Topic 5

Attention to
Diversity:
Universal
Design for
Learning
• “AN
INVESTMENT
IN
KNOWLEDGE
Attention
PAYS THE BEST
to
INTEREST”
diversity
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
Table of contents:
• Universal Design for Learning

• Main Aspects.
• Principles and guidelines
Universal design for learning:

Origins:

• Attributed to David Rose, Anne Meyer and the

professionals at the Center for Applied Special
Technology.

• National interest in the issue of inclusion.

• Concerns were being raised about how students would

gain Access to the general curriculum.
 Universal design for learning:
Definition:
• UDL is a framework to improve and optimize teaching
and learning for all people without any kind of exemption.
• Reducing barriers and maximize learning opportunities.
• The basis of UDL is grounded in the findings of:

Educational
Neuroscience Digital media
research
Universal design for learning:

It is valuable since:

Enables equity in education.

Supports a shift in practice.
Values and plans for diversity.
Everyone benefits.
A culturally inclusive framework.
Universal design for learning:

Main guidelines:
• A set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any
discipline.

• To ensure that all learners can access and participate in

meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

• It is organized both horizontally and vertically.

Universal design for learning:

Affective network Recognition Strategic network

network

Provide multiple means Provide multiple means Provide multiple

of Engagement of Representation means of Art and
Expression
UDL. Engagement:

Affect represents a crucial element to learning.

Some learners are highly engaged by spontaneity and

novelty while others prefer strict routine.

Some learners might like to work alone, while others

prefer to work with their peers.

Providing multiple options for engagement is essential.

 UDL. Engagement:
Recruiting interest:
Optimize individual choice and autonomy:
 Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices in such things as:
o The level of perceived challenge

o The type of rewards or recognition available

o The context or content used for practicing and assessing skills

o The tools used for information gathering or production

o The color, design, or graphics of layouts, etc.

o The sequence or timing for completion of subcomponents of tasks

 Allow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks

 Involve learners, where and whenever possible, in setting their own personal academic and behavioral
goals.
 UDL. Engagement:
Recruiting interest:
Optimize relevance, value and authenticity:
 Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be:

o Personalized and contextualized to learners’ lives

o Culturally relevant and responsive

o Socially relevant

o Age and ability appropriate

o Appropriate for different racial, cultural, ethnic, and gender groups

 Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is
clear to the participants

 Provide tasks that allow for active participation, exploration and experimentation

 Invite personal response, evaluation and self-reflection to content and activities

 Include activities that foster the use of imagination to solve novel and relevant problems, or make sense of complex ideas
in creative ways
 UDL. Engagement:

Recruiting interest:
Minimize threats and distractions:
 Create an accepting and supportive classroom climate

 Vary the level of novelty or risk

o Charts, calendars, schedules, visible timers, cues, etc. that can increase the predictability of daily activities and transitions

o Creation of class routines

o Alerts and previews that can help learners anticipate and prepare for changes in activities, schedules, and novel events

o Options that can, in contrast to the above, maximize the unexpected, surprising, or novel in highly routinized activities

 Vary the level of sensory stimulation

o Variation in the presence of background noise or visual stimulation, noise buffers, number of features or items presented at a time

o Variation in pace of work, length of work sessions, availability of breaks or time-outs, or timing or sequence of activities

 Vary the social demands required for learning or performance, the perceived level of support and protection and the requirements for public
display and evaluation

 Involve all participants in whole class discussions

 UDL. Engagement:
Sustaining effort and persistence:
Heighten salience of goals:
 Prompt or require learners to explicitly formulate or restate goal
 Display the goal in multiple ways
 Encourage division of long-term goals into short-term objectives
 Demonstrate the use of hand-held or computer-based scheduling
tools
 Use prompts or scaffolds for visualizing desired outcome
 Engage learners in assessment discussions of what constitutes
excellence and generate relevant examples that connect to their
cultural background and interests
 UDL. Engagement:
Sustaining effort and persistence:
Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge:

 Differentiate the degree of difficulty or complexity within

which core activities can be completed
 Provide alternatives in the permissible tools and
scaffolds
 Vary the degrees of freedom for acceptable performance
 Emphasize process, effort, improvement in meeting
standards as alternatives to external evaluation and
competition
 UDL. Engagement:
Sustaining effort and persistence:
Foster collaboration and community:
 Create cooperative learning groups with clear goals, roles, and
responsibilities
 Create school-wide programs of positive behavior support with
differentiated objectives and supports
 Provide prompts that guide learners in when and how to ask peers and/or
teachers for help
 Encourage and support opportunities for peer interactions and supports
(e.g., peer-tutors)
 Construct communities of learners engaged in common interests or
activities
 Create expectations for group work (e.g., rubrics, norms, etc.)
 UDL. Engagement:
Sustaining effort and persistence:
Increase mastery-oriented feedback:
 Provide feedback that encourages perseverance, focuses on development of efficacy
and self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies in
the face of challenge

 Provide feedback that emphasizes effort, improvement, and achieving a standard

rather than on relative performance

 Provide feedback that is frequent, timely, and specific

 Provide feedback that is substantive and informative rather than comparative or

competitive

 Provide feedback that models how to incorporate evaluation, including identifying

patterns of errors and wrong answers, into positive strategies for future success
 UDL. Engagement:
Self-regulation:
Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation:
 Provide prompts, reminders, guides, rubrics, checklists that
focus on:
o Self-regulatory goals like reducing the frequency of aggressive outbursts in response
to frustration
o Increasing the length of on-task orientation in the face of distractions
o Elevating the frequency of self-reflection and self-reinforcements

 Provide coaches, mentors, or agents that model the process of

setting personally appropriate goals that take into account
both strengths and weaknesses
 Support activities that encourage self-reflection and
identification of personal goals
 UDL. Engagement:
Self-regulation:
Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies:

 Managing frustration
 Seeking external emotional support
 Developing internal controls and coping skills
 Appropriately handling subject specific phobias and judgments
of “natural” aptitude (e.g., “how can I improve on the areas I
am struggling in?” rather than “I am not good at math”)
 Use real life situations or simulations to demonstrate coping
skills
 UDL. Engagement:
Self-regulation:
Develop self-assessment and reflection:

 Offer devices, aids, or charts to assist individuals in learning to collect, chart and
display data from their own behavior for the purpose of monitoring changes in
those behaviors
 Use activities that include a means by which learners get feedback and have
access to alternative scaffolds (e.g., charts, templates, feedback displays) that
support understanding progress in a manner that is understandable and timely
 UDL. representation:
Perception:
Other ways of customizing the display of information:

 Display information in a flexible format so that the following perceptual features

can be varied:
o The size of text, images, graphs, tables, or other visual content
o The contrast between background and text or image
o The color used for information or emphasis
o The volume or rate of speech or sound
o The speed or timing of video, animation, sound, simulations, etc.
o The layout of visual or other elements
o The font used for print materials
 UDL. representation:
Perception:
Other alternatives for auditory information:

 Use text equivalents in the form of captions or automated speech-to-text

(voice recognition) for spoken language
 Provide visual diagrams, charts, notations of music or sound
 Provide written transcripts for videos or auditory clips
 Provide American Sign Language (ASL) for spoken English
 Use visual analogues to represent emphasis and prosody (e.g., emoticons,
symbols, or images)
 Provide visual or tactile (e.g., vibrations) equivalents for sound effects or alerts
 Provide visual and/or emotional description for musical interpretation
 UDL. representation:
Perception:
Other alternatives for visual information:

 Provide descriptions (text or spoken) for all images, graphics, video, or animations
 Use touch equivalents (tactile graphics or objects of reference) for key visuals that
represent concepts
 Provide physical objects and spatial models to convey perspective or interaction
 Provide auditory cues for key concepts and transitions in visual information
 Follow accessibility standards (NIMAS, DAISY, etc.) when creating digital text
 Allow for a competent aide, partner, or “intervener” to read text aloud
 Provide access to text-to-speech software
 UDL. representation:
Language and symbols:
Clarify vocabulary and symbols:

 Pre-teach vocabulary and symbols, especially in ways that promote connection to

the learners’ experience and prior knowledge
 Provide graphic symbols with alternative text descriptions
 Highlight how complex terms, expressions, or equations are composed of simpler
words or symbols
 Embed support for vocabulary and symbols within the text (e.g., hyperlinks or
footnotes to definitions, explanations, illustrations, previous coverage, translations)
 Embed support for unfamiliar references within the text (e.g., domain specific
notation, lesser known properties and theorems, idioms, academic language,
figurative language, mathematical language, jargon, archaic language, colloquialism,
and dialect)
 UDL. representation:
Language and symbols:
Clarify syntax and structure:

 Clarify unfamiliar syntax (in language or in math formulas) or underlying structure

(in diagrams, graphs, illustrations, extended expositions or narratives) through
alternatives that:
o Highlight structural relations or make them more explicit
o Make connections to previously learned structures
o Make relationships between elements explicit (e.g., highlighting the transition
words in an essay, links between ideas in a concept map, etc.)
 UDL. representation:
Language and symbols:
Support deciding text, mathematical notation and
symbols:

 Allow the use of Text-to-Speech

 Use automatic voicing with digital mathematical notation (Math ML)
 Use digital text with an accompanying human voice recording (e.g., Daisy Talking
Books)
 Allow for flexibility and easy access to multiple representations of notation where
appropriate (e.g., formulas, word problems, graphs)
 Offer clarification of notation through lists of key terms
 UDL. representation:
Language and symbols:
Promote understanding across languages:

 Make all key information in the dominant language (e.g., English) also available in
first languages (e.g., Spanish) for learners with limited-English proficiency and in
ASL for learners who are deaf
 Link key vocabulary words to definitions and pronunciations in both dominant and
heritage languages
 Define domain-specific vocabulary (e.g., “map key” in social studies) using both
domain-specific and common terms
 Provide electronic translation tools or links to multilingual glossaries on the web
 Embed visual, non-linguistic supports for vocabulary clarification (pictures, videos,
etc)
 UDL. representation:
Language and symbols:
Illustrate through multiple media:

 Present key concepts in one form of symbolic representation (e.g., an expository

text or a math equation) with an alternative form (e.g., an illustration,
dance/movement, diagram, table, model, video, comic strip, storyboard,
photograph, animation, physical or virtual manipulative)

 Make explicit links between information provided in texts and any accompanying
representation of that information in illustrations, equations, charts, or diagrams
 UDL. representation:
Comprehension:
Activate or supply background knowledge:

 Anchor instruction by linking to and activating relevant prior knowledge (e.g.,

using visual imagery, concept anchoring, or concept mastery routines)
 Use advanced organizers (e.g., KWL methods, concept maps)
 Pre-teach critical prerequisite concepts through demonstration or models
 Bridge concepts with relevant analogies and metaphors
 Make explicit cross-curricular connections (e.g., teaching literacy strategies in
the social studies classroom)
 UDL. representation:
Comprehension:
Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas and
relationships:

 Highlight or emphasize key elements in text, graphics, diagrams, formulas

 Use outlines, graphic organizers, unit organizer routines, concept organizer routines, and
concept mastery routines to emphasize key ideas and relationships
 Use multiple examples and non-examples to emphasize critical features
 Use cues and prompts to draw attention to critical features
 Highlight previously learned skills that can be used to solve unfamiliar problems
 UDL. representation:
Comprehension:
Guide information processing and visualization:

 Give explicit prompts for each step in a sequential process

 Provide options for organizational methods and approaches (tables and algorithms for processing
mathematical operations)
 Provide interactive models that guide exploration and new understandings
 Introduce graduated scaffolds that support information processing strategies
 Provide multiple entry points to a lesson and optional pathways through content (e.g., exploring big
ideas through dramatic works, arts and literature, film and media)
 “Chunk” information into smaller elements
 Progressively release information (e.g., sequential highlighting)
 Remove unnecessary distractions unless they are essential to the instructional goal
 UDL. representation:
Comprehension:
Maximize transfer and generalization:
 Provide checklists, organizers, sticky notes, electronic reminders

 Prompt the use of mnemonic strategies and devices (e.g., visual imagery, paraphrasing strategies, method
of loci, etc.)

 Incorporate explicit opportunities for review and practice

 Provide templates, graphic organizers, concept maps to support note-taking

 Provide scaffolds that connect new information to prior knowledge (e.g., word webs, half-full concept maps)

 Embed new ideas in familiar ideas and contexts (e.g., use of analogy, metaphor, drama, music, film, etc.)

 Provide explicit, supported opportunities to generalize learning to new situations (e.g., different types of
problems that can be solved with linear equations, using physics principles to build a playground)

 Offer opportunities over time to revisit key ideas and linkages between ideas
 UDL. Action & expression:
Physical Action:
Vary the methods for response and navigation:

 Provide alternatives in the requirements for rate, timing, speed, and range of motor
action required to interact with instructional materials, physical manipulatives, and
technologies
 Provide alternatives for physically responding or indicating selections (e.g., alternatives
to marking with pen and pencil, alternatives to mouse control)
 Provide alternatives for physically interacting with materials by hand, voice, single
switch, joystick, keyboard, or adapted keyboard
 UDL. Action & expression:

Physical Action:
Optimize access to tools and assistive technologies:

 Provide alternate keyboard commands for mouse action

 Build switch and scanning options for increased independent access and keyboard
alternatives

 Provide access to alternative keyboards

 Customize overlays for touch screens and keyboards

 Select software that works seamlessly with keyboard alternatives and alt keys
 UDL. Action & expression:
Expression & communication:
Use multiple media for communication:

 Compose in multiple media such as text, speech, drawing, illustration, comics, storyboards,
design, film, music, dance/movement, visual art, sculpture, or video
 Use physical manipulatives (e.g., blocks, 3D models, base-ten blocks)
 Use social media and interactive web tools (e.g., discussion forums, chats, web design,
annotation tools, storyboards, comic strips, animation presentations)
 Solve problems using a variety of strategies
 UDL. Action & expression:

Expression & communication:

Use multiple tools for construction and composition:
 Provide spellcheckers, grammar checkers, word prediction software
 Provide text-to-speech software (voice recognition), human dictation, recording
 Provide calculators, graphing calculators, geometric sketchpads, or pre-formatted graph paper
 Provide sentence starters or sentence strips
 Use story webs, outlining tools, or concept mapping tools
 Provide Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), music notation (writing) software, or mathematical
notation software
 Provide virtual or concrete mathematics manipulatives (e.g., base-10 blocks, algebra blocks)
 Use web applications (e.g., wikis, animation, presentation)
 UDL. Action & expression:

Expression & communication:

Build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and
performance:
 Provide differentiated models to emulate (i.e. models that demonstrate the same outcomes but
use differing approaches, strategies, skills, etc.)
 Provide differentiated mentors (i.e., teachers/tutors who use different approaches to motivate,
guide, feedback or inform)
 Provide scaffolds that can be gradually released with increasing independence and skills (e.g.,
embedded into digital reading and writing software)
 Provide differentiated feedback (e.g., feedback that is accessible because it can be customized to
individual learners)
 Provide multiple examples of novel solutions to authentic problems
 UDL. Action & expression:
Executive functions:
Guide appropriate goal-setting:

 Provide prompts and scaffolds to estimate effort, resources, and difficulty

 Provide models or examples of the process and product of goal-setting
 Provide guides and checklists for scaffolding goal-setting
 Post goals, objectives, and schedules in an obvious place
 UDL. Action & expression:

Executive functions:
Support planning and strategy development:

 Embed prompts to “stop and think” before acting as well as adequate space
 Embed prompts to “show and explain your work” (e.g., portfolio review, art critiques)
 Provide checklists and project planning templates for understanding the problem, setting
up prioritization, sequences, and schedules of steps
 Embed coaches or mentors that model think-alouds of the process
 Provide guides for breaking long-term goals into reachable short-term objectives
 UDL. Action & expression:

Executive functions:
Facilitate managing information and resources:

 Provide graphic organizers and templates for data collection and organizing
information

 Embed prompts for categorizing and systematizing

 Provide checklists and guides for note-taking

 UDL. Action & expression:

Executive functions:
Enhance capacity for monitoring progress:
 Ask questions to guide self-monitoring and reflection
 Show representations of progress (e.g., before and after photos, graphs and charts showing
progress over time, process portfolios)
 Prompt learners to identify the type of feedback or advice that they are seeking
 Use templates that guide self-reflection on quality and completeness
 Provide differentiated models of self-assessment strategies (e.g., role-playing, video reviews,
peer feedback)
 Use of assessment checklists, scoring rubrics, and multiple examples of annotated student
work/performance examples
Topic 5
Attention to
Diversity:
Universal
Design for
Learning
• “AN
INVESTMENT
IN
KNOWLEDGE
Attention
PAYS THE BEST
to
INTEREST”
diversity
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN