UDL: More than I can chew?

Reflection on the UDL (Universal Design for Learning) framework: It’s a big framework; just reading through the overview takes a while. None of the ideas strike me as bad and most strike me as good; it just seems like a lot to consider for a teacher who only has so much paid time to plan and needs to do something with the kids everyday, regardless of how UDL it is. But then I suppose an unwritten rule of teaching (that as a recovering perfectionist I’m still getting comfortable with in my life in general) is that improvement and learning require mistakes—from teachers as from students. I will not be able to implement the UDL framework wholesale in my teaching, but I can accept its principles as good-sounding guides to keep in mind, come back to, and continue learning from, and I can and will fail to exemplify its principles often. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad framework or that I’m a bad teacher; it just means there will always be room to do better.

Accessibility not everything

Not only can UDL seem overwhelming as a guiding framework, practical applications of the priority of student accessibility it enshrines have sometimes been suggested to me in less-than-winning ways. For example, a guest speaker in another EdTech class who was brought in to teach the importance of accessibility once opined that no field trip should take place that isn’t wheelchair accessible. As someone for whom remote outdoor field trips were one of the few consolations of my school life, this seemed a heartless punishment in the spirit of “if one person can’t have it, no one can.” I realize this stance is not a necessary outcome in the general pursuit of broader accessibility; it just clarified for me that a univariate fixation on universality as the summum bonum would be wrongheaded.

Positive application in a math lesson

That said, I have already seen clearly positive applications of UDL principles, both as a “teacher candidate” (student teacher) and as a student myself. As part of a 3-week teaching practicum this spring I taught a 5-lesson grade 4/5 math unit on the concepts of perimeter and area. While feedback from my mentor teacher was overwhelmingly positive, she did helpfully point out to me after the first of these lessons that in working one-on-one with a class-member whose math comprehension was still emerging, she had found herself pulling out manipulatives (math toys) to represent the principles I was teaching in a more tactile manner. With reference to the UDL framework, she suggested making such manipulatives available to students in the middle of every group’s table for use not only by singled-out “struggling” students but by whomever might find them a benefit. I readily agreed and this proved to be a clear and positive example of “designing to the edges“—making a probable benefit to some universally available as a potential benefit to all.

More than one way to show my work

I myself have also benefited, as a student. from applications of one of the basic ideas in UDL—providing multiple means of representation. My first attempt at completing a university degree was over ten years now and ended in failure. My big problem was finishing essays. The material was intellectually stimulating, my knowledge of English was probably above average, and I would dive deep into research and reflection, but a single sentence could easily balloon in my mind to an overwhelming problem—insoluble because it had innumerable solutions, but none of them quite right. Professors and fellow students would often remind me these were undergraduate assignments that I should just “get done,” but I truly didn’t know how. One day I showed up to an anthropology class on the due date of an incomplete assignment. I waited my turn to speak to the professor and make my confession of failure, but when I told him the situation (I had researched my chosen topic fairly thoroughly and come to some interesting conclusions, but sadly had nothing to show for my work) he simply invited me to share what I’d learned in a sit-down conversation with him after class. I took him up on his offer, he asked me about my topic, I told him all about it, he asked questions, I addressed them—it was lovely and easy and interesting and unlike any “showing my work” I’d ever done before. While at the time this was an anomaly, my most recent year of university courses has provided me with a few separate opportunities to show my work in video (oral) form, and all have resulted in work that both I and my professors have been very happy with.

More efficient learning

A related UDL-inspired boon to my post-secondary experience has been the occasional use of video or audio recordings for either direct teaching or other course content. My reading (as my writing) pace has always been relatively slow and careful, but taking in learning through audio is much more efficient. My consumption of books of all kinds has easily quintupled since subscribing to Audible, where (as on podcasts I also take in) listening speed can be adjusted. When course content is made available in other forms, school immediately feels less restrictive, difficult, and boring, and this is seen in the comparative ease with which my related work is done.

Onward

From these few examples from my own experience, I can extrapolate that many students could be benefited in countless other ways by educators thinking creatively from UDL principles and instituting applications as they come to them. In my own work as an educator I certainly look forward to doing so.

Photo by AndrĂ©s Dallimonti on Unsplash