The "Dropped Curb" of Education: Understanding Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Long before UDL was a buzzword in Education, an architect, Ronald L. Mace, had an idea to create buildings and products that were easily accessible to everyone, especially people with handicap disabilities. He coined the phrase Universal Design, stating that everyone could benefit from better designed products that allowed everyone despite their age, ability or status in life access their surrounding environments. The dropped curb, a feature integrated into every street corner, has now become a must in curb construction/design. But how is the "dropped curb" related to Universal Design for Learning, you may ask? The notion of easy accessibility to all appealed not just to designers and architects but to educators as well. Instead of a one size fits all curriculum and lessons, educators began to understand that students needs are varied and in turn needed a way to ensure that ALL students were learning the material. Thus Universal Design for Learning was born!

Universal Design for Learning is based on the concept of easy accessibility for ALL learners, despite a learning disability, learning style, background or preferences. UDL has 3 key components: multiple means of representation, multiple means of engagements and multiple means of expression. These three concepts, if employed correctly, will help the teacher meet the needs of ALL learners in ANY  classroom.

Multiple Means of Representation refers to how the teacher presents the content. Using many different kinds of materials such as books, posters, graphic organizers, videos and technology help students to understand the content.

Multiple Means of Engagement refers to how the students learn the information such as an individual assignment, group work, a novel or spontaneous lesson, work in pairs, using topics that interest students, using kinesthetic activities, rhymes, song/dance, etc. which will keep the students interested and engaged in the lesson. Without engagement, students will not effectively learn the new information.

Multiple Means of Expression refers to how the student expresses the information that he/she has learned, otherwise known as assessment. Teachers should provide choices on student assessment, as not all students are test takers or writers. Choices can include making a poster, a brochure, a video, writing an essay, creating a play, or a power point. As long as the student can express that he/she has learned the relevant information by one form or another, then the teacher can find that comprehension of information took place.

For a video on an introduction to UDL please click here. The UDL image and most content has been referenced from The National Center on Universal Design for Learning's website.