How Can UDL Help My Students?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) promises to increase access to learning by reducing physical, cognitive, intellectual, and organizational barriers to learning. Teachers using the UDL framework provide learners various ways of acquiring information, multiple means for demonstrating knowledge or skills, and deploy different methods to engage and challenge students. Students in a UDL classroom have multiple entry points for what they learn, how they learn, and their motivation (or why) to learn. In this issue, experts describe how educators can apply UDL principles in their own context.

Features

Learning Follows Access and Engagement: A Conversation with CAST's Allison Posey

Laura Varlas

A curriculum and design specialist from the premier Universal Design for Learning laboratory outlines how teachers can get started with the framework, identifies the biggest misconceptions about UDL, and shows how emotions are the gatekeepers to learning.

Applying the Four Elements of UDL to Lesson Design

Richard A. Villa and Jacqueline S. Thousand

To create universally accessible learning, teachers must gather information about their students' strengths, interests, and habits, and then make content acquisition, learning processes, and demonstrations of learning more available to all students. Here are some questions to consider as well as options for flexibility.

Tech That Supports UDL Principles, Districtwide

Nick Williams

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, Indiana, is renowned for its districtwide and decade-long application of UDL. Hear how a clear vision of UDL principles and goals for students and teachers framed this school's adoption of a learning management system.

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