Identifying Barriers for Diverse Learners

When trying to teach students using the UDL principles, an educator must first identify students' strengths and weaknesses and be able to understand how the materials and instructional delivery can help or hinder students' understanding of the content.

A nice tutorial  I recently checked out was one that simulated a student's disability in a chosen course (such as social studies) and it gave me a chance to try and evaluate the barriers that this particular student would have in trying to understand the content and using the materials. 

My student was Sophia, a talented choir member, who was legally blind but had peripheral vision in both eyes. She was fluent in Braille but would also use textbooks with the help of a magnifying glass. Although this helped Sophia access the information in the textbook, this would slow her down as she was not able to skim/scan the readings as fast as her fellow classmates. I then chose 5th grade U.S. History as the course this particular student would be taking. This course requires the use of textbooks, videos, paper and pencil assignments, and rarely provides word processing opportunities except for certain assignments.

This tutorial provides space for evaluation on identifying student barriers for this course. I've identified 4 barriers that Sophia has when trying access materials and curriculum for this course. 

Here is what I identified as curriculum barriers for Sophia when trying to learn in her 5th grade Social Studies Class:

I would highly suggest going through this tutorial and trying to identify areas where the simulated students  have difficulty accessing the materials and  curriculum. It will help you to find barriers for your students in your classroom.