning
disabilities (e.g., dyslexia), language or
cultural differences, and so forth may all
require different ways of approaching content.
Others may simply grasp information better
through visual or auditory means rather than
from printed text.

72. What are ways you are currently
providing Multiple Means of
Representation?

73. Principle 1: Representation
Guideline 1: Provide options for perception
Guideline 2: Provide options for language and symbols
Guideline 3: Provide options for comprehension

74. Wikipedia

75. More ideas for Representation
• Digital resources
– www.LearnAlberta.ca
• Book Rags
– http://www.bookrags.com/
• 60 Second Recap
– http://www.60secondrecap.com/
• YouTube
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzAtEqFU3Lc&f
eature=related

76. Options for Comprehension
Jen: The Tiered Web Page Generator
• http://www.tieredwebpages.com/
Free Online Automatic Text Summarization
Tool
http://www.textcompactor.com/

77. http://www.cast.org/learningtools/index.html
UDL Editions
BookBuilder

78. Principle 2: Action & Expression
Students differ in the ways that they can navigate a
learning environment and express what they
know.
• For example, individuals with significant motor
disabilities (e.g., cerebral palsy), those who
struggle with strategic and organizational abilities
(e.g., executive function disorders, ADHD), those
who have language barriers, and so forth
approach learning tasks very differently. Some
may be able to express themselves well in writing
text but not oral speech, and vice versa.

79. What are ways you are currently
providing Multiple Means of
Expression?

80. Principle 2: Action & Expression
Guideline 4: Provide options for physical action
Guideline 5: Provide options for expressive skills and
fluency
Guideline 6: Provide options for executive functions

81. Physical Action
Writing Tools
http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/Writing+tools
Virtual Manipulatives
http://www.conceptuamath.com/

82. Strategies and Scaffolds
http://sciencewriter.cast.org/welcome

83. Principle 3 : Engagement
Students differ markedly in the ways in which
they can be engaged or motivated to learn.
Some students are highly engaged by
spontaneity and novelty while other are
disengaged, even frightened, by those
aspects, preferring strict routine.

84. The Why of Learning!!

85. What are ways you are currently
providing Multiple Means of
Engagement?

87. Principle 3 : Engagement
Guideline 7: Provide options for recruiting
interest
Guideline 8: Provide options for sustaining
effort and persistence
Guideline 9: Provide options for self-
regulation

88. Strategy Support
• http://cst.cast.org/cst/auth-login
Cast Strategy Tutor

89. University of Buffalo –
• AT Training Online
http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.com/

90. Front end loading
Using digital materials & “assistive” technologies into
the classroom we can create a more accessible and
flexible environment for all students.

91. There’s an app for that?

92. There’s an App for that!
• Apple
http://www.apple.com/education/why-apple/
• Free Tech 4 Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/10/iphon
e-ipad-apps-for-special-education.html

93. There’s an App for that!
Scribed
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24470331/iPhone-
iPad-and-iPod-touch-Apps-for-Special-Education

94. There’s an App for that!
http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/article/apps-for-literacy-support

95. Freeware, Shareware, Everywhere!
http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/2011/07/free
-assistive-technology-tools-to-make.html

96. Sounds easy, right?

97. The Steve Jobs Model for
Educational Reform
"If you read the front pages of the New York
Times, they will tell you that technology's promise
has not yet been realized in terms of student
performance. My answer is, of course not. If we
simply attached computers to leeches, medicine
wouldn't be any better today than it was in the
19th century either. You don't get change by
plugging in computers to schools designed for the
industrial age. You get it by deploying technology
that rewrites the rules of the game."
•
-RUPERT MURDOCH

98. Flexibility still requires Pedagogy!
• Flexible MATERIALS
• Flexible instructional METHODS
• Clear Accessible GOALS
• Accessible & Authentic ASSESSMENT

99. Diversity Profile
• What is the diversity of students you can
expect in your classrooms?
• What might be barriers to their learning
success?

100. Clearly Defined Goals
• You need to know what your goal is to
understand and set up how this will work!
• Goals the reduce barriers for expected student
diversity

101. UDL Goals
• Separating the means from the ends

102. Examples from the Program of Studies: UDL?
Grade 10 English Language Arts
General Outcome 2 - Comprehend literature and other texts in oral, print,
visual and multimedia forms, and respond personally, critically and
creatively
2.1 Construct meaning from text and context
Grade 7 Science
Unit D: Structures and Forces (Science and Technology Emphasis)
Skill Outcome : Analyzing and Interpreting
Students will:
Analyze qualitative and quantitative data, and develop and assess possible
explanations compile and display data, by hand or computer, in a variety of
formats, including diagrams, flow charts, tables, bar graphs, line graphs and
scatterplots (e.g., plot a graph, showing the deflection of different materials tested
under load)
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

103. Separating the Goal from the Means:
Writing Goals and Objectives that Increase Access*
Goals/Objectives that LIMIT Access: Goals/Objectives that ALLOW Access:
Instead of … Try …
The student will write… The student will express…
The student will generate…
The student will read… The student will receive information…
The student will spell… The student will select…
The student will compute… The student will solve…
The student will define… The student will show…
* From Gargiulo & Metcalf (2010) p. 270

106. Instructional Methods
There is no universal medium of instruction

107. Medium of Instruction
• Auditory - Listening / Speaking
• Text - Reading / Writing
• Visual - Viewing / Representing

108. Qualities of Speech
• Natural speech has expressive power.
• Speech is transitory.

109. Qualities of Text
• Representational - permanent record
• Reduces memory demands

110. Qualities of Images
• A picture is worth a thousand words…
• But do you see what I see?

111. Instructional Methods

112. UDL DI RTI
Approach Proactive Responsive Interventionist
is…
Focus is Environment/ Groups of Individual
on… Curriculum Learners/ Learner Needs
Instruction
Solution Eliminating Instructional Specialized
involves… barriers Strategies interventions

113. Assessment
• Do we know what we are assessing?

116. Universally Designed Assessment
• Must clearly understand what we are
assessing!
• Reduce Construct Irrelevant
Variance!
• Multiple pathways to demonstrating
success.
• Be authentic!

117. Expert Learners
• In UDL we are seeking to create expert
learners, individuals who- whatever the
particular strengths and weaknesses
are know themselves and know how to
learn.

118. Assistive Technologies

119. “For people without disabilities,
technology makes things easier.
For people with disabilities,
technology makes things possible …”
National Council on Disability
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

120. Will UDL eliminate the need for
assistive technology?
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

122. Assistive technologies will always have a role in the
education of some learners. Children with
physical disabilities need properly designed
wheelchairs, adaptive switches to control
devices, or speech synthesizers.
UDL will not eliminate the need for such devices.
But such devices will be used for the same
reasons we use eyeglasses; that is, to enhance
our abilities rather than to compensate for
inadequately designed learning materials.

123. AT in the iWorld
Challenges to Using Apps as Assistive
Technology
http://www.atia.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageID=4296
Apps challenging the billion dollar assistive
technology market
http://tinyurl.com/9wyzg6n

124. Goal of UDL
Creating learning and learning environments which
provide meaningful access for every learner
Support Challenge

125. • If I were asked to …. summarize my
reading of centuries of wise reflection on
what is required of an environment for it to
facilitate the growth of its members, I
would say this:
people grow best where they are
continuously experiencing an ingenious
blend of support and challenge; the rest is
commentary.
Robert Kegen, In Over our Heads

126. Amplification of Differences
• In the 21st Century – the goal of
education to recognize the diversity
and amplify it not reduce it!

127. So where to from here?

128. Strategic Planning
• At the District Level
– What role should the district play in UDL
implementation?
– What needs be done at the district level?
• At the School Level
– How do schools need to be structured and supported
to design for diversity?
• At the Classroom Level
– How can teachers be supported to bring UDL to life in
their instructional practices?

129. Thoughts?

130. Stay Tuned!
• UDL-iRN
http://udl-irn.org/
• ERLC – Making Connections

131. IMAGINE…
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

132. Change is not quick or easy
We have found that developing an inclusive program is
always harder that stakeholders initially think it will be.
Indeed, successful programs are dynamic and ever-
changing, presenting continuing challenges to teachers
and administrators as they create classrooms to meet a
broad range of student needs.
McLeskey & Waldron, 2000
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

133. But change is possible…
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

134. And potentially TRANFORMATIONAL
21/08/2012 KHOWERY

135. “The success of technology has more to
do with people than machines. All the
right parts and pieces together won’t work
miracles by themselves. It is people who
make technology powerful by creatively
using it to fulfill their dreams.”
Alliance for Technology Access, 1996

136. Kathy Howery
khowery@ualberta.ca