I want to reflect on one of the readings I was assigned for the first week of this SES 611 Universal Design for Learning course: Edyburn’s (2010) Would your recognize universal design for learning if you saw it?: Ten propositions for new directions for the second decade of UDL. I wanted to review Edyburn in the context of the second 10 years of Universal Design for Learning. Each of Edyburn’s propositions seems to have become more relevant in either the proposition being an accurate assessment of UDL’s implementation or Edyburn’s “new direction” suggestion continues to be unaddressed in the classroom. For me, Edyburn provides a critical approach to education and how the field collectively implements, conducts fidelity research, and seemingly “progresses” forward with conceptual frameworks like UDL. My reflection focuses on Edyburn’s emphasis on the policy’s foundations in the Assistive Technology Act of 1998 and Edyburn’s response to what he coins as King-Sears’s (2009) allure to UDL. I argue that from my limited perspective, much has not changed in the second 10 years of UDL from the first 10 years due to the techno-futurist allure of UDL.

Admittedly, on the surface, one could argue that the policy of UDL has developed into a discourse, if not an entire field, of its own. CAST’s streamlining and centralization of UDL principals into a coherent locus of “innovation” exemplifies the evident progression of UDL. CAST’s UDL Guidelines conveniently chunks or segments the major principals of UDL so that they are accessible to both researchers and boots-on-the-ground teachers. And in developing this guideline, CAST reflexively provides an example of what UDL could look like if adequate time is spent to develop the presentation of content. However, CAST’s UDL Guidelines is not the entirety of UDL. Edyburn’s Proposition #4 is what I consider to be the biggest critique or unaddressed, continued issue with UDL: “Universal Design for Learning Is Not Just Good Teaching” (Edyburn, 2010, p. 38). What CAST effectively provides the boots-on-the-ground teachers is a checklist that at best, general education teachers might review, and then assure themselves that they’re implementing these UDL principles. Edyburn’s observation; “Unfortunately, statements like the following are found in the literature: ‘universal design for learning is just good teaching’ or ‘it is like what you have always done’ (Castellani, Mason, & Orkwis, 2005; Orkwis & McLane, 1998)” (ibid). While I agree that there is a distinction between “good teaching” and UDL. Here, I am only providing my limited, anecdotal perspective that classroom teachers fall into Edyburn’s observation; CAST provides an accessible checklist that “good teachers” can reference to suggest that they’re implementing UDL. While that in itself was a problem that Edyburn observed 10 years ago, and I’d argue, remains to be a problem today, I think that the larger problem is Edyburn’s “new direction” for this observation.

Edyburn writes, “UDL represents a 21st-century intervention that seeks to use emerging insights gained from research in diverse fields such as brain imaging, learning sciences, instructional design, and technology. Good teaching has never been able to address the full range of diversity found in a classroom” (ibid). This is quintessential techno-futurism. I’ll quickly define my use of techno-futurism like Edyburn did for UDL: defining what it is not. Borrowing from Sheldon Wolin’s Democracy Inc., “As a system of belief archaism appears to the nonbeliever as anachronistic, as out of synch with the culture seemingly dominated by the

dynamists. The latter display or embrace a forward, futurist thrust that celebrates change and trumpets ‘progress’” (Wolin, 2008, p. 117). While Wolin is not speaking in the context of education, there are parallels between archaism and good teaching as there are to techno-futurism and UDL. The “techno” aspect of this progressive, forward-looking mentality is based in the potentiality of technology. This is closely aligned to techno-optimism in which there’s the expectation that technology will somehow solve current problems. But my use of Wolin’s juxtaposition is to emphasize that Edyburn’s analysis of UDL’s first 10 years is not just good teaching. He clearly wants to differentiate UDL and move beyond what education has been, at least in terms of its relationship to technology, accessibility, and comprehending the realities of diversity.

But to be clear, I am not accusing Edyburn of being a techno-optimist. In fact, I think that “Proposition #7: UDL Is Not Assistive Technology” addresses this. But to back up to an earlier proposition, I want to add to my concern for UDL’s seemingly techno-futurist motivations and risk for being techno-optimist. “Proposition #1: Universal Design in Education is Fundamentally Different from Universal Design in the Built Environment;” Edyburn’s distinction between UDL and UD in architecture could be the root of UDL’s continuation of not addressing what I’ve observed to be a stagnation in the classroom. If Covid-19 and distance learning has shown educators, researchers, and policy-makers anything, it’s that instructional re-design does not occur quickly. Shifting to online, screen-based learning platforms continues to be a difficulty despite roughly a year of predominantly online learning for some school districts. I think these continued difficulties show how techno-optimism fails education; technology did not save or improve the problems faced by students with disabilities, especially during this pandemic. While I am speaking in generalities, I would be curious to see upcoming data showing the impact of distance learning for students with disabilities who did/did not have access to online, screen-based technologies during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.

Architecture’s relationship to UD inevitably accepts the reality that adapting and implementing UD principals is an integrated, slow process. Education, in its attempt to avoid archaism, should not distance itself from UD’s connection to architecture in this sense. Otherwise, there will be continue to be a collective, techno-optimist approach that has failed students with disabilities. Sure, non-disabled peers might have navigated this abrupt shift to online, screen-based learning. But what’s universal about that well-known disparity? I know that UDL wouldn’t argue that education’s general techno-optimism, (if not out-right, initial capitalization of distance learning), was an example of UDL principles. But what is UDL’s relationship to technology if it’s not techno-optimist, but somehow techno-futurist? Wouldn’t techno-futurist educators (and policy-makers) see this global pandemic as a forced paradigmatic shift that could initiate a unified implementation of UDL? Or is UDL primarily techno-futurist in Wolin’s sense: we want to distance ourselves from archaism which includes more apparent forms of discrimination and lack of equity in education?

I think that 20 years since UDL’s origination, Edyburn’s initial propositions remained wholly unaddressed. Or, perhaps more generously, they were addressed prior to Covid-19’s impact on education. But if that’s the case, the pandemic and distance learning has clearly re-opened the relevancy of Edyburn’s reflections. In general, had there been a more established relationship between readily available technology, differentiated instruction, and students, the transition to online learning platforms would have been smoother. In other words, Edyburn’s piece essentially now asks how much UDL was actually being implemented? I’d argue that if more of his propositions were addressed and somehow implemented in the classroom, this transition to online learning would have looked differently. But I think that, like a lot of new concepts, frameworks, and ideologies in education, teachers were only able to check of certain boxes of UDL. Edyburn’s Proposition #4 remains relevant now more than ever: “Universal Design for Learning Is Not Just Good Teaching.” Online learning has certainly made that distinction clear. So what is UDL, then?

References

Edyburn, D. L. (2010). Would you recognize universal design for learning if you saw it? Ten propositions for new directions for the second decade of UDL. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(1), 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/073194871003300103

Wolin, S. S. (2017). Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism-New Edition. Princeton University Press.

UDL Resource Directory Reflection

The majority of this directory compilation process made me realize how dependent I am on internet connection and computer access. I am questioning sustainability as I return to the school building and my school adopts a hybrid learning model. A primary influence on my approach was accessibility for students in an online-virtual learning model. I am not sure how much I would use these on a regular basis if all students had returned to an in-person model. But toward the second edition of the list, I was anticipating returning to the school building. The hybrid learning model that my school is in requires that I am using at least one of these resources to keep the online students engaged. My in-person students do have access to their computers. However, I do not have access to a projector or Smartboard in my room. Consequently, a gap or disconnect remains between me, the in-person students, and the online-virtual students. I guess this does show my increased dependency on technology and how “hands-free” some of these resources can allow me to be and provide differentiated and direct instruction to different students during one block of instruction time.

For example, I have been using Freckle a lot for my small group resource classes for both ELA and math. Freckle can be used in a variety of ways; I can use the assignment function to collect data as a warm-up activity or as an exit ticket. The Fact Practice function in math works really well for math fluency development. The ELA components are very user-friendly. Students can have questions or short passages read out loud to them. All instructions can be read out loud and some questions have video demonstrations. On the back end, Freckle is collecting data. There are various algorithms that allow students to progress along grade-level standards or at an adapted instructional level. These functions easily provide differentiated instruction and progress monitoring. The issue is, now that I am back in-person and I’m simultaneously working with students in-person and online-virtual, it’s difficult to balance my instructional time and the class use of Freckle. I have a tendency to minimize computer use while in-person. I’m finding that tangible manipulatives remain highly effective when teaching basic math instruction. But those aren’t necessarily readily available to virtual-online students. And that’s no problem or fault on Freckle’s account. Rather, it’s easier to allow for Freckle to stand-in as an automated teacher, especially when working on skill remediation for virtual-online students.

If I am working with a small group of students in-person, they attract my immediate attention. Students are familiar with Freckle and know how to “ask for help” by watching the demonstration video. They also know that if they get a question wrong, it’s okay. The computer will adjust to an easier problem-set (or so it seems) if students repeatedly get questions wrong. They won’t be prematurely advanced to the next level or standard. Freckle effectively functions as a useful skill remediation tool and thereby frees up a teacher to provide more attention to in-person students. I think this has made me more conscientious as a teacher since I don’t want students to be on “autopilot,” so to speak. But at the same time, students are learning at their own pace. For fundamental standards, this is really useful when students are virtual. While Freckle is primarily highlighting a few aspects of UDL, the application does depict what happens if a teacher maximizes independent practice, differentiated instruction, and sustaining student effort and persistence with the gamified coin-reward system. For my in-person students, I am starting to use Freckle as a reward for positive behavior. But this seems to be at odds with my virtual-online students.