Imagine taking a dozen sixth graders out for ice cream. Their eyes light up as they view their choices on the menu board behind the counter and the various flavors displayed in the cooler case in front of them. Chocolate peanut butter, birthday cake, mint chocolate chip—and a host of others. What’s more, some might prefer their choice served in a sugar cone or waffle cone or a dish. Some might like a shake or a sundae or an ice cream sandwich. Some might have a peanut allergy and make their choice accordingly. Some might opt for one of the “non-dairy” choices for dietary reasons. The students are all different from one another. Now can you also imagine in that situation restricting your young charges to “one scoop of plain vanilla ice cream in a dish”? That might be the preference of a few. But not for many, I’d imagine. And for someone with a dairy allergy, this “one-size-fits-all”approach might even have negative results.
Now think about the students in your catechism classroom. They’re all different from one another, right? They each arrive in your class with individual strengths and challenges, with different home and life contexts, with different learning styles. Some may find that material resonates with them when they listen to a lecture and take notes. Others may find that watching a video is their preferred method of “inputting” information. Some may be adept at expressing their answers in writing, and some may prefer to verbally share what they’re thinking. Some may struggle with reading, others may struggle with the confidence to chime in during class discussions. This learner variability exists in all of our classrooms. In fact, a particular learner’s strengths and weaknesses, preferences and dislikes might vary from day-to-day, even class-to-class. Each learner is unique. So you can probably see how a “one-scoop-of-vanilla, one-size-fits-all” approach might not maximize learning for every student in your classroom.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that recognizes each classroom is not “one-size-fits-all” and seeks to embrace learner variability. The term “universal design” was coined in the 1970s by an architect named Ronald Mace. He realized that there were predictable barriers that could make access to buildings difficult or even impossible. For example, having a main entrance only accessible via a flight of stairs might prevent individuals with wheelchairs from being able to enter. Mace’s concept of universal design seeks, as part of the design process, to identify those potential barriers and to incorporate supports for them within the building’s design (as opposed to retrofitting something later on). In the example just mentioned, incorporating a wheelchair-accessible ramp would be a universal design element. Curb cuts or sidewalk ramps are other examples of universal design we likely see every day.
The framework that began in the world of architecture eventually crossed over into the world of education. Universal Design for Learning seeks to make the learning accessible for as many students as possible. Teachers identify predictable barriers that may exist among their students and incorporate supports for them as part of the lesson design process. For example, in planning a lesson, a teacher would keep in mind that some of his catechism students aren’t strong readers. (That’s a predictable barrier—one you see coming long before you step into the classroom or meet any of your students.) Having those students read 20 or more verses of a biblical account as part of a learning activity might keep them from reaching the learning goal of the activity. In other words, they might expend all their brainpower on the reading part and not have the energy—or the time—to spend on what they’re supposed to do with that information in the rest of the activity. The UDL-minded educator seeks to incorporate support that helps those students over the potential “reading” barrier. Perhaps he writes his instructions for the activity like this: Read Acts 9:1-19 in your Bible OR listen to the biblical account using the audio player on Biblegateway.com. (In this instance, there’s even a YouTube video of the NIV text being read. That could be yet another option.) Offering a variety of ways that the text can be “inputted” allows the learners to choose which way would be best for them. You’ll notice from the example that technology can sometimes help us as we seek to make the content more accessible to more students.
Thinking back to the ice cream example in the introduction, you wouldn’t restrict your sixth graders to one scoop of vanilla in a dish. You know they’re all different, with different preferences. Your goal is simply that they all get some ice cream. So you’d set the menu before them, establish some parameters (“nothing over five dollars”), and then you’d let them make choices about how they’d reach the goal of having ice cream.
In the same way, the UDL-minded educator starts with a defined learning goal, establishes a learning “menu,” then gives students some choices about how they can reach the goal (i.e. “you can read or listen or watch”). Again, this is done before the teacher steps into the classroom, as part of the lesson design process. You’re not reacting to the needs of each individual student. Instead, you’re going in with a lesson you’ve intentionally designed to include as many students as possible. So, the UDL framework will probably be much more applicable to you if you’re the type who creates their own lessons.
Perhaps you can see how giving students choice in their learning encourages them to have ownership in the learning process and helps them grow in their vocation as students. In fact, that’s one of the goals of UDL: to help all students grow as learners to the best of their ability.
In this introduction to UDL, we only laid out one small example of the framework in action. But UDL is more than just allowing students to choose if they want to read, listen to, or watch a certain text. In upcoming articles, we’ll examine a number of practical examples of incorporating the UDL framework into catechism lessons in order to maximize learning for all the learners in your classroom.