WEEK 5

This week we are focusing on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). According to CAST, the nonprofit education research and development organization that created the UDL framework and UDL Guidelines, the purpose of UDL is to "eliminate barriers so everyone has the opportunity to grow and thrive" (2023).

CAST is an acronym for "Center for Applied Special Technology."  The guidelines provide researchers, parents, educators, and curriculum directors with "suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities" (2023). The UDL Guidelines 3.0 were published on July 30, 2024, and have been updated to respond to a need to "address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of exclusion" (CAST, 2024).

Part of this week's focus on UDL is to summarize one of several articles related to UDL and its integration into educational platforms. The article that spoke to me is a commentary by Sheri Vasinda of Oklahoma State University and Jodi Pilgrim of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. The article can be accessed from the following link: 

                   https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/rrq.484

The article is entitled "Technology Supports in the UDL framework: Removable scaffolds or permanent new literacies?

Summary: Technology Supports in the UDL framework: Removable scaffolds or permanent literacies?

The authors, Vasinda and Pilgrim, aim to convince readers and the world in general to toss the notion that UDL is a scaffolding apparatus. They emphasize that scaffolding is generally something that is removed or fades away, to be accessed when, or if, it is needed (2022, p. 44). 

The authors cite historical CAST attributions to Vygotsky:

    ...Vygotsky emphasized one of the key points of UDL curricula--the importance of graduated  "scaffolds." These are important to the novice, but that can be gradually removed as the individual  acquries expertise. Scaffolding with graduated release is a practice that is as old as human culture  and is relevant to learning in almost any domain, from learning to walk or ride a bike "unaided" to  the long apprenticeships of neurosurgery or aircraft flying (p. 47)

It is this reference towards UDL as a scaffold that may be released gradually that the authors take issue with, as they believe that the technology supports in the UDL are not temporary supports but are instead permanent "new literacies" (p. 50).

This concept of "new literacies" represents the multiliteracies that exist and that allow all learners access to technological supports at all times, just as workers in the real world have access to the resources they need to do their jobs at all times.

FIGURE 2 from Temporary Scaffolds to UDL to Permanent New Literacies from the article:

Permanent New Literacies

• Accessibility: Universal Access for Learning - Teachers provide multiliteracies options (available designs) for learning reflecting current tools and students' wide range of socio-cultural and cognitive diversity.
• Temporality: Permanence - Teachers provide and maintain digital and analogue cultural tools as permanent, always available learning and communication options.
• Agency: Multiliterate Agency: Students participate using their full linguistic repertoires to create their literate identity through access to available multimodal tools and designs to demonstrate a range of valued literate proficiency and authentic artifacts.

These permanent aspects differ from the older, temporary scaffolds model that go away once the immediate need is fulfilled, suggesting that the learner outgrow the need for the scaffolding.

The authors recognize that much work must be done to support this permanent change, especially in respect to ensuring equity by having the infrastructure and resources available to school districts and communities to support technological supports (p. 54).  They also support the U.S. Department of Education (2017) and its use of the term support instead of scaffolds:  Supports to make learning accessible should be built into learning software and hardware by default" (p.54). Their last recommendation is for states to use UDL for assessments (p.54).

Vasinda and Pilgrim make strong arguments to support the use of New Literacies in education and eliminating the so-called "scaffold" connotation that has historically been applied to technological supports. I concur. 

The lesson that I am designing for my final project utilizes a LMS that provides access and a place for assignments to reside in an organized manner via Google Classroom. My lesson also includes the use of DESMOS online graphing calculator, which provides students with the opportunity to create graphs that can be labeled and shared versus the more limited use of the TI84C graphing calculators. The TI84C's will still be used to stimulate prior knowledge and provide students with a touchstone that they are familiar with using. The added component of DESMOS will allow students to copy their graphs into a Google Slides presentation where they can express themselves and share their more personalized interests as they find applicable videos or images to correspond to their final submission.

CAST Universal Design for Learning website

 https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl#.Xzx0BZNKjFM

Identify strategies that can be integrated into my final project lesson:

Engagement: Students will connect learning to experiences that are meaningful and valuable (Consideration 7.2) when they search for a parabolic shape in the real world that has meaning or can be understood as a real world connection. For example, basketball players may find the path of the shot on goal to be interesting as it could help improve their free throw percentages. An art lover may appreciate the architecture of the parabolic bridges they see. By giving students choice regarding their quadratic function/parabolic real world shape, they are accomplishing more than had they only solved quadratic equations on a contrived worksheet.

Representation: Students will create a unique quadratic function graph that aligns to the chosen shape they have selected by exploring DESMOS graphing calculator and its capabilities for labeling and sharing outputs. Students will create a 3-5 slide presentation in which they present their graph, reflect upon their experience, and create or insert a design that relates to their graph. (Consideration 5.2 Use Multiple tools for construction, composition, and creativity and Consideration 5.1 Use multiple media for communication).

2024 NETP Guidance Reflection

The NETP (U.S. Department of Education, 2024), identifies three key divides limiting the transformational potential of educational technology to support teaching and learning, including:

• The Digital Use Divide
• The Digital Design Divide
• The Digital Access Divide

For this assignment, consideration of the integration of UDL strategies to address the digital use divide is to be given. Integrating UDL gives society the mandate to provide all learners with access to the technological/digital resources needed to be successful. Eight key recommendations were identified that can be addressed by states, districts, building level administrators, and schools:

    1. Develop competencies students should have as they progress between grade levels (States, Districts).

    2. Design and sustain systems and evaluation processes that support the development of competencies (States, Districts, Schools).

    3. Implement feedback mechanisms that empower students to become co-designers of learning experiences (Districts, Building-Level Administrators).

    4. Develop rubrics for selected tools to ensure support of UDL principles and that they can be customized in response to accommodation or modification needs of learners with disabilities (States, Districts, Building-Level Administrators).

    5. Review subject area curricula to ensure age-appropriate digital literacy skills are experiences by students through active technology use for learning (States, Districts).

    6. Build partnerships with outside agencies and businesses to help students access edtech-enable hands-on learning and work-based learning experiences (States, Districts).

    7. Provide professional development and technical assistance to appropriate staff to support use of evidence to inform edtech use (States, Districts).

    8. Develop guidelines to protect data privacy and ensure alignment with shared educational vision and learning principles (States, Districts).

These recommendations highlight the need for ample infrastructure, resources, money, time, and commitment towards implementation of adequate UDL. Considerable coordination should be made between all parties and the special education educators. We are at a historical moment in time--the transition to a digital, technologically advanced society, and we need to transition to the educational systems that support this new, exciting world. It starts with educating the educators, legislators, and curricula developers. We all want our future generations to be successful and contributors to the best world we can achieve.

References:

 About Universal Design for Learning - CAST. (2020, May 27). CAST.  

             http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html#.XGn5889Kho4    

  

‌Vasinda, S. and Pilgrim, J. (2021). Technology supports in the UDL framework:

Removable scaffolds or permanent new literacies? Reading Research Quarterly,

                58(1), 44 - 58.