UDL adapts curriculum to student

connecting the principles of Universal Design for Learning to your current teaching practice

I found the Universal Design (UDL) reading to be incredibly informative and helpful. Throughout my time at Bank Street and in my brief experience student teaching, I have heard this term "UDL" many times. Until reading this article I was not exactly sure how the principles and specifics were applied in the classroom. This article almost completely cleared up that confusion. However, to fully understand I need to have some first hand experience with its technology.

Regardless, I can now appreciate the incredible positive effect UDL can have in a classroom. After reading this article and digesting the information, I see many ways to connect UDL's principles to my current teaching, especially when presenting a new task or multi-tiered assignment.

When I am presenting a new task or assignment I must do so in a multitude of ways. I should not simply state it verbally once, but i should use simple languages, and restate my request a few times. As well, I should reinforce the request by presenting it in writing in front of the classroom and possible even having the students transcribe the task on paper themselves before attempting to complete. This is only one way UDL can be applied, but already once gets the jist of how incredibly helpful it can be. By presenting the assignment in so many modalities, the teacher is almost sure to reach every student with whatever different learning modality they prefer.

I as a teacher will need to think for my students of the various ways to process information. Since I intend to be teaching younger students, it is my responsibility to make them aware of all the different ways to present information. I can not rely on them to tell me what the prefer or how they learn best, since they are young and either don't know or haven't been introduced to all the modalities.

I think the idea of a curriculum that adapts to the student is incredible, but how can it be ensure electronically. I know to some extend how I would adapt it in my own personal lesson plans, but how does it work in the educational environment on the computer?