UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING

UDL provides educators with lens or mindset to approach planning for instruction and assessment that anticipates the diverse learners in a space. By providing a range of means for educators and students to engage with content, present information, and demonstrate learning/express themselves, students gain more access to deeper learning.

When planning through a universally designed approach, educators take into account, and respond to, students’ diverse learner profiles by 

• designing tasks that offer individual choice, ensuring relevance and authenticity, providing graduated levels of challenge, and fostering collaboration in the classroom;

• and engaging multimodalities (e.g., representing concepts and information in multiple ways) to help students become resourceful and flexible learners.

To support learners as they focus strategically on their learning goals, teachers create an environment in which learners can express themselves in multiple forms. To do this, they can

• vary ways in which students can respond and demonstrate their understanding of concepts, and support students in goal-setting, planning, and time-management skills related to their learning.

• improve access to tools or assistive devices that are necessary for learning

• encourage the use of students’ first or other language(s)

• vary ways in which students can demonstrate their understanding of and respond to texts

• support students in setting goals, planning, and organizing ideas and information for text creation using multimodal digital tools

• and engage students in reflective practices throughout their language learning.

(adapted from Ontario Ministry of Education Instructional Approaches for ENL1W, MTH1W, and SNC1W)

Below are specific "concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities" (CAST). The guidelines below have been adapted from Universal Design for Learning Guidelines to make explicit connections to the Thinking Classroom framework.