Who Gets to Define the Barrier?
When educators are applying the UDL framework when design learning environments, they spend time identifying and removing barriers before students ever walk through the door. It is a practice that has been asserted by UDL enthusiasts (and CAST) for decades. But what happens when the barrier we’re removing isn’t actually a barrier at all? That’s the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Marike Welten during Episode 145 of UDL in 15 Minutes. Marijke Welten shared how she uses a tool called the My Personal Profile (MPP) to put students in the driver’s seat of their own learning.
Marijke and a colleague adapted the MPP from person-centered planning (PCP). PCP is a framework used to support individuals with support needs through major life transitions. The core principle that drives the PCP is nothing about us, without us. Much like the PCP, the MPP focuses on the learner. Rather than a bunch of adults presuming what challenges the learner faces, the MPP invites students to articulate their own dreams, values, strengths, and yes, their own barriers.
“I presumed that I knew what barriers students could face,” Welten explained. “But what I’ve learned is that students’ perspectives, their motivations, their inner motives…these also determine what they will experience as barriers.”
The MPP asks students to explore questions like: What do others appreciate about me? What do I dream of? What is important to me? What helps me achieve my goals? And, what gets in the way? That last question, Welten emphasizes, is where the real shift happens. The barriers students identify for themselves are fundamentally different from the ones adults project onto them.
Marijke shares a story about a student named Noah that illustrates this beautifully. Noah had vocal cord spasms that affected her voice and a well-meaning teacher removed her from an oral presentation. The teacher assumed this would help Noah. But Noah’s dream was to become a sports commentator. Speaking wasn’t something to be avoided. It was her goal. Because Welten had reviewed Noah’s personal profile before working with her, she understood what Noah actually needed: not removal of the challenge, but support in meeting it. Marijke and Noah practiced shorter sentences, strategic pauses, and audience communication. Today, Noah is studying communication at university and has completed an internship with a sports company.
This is the power of student-driven decision-making. When learners have the language and the space to name what matters to them, educators stop solving the wrong problems. UDL becomes truly universal, not a top-down set of accommodations. It becomes a collaborative design process built on what students know about themselves.
As Welten put it, the MPP doesn’t just inform UDL practice. It deepens it and it gives every student, regardless of need, the chance to be a co-creator of their own education and build their own agency.