As I sit here in the Memphis Airport waiting for my flight and exploring and reading more about instructional technology and UDL, I'm convinced of something. Trite but true...there's always a new "magic bullet" being put forth in education. (e.g., put "research-based" in front of any practice and its value sky-rockets, but does it really mean anything? Does calling it "research-based" or "evidence-based" make it so?) With high stakes related to student achievement and rigor required with the Common Core State Standards, we are seeing an explosion of speakers, solutions, and sure cures that promise significant student progress IF ONLY we pledge allegiance to them. So, I think we often find ourselves chasing after practices, getting excited and adopting them, and not necessarily tiring of those practices but slowing moving on to the "new" and leaving the "old" behind.
It is to be expected of those of us in education to want make sense of our world by framing our beliefs and principles about learning and teaching in some kind of sensible way to guide our daily practices. For me, universal design for learning (UDL) provides that global yet thorough framework to hang all that we know is effective (i.e., research-based) and all that we must keep in mind as we guide students to become expert learners. All have a place on the UDL framework. It's refreshing and reassuring that we can keep using this framework, embed new practices without abandoning or forgetting the tried and true. UDL is a framework that works when guiding us in our goal of reaching all learners. What about you? Does the UDL framework make sense to you, too?
