Accessibility Begins with the Goal
We all want helpful strategies. Strategies that will finally help that one learner engage with classroom peers. Strategies that will guide those learners to persist and decode the text. Strategies that will support learners as they work to comprehend their physics homework.
When educators initially hear about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), that is what they are seeking. After all, that’s what this framework is supposed to do, right?
Yes, the UDL Guidelines can help you think through strategies (that’s just one narrow part of the framework), but there is another way to use the framework. This focus will help you make powerful choices to ensure lessons and learning environments are accessible to all learners.
Have you ever looked at the top row of the UDL Guidelines (1.0; 2.0; 2.2; and the current 3.0)? Those guidelines are intentionally placed at the top of the organizer to promote the design of accessible lessons and environments. (By the way, Bartola and I talk about that row toward the end of Episode 147).
Even if you never apply the considerations in the other six guidelines, you will create a baseline for accessibility. But, please apply the considerations from the other guidelines!
The point here is intentionality. If you, your school, your district, or your organization claims that you are creating accessible lessons and learning environments, then you should be activating the three guidelines in the top row.
Here’s the rub. Many, many, MANY educators want to use the guidelines as a way to assess things like accessibility. Their premise: if you are doing what is written in that top row, then you are creating accessible lessons and learning environments. If that is their sole focus, they have missed the mark.
The saying, “UDL is not a checklist” has been around since at least the early 1990s. That phrase continues to be a critical reminder to us all. I’ll use this scenario to explain what I mean.
If I walk into your classroom during a lesson, the first thing I’m going to look for is the goal of that lesson. Sometimes, there are several statements and they are called learning objectives, learning intentions and success criteria. Regardless, here is what I’m looking for: the phrase(s) that ultimately tell(s) students what they are working toward during that learning experience.
Even if I see the goal posted somewhere (e.g., projected onto a screen, written on a board) or it’s on a main page of their online materials, I head over to a few different students and ask them what the goal is (using the language of that learning environment – objective, learning intention, etc.). If I am told, “We are supposed to read this story.” I reply with, “Okay. Why? What are you supposed to learn by reading that story? What is the reason you are reading that story?” If they shrug, I check to see if they can show me the goal and we figure it out together.
You might say (with exasperation), “I verbally went over the goal, pointed to it, and had the class read it out loud!” These are all really good practices, but this disconnect happens. My questions to the students are never an exercise of blame; they are data collection. Based on those data, I work with you to jointly determine changes that can help students grasp and own the goal.
We have to give students time, repetition, reason, and reflection to reach the point where they internalize the goal. The goal is a huge deal and deserves this kind of attention. After all, identifying, segmenting, and achieving goals is a lifelong skill.
When students can tell me the goal, they and you have taken the first step toward accessibility. They know what they are working toward and can make informed choices because you have selected methods and materials that are aligned with the goal and are based on the top row of the guidelines.
Here’s an analogy: If you know where you’re going on your car trip, you know whether to pack snacks, fill up the tank, and/or pack clothing. If students know that they need to identify prepositional phrases within complex sentences, they can confidently choose whether to decode a story that resonates with them, use the text-to-speech software, partner with a peer to read out loud, or pick up the scaffolded worksheet that gives them hints about prepositions. You can provide all of those supports, but it is the combination of those supports AND the goal that creates accessible learning experiences. Learners are now choosing with intention.
Articulating the goal is the first step toward accessibility and is the foundation for helping all learners gain agency.