Teaching in the Digital Age:
Universal Design for Learning in the Real World
by Denise DeCoste, Ed.D.
High Incidence Accessible Technology (HIAT)
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland
If you've read "The World is Flat," you know that Thomas Friedman was referring to the fact that technology has leveled the playing field in the worlds of politics and business. But this concept can be applied to education, as well. Technology is now available in educational settings to help level the playing field for students with disabilities. This is the underlying vision of "universal design for learning." UDL promotes the frontloading of technology to benefit all students. In most instances, however, UDL, is still more of a theory than a reality. It is a pedagogical philosophy that begs the question, "What should this really look like in the context of everyday teaching?" We've been working with classroom teachers to answer just this question.
While the tools often are available to promote UDL, the practice of UDL is not widespread. In their everyday lives, teachers use technology to do their banking, shopping and communicating. They are everyday "Jetsons." But in their teaching lives, many teachers still rely on their instructional manual, a copy machine and a file cabinet to develop and store their instructional materials—more Flintstones than Jetsons.
As we observed and talked with educators about UDL, it was apparent that while most teachers use word processing and can search the internet to find educational content, they do not always use their computers to store and organize these materials. An important first element was to model a system for doing this, to help educators create a virtual file cabinet. When teachers efficiently create and organize digital materials in their document folders, these materials are more accessible to resource teachers, related service staff, paraprofessionals, and even students themselves, to use or adapt. This can result in fewer trips to the copy machine, less searching for last year's worksheets, and less seat-of-the pants or after-the-fact accommodations.
Another important element was to give educators a vision for what UDL can look like in concert with the district's curriculum. This was accomplished by showing them examples of what other teachers have done, by modeling the use of the internet and available software to create digital materials, and by giving teachers a template for getting started. Educators truly do not have the time to individualize one student at a time. They need to see sensible ways of preparing digital materials that can be adapted and modified for a wide range of students. It was imperative to give educators the "big picture," to give them a road map for becoming a digital age teacher and to help them recognize the benefits for all students.
The third element was to give teachers the gift of time, to actually to create materials they could use in their classrooms. Hands-on opportunities to create materials that offer multiple ways of presenting new learning, and multiple ways to engage students, give teachers the confidence to get started.
In our district, all three elements are addressed in a five session, one credit professional development class. Teaching the UDL way cannot happen overnight. It requires educators committed to an instructional paradigm shift. It requires a new approach over time to lesson planning and instructional materials preparation.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension." After three hours of training on UDL, one general educator said to us, "I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about all the possibilities." That was music to our ears. This was proof positive that we could operationalize UDL, moving it from theory to practice one teacher at a time.
To learn more about moving UDL from theory to practice, attend the TRLD session, "Teaching in the digital age: Universal design for learning in the real world."
To contact us call 888.594.1249 or email trld@donjohnston.com