Week 3: Universal design for learning and differentiated instruction

1. What are your current understandings about Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction?

Universal Design for learning (UDL) was inspired by work in architecture on the planning of buildings with a view to accessibility for people with physical disabilities (Turnbull et al., 2002). Architects observed that the added improvements facilitated access for all users, not just people with physical disabilities. An access ramp, for instance, provides a person using a wheelchair with easier access to a building, but it also makes it easier for a parent with a child’s stroller, a cyclist, or someone using a walker. Educators began to realize that teaching strategies and pedagogical materials and tools that respond to the special needs of a specific student or group of students can also be useful for all students.. Adopting “design thinking” as a mindset can provide educators with new tools and new approaches that often yield simple solutions to complex everyday challenges that they face in the classroom today, such as how to integrate technology and how best to engage students

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/LearningforAll2013.pdf

https://designthinkingforeducators.com/

Differentiated Instruction: is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing different students with different avenues to learning (often in the same classroom) in terms of: acquiring content; processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability

2. How can UDL and DI be beneficial to ALL of your students?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides the opportunity for all students to access, participate in, and progress in the general education curriculum by reducing barriers to instruction. Universal Design for Learning (UDL), defined in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 as a "scientifically valid framework for guiding educational practice," turns this situation around. UDL puts the burden of change where it belongs: on the curriculum itself (Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008). With DI, it offers options for students to respond and demonstrate their knowledge and skills and how they can choose to different ways to learn. It caters to student's strengths but brings all of the students to the same learning goal with individualized learning plan for each student. Here are different ways creating a DI learning environment

• vary the length or quantity of the assignment.

• extend or curtail the duration of the assignment.

• change the language of the assignment.

• scaffold the learning activity from hard to medium to easy.

• compact the activity and teach only what they don't know.

• give them learning activities that let them perform the same learning objective with multiple mediums like summarizing a story they have read through narrative, drama, song, poetry, art, or design.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/universal-design-learning-meeting-needs-all-students

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-student-success

3. What challenges might you face when considering UDL and DI in your lesson and unit planning?

We are pressured to give the students with more needs more attention than those students who have fewer needs. The largest conflict between differentiated instruction boils up inside of us when we try to assign a grade to that differentiated instruction.

How can we justifiably give the students the same grade when the quality, quantity, or content of the performance is different?

Also, the planning DI learning assumes that more planning is needed but constantly adjust to students paste is a challenge for the teacher.