Curriculum Design for Inclusive Arts Teaching and Learning | Module 2

Curriculum Design for Inclusive Arts Teaching and Learning 

Module 2

Universal Design for Learning
Design for Access, Inclusion, and Interaction

Instructional Design: Don Glass, PhD

VSA - The International Organization on Arts and Disability

These resources were developed in partnership with VSA, VSA Massachusetts, and Lesely University.

Learning Outcomes:

• Participants will be able to explain the concepts and principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
•  Participants will be able to analyze and evaluate curriculum and assessment documentation using this framework and provide constructive feedback to educators.

Big Ideas:

• Because of the wide variability in how people learn, barriers to learning are often caused by inflexible curriculum and materials, rather than by a disability of a student.
• As much as possible, curriculum should be designed up-front to provide multiple, flexible options for everyone- rather than retro-fitted in response to individual students.
• UDL provides multiple, flexible options for the representation of content, engagement with content, and demonstration of  skills, knowledge, and understanding.
• The arts can provide rich, meaningful, and engaging teaching and learning options.

UDL Overview

Watch an overview video on the CAST YouTube Channel and/or this animation using xtranormal that responds to general questions about what UDL is.

Neuroscience and Education

Apply what is known about how the brain learns to the design of curriculum.

Because of the advancements of brain imaging technologies like this, neuroscience has been able to provide a more sophisticated understanding of how the brain functions and how it learns across a set of complex interconnected neural networks.

The discovery that the functioning of everyone's brain is variable- that we ALL have different strengths and limitations in perception, working memory, and processing- means that multiple, flexible approaches to teaching and learning are required to meet the needs of all learners. This recent brain research provides a solid foundation for Universal Design for Learning.

Universal Design

Design “…products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”

–Ron Mace

The Universal Design movement in architecture has also been foundational for Universal Design for Learning. Universal Design was developed by Ron Mace and his colleagues as a set of seven principles that could be applied to the up-front design of architecture, environments, and products that would remove barriers and provide the broadest level of access to everyone.

Universal Design is used as a metaphor to advocate for up-front design to remove as many barriers to the curriculum and make it as accessible, inclusive, and interactive to a broadest amount of learners as possible.

Digital Technology

Use flexible, interactive formats for content with digital supports for access and comprehension.

Digital technology has provided many advances in terms of the organization, use, and exchange of information. It has also given us extremely powerful, flexible, and creative ways to generate, record, and manipulate text, images, and audio to construct and demonstrate knowledge.

Digital versions of text have been ground-breaking in removing barriers to the access of printed books with multiple options for display like text size and contrast, text-to-speech, language translation, and alternative textual descriptions of images and diagrams. Web 2.0 applications have made content interactive and support both social learning, and local knowledge construction and content generation through the use of collaborative tools like wikis, YouTube, gaming, and social networks. This screenshot is a UDL learning tool from CAST.

Universal Design for Learning

Provide Multiple, Flexible Curricular Options

"Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs."  -CAST

Download the UDL Guidelines2.0 for you to use.

Supporting Learning in the Strategic Networks

Strategic Networks- the "how" of learning:

Planning and performing tasks. How we organize and express our ideas. Writing an essay, solving a math problem, or developing a dance rotine are strategic tasks.

Differentiate how students express what they know

Supporting Learning in the Affective Networks

Affective Networks- the "why" of learning:

How learners get engaged and stay motivated. How they are challenged, excited, or interested with cultrually meaningful and relevant content. These are affective dimensions.

Stimulate interest and motivation for learning.

Supporting Expert Learning- Access

Supporting Expert Learning- Guided Practice

Using the UDL Guidelines

A heuristic guide to inform curricular decision-making

UDL Checklist for multiple, flexible options for…

VSA Case Study

View VoiceThread of VSA of MA Teaching Artist Marsha Parrilla teaching at the Ohrenberger School in Boston, MA. Or try VoiceThread Universal as a more flexible option for displaying VoiceThread.

What did you see or hear that may be UDL?

VSA Case Study: UDL Checklist

Arts options for inclusive teaching and learning.

Curriculum Design for Inclusive Arts Teaching and Learning: UDL by Don Glass is licensed by VSA under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.vsarts.org.

These resources were developed in partnership with VSA, VSA Massachusetts, and Lesely University.