What is UDL?

Why UDL?

Download

CAST describes UDL as "a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for

all people, based on scientific insights into how humans learn"*. It is the framework and foundation for designing and delivering instruction that supports all learners' variability, making it the best practice for teaching all students in an inclusive learning environment.

UDL believes that everyone is a variable learner and rejects the idea of an “average learner.” “Yet our educational system is designed around the idea that most people learn the same way and that a “fair” education is an identical one”*.

Dive Deeper: Todd Rose explains this concept in his
“Myth of Average."

UDL believes that barriers are in the environment and not the student. The learning context itself (e.g., the environment, the methods, the materials) effects whether an individual characteristic of a student becomes a barrier to learning, or not. Think of a student who is deaf. If a class is taught in spoken English only, this presents a barrier. If the same instruction is provided in sign language that barrier may be eliminated. The disability is contextual, and not inherent in a person. A major goal in implementing UDL is to remove barriers and design to the edges of your classroom.

Dive Deeper: Watch master educator Shelley Moore explain these concepts in “the Bowling Analogy”

UDL believes that all learners, to be successful, must learn and grow as learners, not just build content knowledge alone. Classrooms need to become hubs of expert learning, where teachers support students in mastering these outcomes by modeling and supporting skill building and internalizing these skills.

The GOAL of UDL is learner agency that is...

Purposeful & REFLECTIVE

Resourceful & AUTHENTIC

Strategic & ACTION-ORIENTED

UDL Guidelines

CAST created the UDL Guidelines as a scaffold for teachers to use as they build flexibility into the learning environment. These guidelines are based on three principles that directly relate to the learning networks of the brain.

Teachers are GUIDED to provide students with…

Multiple means of

Engagement

(The Affective Network)

Multiple means of

Representation

(The Recognition Network)

Multiple means of

Action & Expression

(The Strategic Network)

UDL is a framework to think about how different tools and resources can be leveraged to reduce barriers and support every learner to engage in challenging ways of thinking.

~CAST

It is important not to regard UDL as a “checklist.” In a UDL environment, because teaching is an iterative design process, where teachers are constantly thinking about how and why they are designing and delivering instruction while they reflect on how students are learning. The considerations under each guideline provide concrete suggestions for how to address and plan for the systematic variability that exists within any given classroom. These considerations or strategies are “based on a multiyear review of thousands of research articles that identified specific experimentally validated instructional techniques, adaptations and interventions”*.