Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning After six years of teaching 5th grade reading and writing, I’ve come to understand that there’s no such thing as a “typical” learner. Every class I’ve had has had a mix of personalities, learning styles, strengths, challenges and different social economic statuses. Still, it wasn’t until I fully embraced Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that I felt like I was truly teaching every student. At first, I thought I was already being flexible by offering things like graphic organizers, and occasionally letting my students type instead of writing by hand, and providing opportunities for reading with audiobooks, but I started noticing that many of my students were not as engaged as I’d like, especially my students who struggled with reading fluency or had difficulty expressing their thoughts in writing. They were present, but they weren’t really participating. Without fully knowing I was doing it, I decided to intentionally redesign my instru...