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Samantha Goldberg

Article Review

The article, More Than One Way: Stories of UDL and Inclusive Classrooms by Alisa K.

Lowrey; Aleksandra Hollingshead; Kathy Howery; and John B. Bishop outlines the effects of

using Universal Design for Learning in an inclusion classroom. Universal Design for learning

was researched to help teachers engage, teach, and assess their students effectively. Universal

Design for Learning has changed the way teachers teach and students learn. The authors of this

article researched the effects of Universal Design for learning in inclusive classrooms with

students who have intellectual disabilities.

Intellectual disabilities are defined under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act

(IDEA) as, “Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently [at

the same time] with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental

period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance” (226). Before the research

began, the authors examined a well-documented study of Universal Design for Learning in two

inclusive classrooms that had students with intellectual disabilities. The study lasted a year and

found that student engagement increased, goals became more academically focused, student

responsibility improved and so on. This study was done by Dymond et al. The writers of More

Than One Way: Stories of UDL and Inclusive Classrooms used the previously mentioned study

as a foundation for their research.

The method for this study had the researchers examine the narratives of current teachers

using narrative inquiry. Each participant in the study had to meet specific criteria. All of the

participants in the study are general education teachers that have been working with Universal
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Design for Learning for at least one year. Initially, the researchers wanted to find teachers who

had at least one student with a severe intellectual disability, However, after looking for

candidates, they decided to broaden their search to include those with a moderate intellectual

disability. They ended up with seven participants. There were four candidates from Canada and

three from the United States. Each candidate was interviewed over the phone for an average of

35 minutes. When they analyzed their data, they found common themes among the participants.

They combined the themes into their final findings. They organized their findings into four

categories: designing for learner variability, inclusion, teaming fosters success, and differing

descriptions of UDL.

Through their interviews, they found the teachers had similar thoughts about UDL. The

first finding was designing for learner variability. The teachers found that they had to address the

needs of various students by overcoming barriers. Teachers need to have multiple ways to assess

students and design their instruction with diversity in mind. They also found that inclusion

played a big role in the teacher interviews. By planning for the inclusion of students with

intellectual disabilities the teachers saw a positive increase in peer relationships. They also found

that teacher relationships were critical in the successful implementation of UDL. Having a

support system is so important if schools want to keep using UDL. Finally, they found that the

wording used in the classroom is different than the wording used in the research. Researchers

define UDL differently than the way it is spoken about in the classroom. Because of this many

people often don’t realize they are already implementing many strategies of UDL.

Using Universal Design for Learning is important in all classroom settings, even in

college. Having background knowledge in UDL, Cassidy and I decided to implement it into our

presentation. While working on our presentation we made sure to have strategies in place for
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how we were going to represent information, engage the class, and allow for action and

expression.

We started by thinking about how we would present the information we studied. Our

foundation is a PowerPoint. PowerPoints are helpful for visual learners. PowerPoints can also be

posted online for students to use for future reference. From there we decided to put a video into

the presentation for our auditory learners. Videos are also useful for students with visual

impairments or students who struggle with reading. While watching the video, we will use closed

captioning for students who may have a hearing impairment. We don’t want our audience to be

bored by our presentation, so we had to come up with strategies to engage them. We knew we

wanted to include movement, so we came up with an idea for a true or false opener. On one side

of the room, we will have the word true posted on the wall, on the other side will be the word

false. The whole class will stand up while we ask a question. If the answer is true, they will move

to the true side and if it is false, they will move to the false side. Aside from engaging our

audience, this activity will help us to informally assess their background knowledge. Our action

and expression piece of UDL is combined with some engagement activities. About halfway

through our presentation, we will ask for student input. To do so we will give them a discussion

question. Then, we will ask them to turn to their neighbor and share their responses. After they

have shared with the person next to them, we will ask if anybody would like to share their

answer with the rest of the class. This strategy gets all students engaged and answering questions

without the pressure of being wrong in front of everybody. This will help get our class introverts

involved in the discussion. To close our presentation, we have another discussion question ready.

This time the students will be asked to write their question down on a sticky note and place it on

the board. This is another way to get shy learners comfortable answering questions. By doing
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this we will have collected data from the class to assess their knowledge. By using a wide variety

of strategies during our presentation, Cassidy and I are confident that the majority of the class

will have a better understanding of how UDL is used in the inclusion classroom.

Works Cited

Lowrey, K. A., Hollingshead, A., Howery, K., & Bishop, J. B. (2017). More than One Way: Stories

of UDL and Inclusive Classrooms. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe

Disabilities, 42(4), 225–242. Retrieved from

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