Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the Music Classroom

In Anderson Primary School, the Music Department embarked on an action research, in the area of inclusive education as part of our Professional Learning Time, guided by the Universal Design for Learning as a frame.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is underpinned by the belief that designing and developing a curriculum that is “effective and inclusive for all learners” (Rose & Gravel, 2010, as cited in Hall, Meyer & Rose, 2012, p. 1) is of utmost importance. UDL is an approach towards designing experiences that are accessible to all students, giving students the equal opportunity to succeed in a mainstream classroom. It also guides the design of teaching experiences to meet the needs of diverse learners, no matter how they learn.

In essence, UDL aims to lessen the barriers to learning by focusing on the design of the environment and not solely on the students' abilities and behaviour. For our research, we focused on the principle of providing multiple means of representation and how it may help with facilitating an inclusive teaching and learning environment.

Traditionally, music scores may look as follow:

In order to aid students in the music reading and understanding, the music was represented in multiple forms. For example, colour-coded scores, graphic notations and tablature scores were created:

The creation of such materials assisted with instrumental playing as it was related to the colours of the tabs used or the instrument available.

The use of the traffic light could also assist in the learning about the relations of mathematics and music (Sobol, 2017, p. 56), especially in the area of rhythmic studies. The traffic light is represented as red-yellow-green. The concepts of twice as fast or slow in music could be comparable to multiplication and division in mathematics. Students may infer their knowledge as red being slower and yellow is twice as fast. This could also lead to a discussion of the students’ daily experience with the traffic light.

It has been an exciting journey to see how the application of UDL successfully being implemented in the Music Department of Anderson Primary School. Not only did the neurotypical students benefited from the lesson design but more importantly, students with SEN have also flourished in the learning process.

As Ann Ruthefor said,

“The biggest benefit is that teachers adjust their thinking by looking at the curriculum obstacles to learning rather than the student being the obstacle to learning”

(as cited in National Centre for Learning Disabilities, n.d.). Every child can and will learn, and through this action research, we recognise that an inclusive classroom is where all students will strive and grow.