UDL in the Classroom

Assistive Technology ~ The Center

Amherst-Pelham Regional School District

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Amherst, MA 01002

413 549 6300

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Universal Design, Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction

If all students looked, acted, and learned the same, then our classrooms could all be designed to deliver information and measure student achievement using one approach with one set of materials. But children have wide learning abilities, backgrounds, and preferences. So our classrooms, and the learning experiences that happen in them must provide flexibility in the means of representing information, expressing ideas, and engaging students. By providing a flexible, customized curriculum coupled with teaching strategies that supports the strengths of the user, we accommodate the needs of all students, not just those with physical, sensory, or learning disabilities.

A Universally Designed classroom creates a learning environment that maximizes every students’ ability to achieve. Every student is viewed in the context of having unique strengths and learning need supports. Teachers employ varied strategies in working with students (whole class, small group, peer to peer, individual) in order to address the unique needs of the students as well as to provide multiple options for students’ expression of their understanding of the concepts. The curriculum materials used in the universal classroom are represented in multiple formats including manipulatives, auditory, pictorial, movement, digital and online resources.

Teachers are designers. An essential act of our profession is the design of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. We are also designers of assessments to diagnose student needs to guide our teaching and to enable us, our students, and others (parents and administrators) to determine whether our goals have been achieved; that is, did the students learn and understand the desired knowledge?

As with other design professions, standards inform and shape our work. We are not free to teach any topic we choose. Rather, we are guided by national, state, district, or institutional standards that specify what students should know and be able to do. These standards provide a framework to help us identify teaching and learning priorities and guide our design of curriculum and assessments. In addition to external standards, we also consider the needs of our students when designing learning experiences. How, then, do these design considerations apply to curriculum planning? We use curriculum as a means to an end.

Understanding by Design is a process used by educators interested in enhancing student understanding and in designing more effective curriculum and assessments to promote understanding. It includes a number of related ideas:

* Examination of a backward design process and consider its value in helping to avoid common inadequacies in curriculum and assessment planning.

* Consideration of an approach to curriculum and instruction designed to engage students in inquiry, promote "uncoverage," and make the understanding of big ideas more likely.

* Examination of a continuum of methods for appropriately assessing the degree of student understanding.

* Consideration of the role that predictable student misunderstandings should play in the design of curriculums, assessment, and instruction.

* Use of essential questions to provoke discussion and promote deeper understanding.

Differentiated instruction is an approach to planning so that one lesson is taught to the entire class while meeting the individual needs of each child. The teacher weaves the individual goals into the classroom content and instructional strategies. The content and the instructional strategies are the vehicles by which the teacher meets the needs of all the students.

Each lesson: