UDL: From Myth to Meaningful Impact

Please join me in welcoming Doctor. Katie Novak to the stage. I am so happy to be here, and today we're gonna be talking about some of the myths and legends around universal design for learning. Now first of all, this is a wild report. The McKinsey report went out and looked at the current workload of educators, and in this report, the first line is actually, the teaching profession is under siege. And that might feel a little bit dramatic, but in some ways, when you're looking at the data, the average educator is spending at least fifty hours a week prepping.

We have the most diverse, complex students we've ever had. We're preparing them for a future that definitely doesn't exist and is moving so, so, so quickly, and the robots are coming for us. And so we are under siege. Now, you'll all have access to these slides after the presentation. The team will make them available to you, so definitely dive in and read that report.

So the aliens are coming. Right? Now, as if that is not enough, we have to prepare students for these skills. Now, this report is so awesome. It is from the World Economic Forum, and it talks about skills on the rise. So when you dive in, if you read anything, go to chapter three.

And it talks about what are the skills that our students and ourselves are gonna need in the future. But really interestingly, some of these are at odds with each other. So the first ones, the big ones, we need to prepare ourselves and our learners to use artificial intelligence and to have tech literacy. However, MIT just came out with a study and said an overreliance on AI erodes critical thinking. They used the word erodes critical thinking.

And so on one hand, we have we have to leverage the AI tools so that we're not working fifty, sixty hours a week preparing, But if we overuse them, then we have this potential detriment to critical thinking. And so we have to make sure that our kids are creative if we're working in the elementary, secondary space. We have to make sure that our students and our colleagues, if we're working in higher ed or corporate spaces. And so we have big technology, critical thinking, and then all of these human skills. So like this mythical phoenix rising from the ashes, we have to make sure that our students are prepared to use technology while also making sure that they have critical thinking skills and are creative.

And we have to make sure that they're good humans, that they know how to teach and support one another, that they understand what it means to serve, and that is a lot. And so the McKinsey report says that when we use AI tools responsibly, ethically, to support our brilliance as educators, we can save thirteen hours a week. And hopefully, the same is true for our students. Now another tool that I wanna share with you is from the University of Florida, and it's the tech integration matrix. And it talks about how as instructors, it's so important that not only we use technology, but we teach our students how to use it in more transformational ways.

And so too often, we have a learning management system and we tell students how they use it. We don't give them the opportunities to leverage all of the built in flexibility. And what we know is because of that, not all learners have access to these transformational learning experiences that will give them the skills to use AI, that will ensure that they're thinking at the highest levels, and will help them work together to solve problems. So this is a great tool that you can bring back to your role and say, where are we right now as instructors, and how do we move to the next level? So I think that I have set the exposition for a pretty dark war we have against teaching and learning. But worry not, we have a solution.

I think that we need to come together and take everybody down, and we're gonna do it at a campground. So how many of you, go with your gut, are campers? Raise your hand if you're a camper. K? And how many of you are like, I'm a hotel person. Who are my hotel people? Okay. Yeah.

So here's the thing. I have something really special planned for all of us. I, you know, put a down payment on twenty five hundred tent sites, and we're gonna go to the Riverside State Park, which is like right down the road. It's gonna be awesome. They have white water rapids, and we can go hiking.

That's where we're gonna meet, and we're gonna plan how to like take over the world. Now, I wanna make sure that all of us have what we need to really enjoy this takedown. And so I'm thinking about, I wanna make sure that everybody here has something to eat that they enjoy, something to drink, and can enjoy an activity. So I want you to lock in and imagine, even though you might not be a lover of camping, what is that for you? Now here's the thing, it doesn't matter what you think, because I'm in charge. And so as much as you have reflected, and you say, oh, no, I definitely could meet those outcomes, I could make sure that I had something to eat and something to drink.

I'm like, oh, but I am the instructor, and I've already planned everything for you. And so, who's down for hot dogs? Right. We're all gonna have hot dogs because nothing says camping like hot dogs. And then we're all gonna drink beer. Don't worry, it'll be local IPI.

And then we're gonna go white water rafting, but we're not gonna do like life jackets because like that's cheating. Like, we don't wanna do scaffolds. It makes it less rigorous, and I believe in rigor. And so here's the thing. Show yourself.

Some of you are like, this sounds awesome. Just show yourselves. Right? There's always some. Now, you are what we call a mythical average learner. You have students, colleagues, that no matter how you use Canvas, no matter how you design instruction, will be able to reach course objectives.

But we are not in the work of meeting the needs of many. We're in the work of meeting the needs of all. And universal design for learning is how do you design something that really works for everyone. Everyone has access. Everyone can work towards the same firm objectives.

And so what I know is I've excluded a lot of people by design. If you have a plant based diet, if you live a sober lifestyle, if you don't know how to swim, you can't access this. And it's so frustrating because you could have something to eat, have something to drink, and enjoy an activity. Now, some of you are trickier, because there are people in this room, I guarantee you, who do eat meat, who do drink alcohol, and who know how to swim, but you're not gonna do it. You're like, that's not how I wanna do it.

And more and more of our learners have realized that's a viable option. They're just not gonna do it that way. And so when we're thinking about this, how does this relate to teaching and learning? I've been an educator for almost twenty five years. And I was an English teacher, a writing teacher. And I would often look at a an outcome for a course.

And I would say it's my job to make sure that students understand how to analyze complex characters and how the characterization actually like pushes a plot forward. And then as much as I could have said to students, how do you wanna learn? What is a grade level rigorous text that you're interested in exploring? And how do you wanna learn about characterization? And how do you wanna share with me in a creative, transformative way what you've learned about characterization? Instead, I would say, here's the hard copy of the text you're gonna read. Or maybe I took a copy machine, and I made a copy of that text, and then I pulled it into my learning management system, and I'm like, look, it's digital, but it can't be read by a screen reader. So it's still a printed text. And then I would say, you know what? I I realize this is a content standard, and it doesn't require writing, but, like, I think is writing important, and I'm in charge.

So you're all gonna write, an essay, and now you're gonna do it in a blue book, obvi, because of the robots. And so you're gonna write that essay. Scaffolds, that's cheating. So there's not gonna be exemplars, there's not gonna be revisions, there's not gonna be really, really clear rubrics and checklists, because I've decided that I don't want you to have those. And we look at this and we say, oh, so there's nothing wrong with the hotdog and the beer and the rafting.

It cannot be the only thing. We have to be flexible. We have to provide more options. And we have to do that every time we design a learning experience, whether it is in person or online or a hybrid mix of the two. So this is really about if we're gonna universally design, we have to be flexible.

But the flexibility has to eliminate barriers. So how many people in this room will not or cannot drink a beer? Don't worry, I got you. Do you want it in a can or a bottle or a glass? I provided you options. I'm, universally designing. And you're like, Novak.

I don't drink beer. I was like, oh, is it do you want like a silicone cup instead? Right? It's not about the options. It's about what are the outcomes? What are the nonnegotiables? And then we have to ask ourselves, how do I eliminate that barrier through design? And essentially, what we're trying to do is to say, okay, listen. You have to access a grade level text. But would you rather use this course text, or would you rather find a text by working with like library media and find something where like you're really passionate about the plot? Would you rather share what you've learned by writing an essay? Or would you rather share what you've learned in creating something that's multimedia or a video? Now, if the firm goal is writing, the firm goal is writing.

But ultimately, there is no rule about it has to be handwritten. It has to be five paragraphs. We can provide so many options for what the writing process looks like. Would you rather brainstorm by researching, by looking at exemplars, by having a conversation with peers? Would you rather organize your ideas in a graphic organizer, an outline, or by using note cards that are digital? Would you rather draft by hand and then take a an image of that with an iPad and upload it to digital? Or would you rather type or use voice to text? What does revision look like? We're doing this concept of would you rather have a beer? Would you rather have a water, or would you rather bring your own drink? Because we can all work towards the same goal. So there's a lot of myths around this, and I wanna go through five of them.

A lot of people in this area of the Northeast Northwest. I'm from Boston. I just I showed my card. Okay. We're in the Northwest.

Right? People say to me all the time, I want you to come out and work with our school. Just so you know, we're already doing UDL. And I'm like, oh my gosh. That's adorable. Because if we were implementing UDL, it would mean that every, all, each student had access to the most rigorous coursework available, deeper learning experience that are transformative, and they would all be making growth within that inclusive space.

So universal design cannot be measured in the intention of the designer. It's about the impact of the learners. And so there's a lot of, oh, look, I see a YETI. Oh, look, I see UDL. Unless every student is making progress, every student feels supported and like they belong, every student has opportunities to build those skills that the World Economic Forum says is so important, it's not universally designed yet.

Now there is a tool embedded, and as I said, you'll have access to these slides, and I encourage you to take them back to your organizations and use them and share them. But what are we actually looking for if a learning environment is universally designed? There's this concept that we're just gonna let kids run wild, let adults run wild, But it's about those outcomes. What really is it? And I'm gonna make a point, and this pun is totally intended because of the unicorn, but the point I wanna make here is there's something called the paradox of choice. Some people say, but like, what about, like, if there's too many choices? How many choices is too many? The answer is anything more than six is too many. We just don't have the working memory and the cognitive load.

What we know is the best learning outcomes, although there's no detriment to the five or the six, the best learning outcomes are two to four options, and you have eliminated the barrier. Now a lot of people say, oh, I've heard of universal design for learning. That's what we do for our learners with disabilities. Universal Design for Learning is everyone. What you may do for your students who have disabilities might be a specially designed instruction or a targeted accommodation, but we have to make sure that instruction is available by saying, what really are the firm goals? What are potential barriers of a one size fits all? And then how do we create pathways where students have options and choices to move towards those outcomes? And so this is not something that you go into a course afterwards where you wait for students to fail and then say, well, now I'm gonna do something different.

This is baked into proactive, planful, intentional design. And because we have these AI tools, because we have these learning management systems, it has never been more efficient to do this. So the Kraken, the tentacles are coming up saying, there's no way we can meet the needs of all learners. This is too much work, but we have the tools to do this. So I created this because this is how I imagine myself as a Fortnite character.

And I am gonna, like, show you how to slay these myths with just a basic Canvas setup. I'm gonna show you some things in my class from Penn where I teach a course for school leaders on what it means to create a multi tiered system of support. And my four best tips, regardless of whether you teach the littles or adult colleagues in career education, we're gonna talk about the importance of embracing your verbs. We're gonna talk about the importance of firm goals and flexible means. The baked in accessibility tools that are in Canvas already, and then ultimately opening yourself up to the potential of kids using, adults using this transformative technology to share their response in multiple formats.

So there is a tool in the menu, if you go into the main settings, that has outcomes. And the first thing I do when I build a course is I really think about what is it that all learners have to know and do. So if you have a course syllabus in higher ed, look at your course objectives. What really is it that all students have to know and do? And you can build them out in that outcome section, and then you can align every single thing in the course to those outcomes. So there's a way to crosswalk and say, well, does this assignment does this read does this really actually align to what I said all students have to know and do? And so you can ensure that the modules are crosswalked, you can tag it to specific artifacts, and then it allows you to essentially come up with a grade that is aligned to the mastery of the course content and not just based on compliance tasks.

And so I wanna share with you the objectives for my MTSS class. That stands for building a multi tiered system of support. But what you'll notice there is explain and make a presentation is not use Google Slides to create a fifteen slide presentation with speaking notes. Communicate results to school district leaders is not you have to make me a video. Submit a vision statement is not you must submit writing.

Now if you teach a writing class, you will have verbs that say write, and then you say, what are all the different ways that writers produce writing? What are all the different ways that they can submit their work? And so we have to reimagine what is possible. I like to say, here's two to four options that I came up with, but honestly, I want you to maybe, you know, think of something else. You BYOB. I am not gonna have a drink prepared for everyone, but I can provide a cooler with a couple of options and let you know that you're welcome to come up with something else. Now the next is this concept of firm goals and flexible means.

So one of the outcomes of my course is understanding what it means to build a multi tiered system and how that is a little bit different from creating a response to intervention system, which is focused on academics. And what I love to do is ensure that anything that I require all students to access has three modalities. So if I'm providing explicit instruction, I will have a video. I will make sure I have transcript of that video, and I will make sure I will plug in for a read aloud tool so you could listen to that video. And then for follow-up deeper learning, I always provide options for something to read, something to listen to, or something to watch.

And I say, you know what? Like, you think about what you wanna get from this course, and then think about your context right now. I work with a lot of school superintendents who are very, very busy, and they may not actually sit and read a forty page peer reviewed article, but on their commute home, they sure as heck can listen to a podcast. And now there's tools that allow us to do this even more efficiently, like a notebook LM where we take something that is a text, and we say you can listen to it this way. Now, can this has this cute little man in a circle if you look for that arrow? And I imagine him like to take down the Kraken because it's like, this is gonna be so much work to make this accessible. You literally press on that little man in the circle, and it will tell you there are nine issues on this page, and it will tell you how to fix them.

It is instant. You literally just click the little man, and then you know the nature of your discipline better than anyone. And think about, if I want the school districts that I'm working with, the universities I'm looking with, to share with their stakeholders, like, what it is that they have learned about the strengths and the opportunities for growth in their systems. Maybe for that community, they wanna do it as a written summary or a video presentation or a newsletter. They get to decide.

And what you'll notice in that first thing, says, or suggest an alternative. Firm goals, flexible means. I build my rubric based on outcomes, and it's about mastery. So know that this work is possible. That when we leverage what we do with tools, we can save thirteen hours a week and create more flexibility without in any way compromising the rigor of our course or preparing students for their future.

So there's a lot of myths lurking in the dark here, but there is one path, and it is universal design. So I'll meet you at the campground. Can't wait to have the hot dogs. Thank you so much.