Hello students!

  
 
We are going to talk about Universal Design for Learning and how it relates to you, 
a student. Though, before we begin I encourage you to think about what Universal 
Design, UD, means. Below are some guiding questions to help you think about what 
UD means.  
➢ What does universal mean? 
➢ What does design mean? 
➢ How might universal design help a learner? 
Well, Universal Design refers to creating a learning environment where all 
students, yourself included, are able to engage and partake in the learning process 
through ​Multiple Means of Engagement​, ​Multiple Means of Representation​, and 
Multiple Means of Action and Expression​. These 3 principles each have their own 
guidelines and each guideline has corresponding check points. But more detail on 
that later.  
 
Multiple Means of Engagement 
This principle deals with the “whys” of learning (udlguidelines). For instance, you 
have probably asked yourself “​Why​ do I need to know how to divide fractions” or 
“​Why​ is this (insert your least favorite mathematics concept) important”. Through 
multiple means of engagement a teacher has students recruit interest, sustain 
effort and persistence, and engage in self regulation (udlguidelines). 
Recruiting Interest  
This guideline involves giving you, the student, choices, authentic learning, 
and a safe environment that supports learning (udlguidelines).  
Allowing you the opportunity to choose helps build your independence within 
a school setting. For example, your math teacher can give you the choice on how to 
solve your fraction division problem, either with a picture, using the multiple by the 
reciprocal rule, or any other strategy you are more comfortable with.  
Giving you the opportunity for authentic, real learning involves making the 
content relevant. For instance, this can be done by contextualizing dividing 
fractions in order to give reasons to why it is important. For example, lets say you 
only have ¾ of a pizza leftover, and you want to divide your leftover pizza into 8 
equal parts, for your 8 friends, how do you find out how much pizza each person 
gets? Answering this question not only uses math, but it gives you some context as 
to why we divide fractions. 
Lastly, recruiting interest involves creating a safe environment where your 
teacher and fellow students are “accepting and supportive”(udlguidelines). This 
looks like using kind words towards others, providing minimal distractions, and 
supporting one another as we all partake in learning.   
Sustaining Effort & Persistence 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, the opportunity to develop 
goals, engage in varied demands, partake in collaborative learning, and respond to 
feedback (udlguidelines).  
Goal setting is important regardless of if it occurs in a school setting or not. 
Since this is the case, it is important for your teacher to not only encourage you to 
make goals, but also know why those goals are important. For example, lets say your 
goal was to get help with dividing fractions at least once a week. Why might this 
goal be important? One reason this goal could be important is because repetitive 
practice builds familiarity with a given process.  
Engaging in varied demands involves using “flexible tools and supports” 
(udlguidelines). This may look like a teacher giving you a choice to use an online 
website, fraction tiles, and other objects or technology to help you solve a dividing 
fractions problem.   
Partaking in collaborative learning means building a classroom community 
where we support one another. This means asking questions, sharing mathematical 
ideas, and simply talking to either your teacher or classmates. This helps build a 
familiarity with classmates, teacher included, which in turn helps build familiarity 
with the content.   
Lastly, responding to feedback involves the teacher giving guidance that 
encourages you to put your best foot forward. That means, putting in your best 
effort and persistence, based on the guidance from your teacher. This looks like 
the teacher encouraging students even when “hiccups” (mishaps) occur. Remember: 
before we can succeed, we must fail first. With that being said, your success will 
differ from your fellow classmates. That means not everyone’s effort and 
persistence put into completing their goals will be the same, and that’s okay! Trying 
your best, even if it does not feel like your best, is the best you can do.    
Self Regulation     
This guideline involves motivation, developing personal coping strategies, and 
reflection (udlguidelines).  
Motivation looks like your teacher giving you not only the guidance you need 
to succeed, but also promoting your goals as you become more of an independent 
learner (udlguidelines). For instance, your teacher may give positive feedback on 
key parts in your process to solving a dividing fractions problem during your weekly 
help sessions. This detailed feedback would be done to motivate you to use that 
process again and to return to later sessions.   
 Personal coping strategies involve developing “healthy emotional responses 
and interactions” (udlguidelines). For example, say you become very frustrated with 
solving the dividing fraction problem. Your teacher may give you the choice to put 
your head down, close your eyes, step outside the classroom, or another 
appropriate response to allow you the opportunity to cool and calm yourself down.  
Lastly, reflection involves thinking about your thinking. This means thinking 
about what you have done, why you did those parts, what worked, what did not 
work, and other similar thoughts. This is done to help you reflect on your goals and 
your progress towards completing them. For instance, your teacher might ask you 
at the end of your weekly help session “What was your big take-away today” in 
order to get you thinking about what progress you have made in your learning.   
 
Multiple Means of Representation      
This principle deals with the “what” of learning (udlguidelines). For instance, you 
have probably asked yourself “​What​ are fractions” or “​What​ is this (insert 
unfamiliar mathematics concept)”. Through multiple means of representation a 
teacher has students engage in perception, language and symbols, and 
comprehension (udlguidelines). 
Perception 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, different ways in perceiving, 
or experiencing, the content’s information. This includes “offering alternatives for 
auditory” and visual information. This could look like your teacher having a picture 
to go along with a word problem. For example, recall the word problem from 
“Recruiting Interest” concerning a pizza, where only ¾ remain. Your teacher could 
include a picture of what this pizza looks like beside the problem (see Fig. 1 below) 
or provide some physical representation of a pizza. This would all be done to allow 
you and your classmates to engage in the content through reading the problem, 
seeing the ¾ or even feeling the ¾ of the pizza.  

   
 Language & Symbols 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, clarification of key words and 
symbols, clarification of structure, multiple mediums for instruction, support in 
decoding mathematical notation, and help in understanding regardless of language 
(udlguidelines).  
Clarification of key words, symbols, structure, and language involves 
providing multiple mediums for instruction. That can look like the teacher 
explaining what a mathematical word means, how it is used, the symbols associated 
with it along with other clarifying ideas. For example, fractions, lets use “one over 
two”, can be represented in a variety of ways. One over two is the same as ½, half, 
or 50 percent. We could contextualize, give meaning to ½, in a sentence like “half 
the students are wearing red shirts today” or “1 out of 2 people liked the newest 
movie”. Also, a teacher could explain the symbols associated with fractions like how 
“1​÷​2 “​ means the same thing as “1​/​2". That is, the line with a dot above and below 
tells you to do the same operation as what the diagonal slash.  
To continue, through clarifying mathematical language your teacher begins 
to help support your use and understanding of mathematical notation and content. 
To build off the example above, your teacher may develop an activity where you 
have to find equivalent pairs. This would involve matching words, symbols, or 
pictures that have the same meaning. For instance, this activity may involve you 
matching all the different ways we can represent “one over two” as pictures, 
words, sentences, with mathematical notation, or coming up with a few new ideas of 
your own.   
Comprehension  
This guideline involves giving you, the student, background knowledge, 
highlights of key patterns and relationships, guided processing, and maximized 
transfer of the content (udlguidelines).  
Giving you background knowledge involves your teacher building off your 
prior knowledge. For instance, when you were first introduced to the slash-division 
symbol (​—​) your teacher may have reminded you about how you used the obelus (​÷​) 
in early elementary to denote division.  
Highlighting key patterns involves the teacher pointing out important ideas 
and processes that arise when learning and accomplishing your goals. For example, 
when dividing by fractions, your teacher may summarize the key aspects of 
multiplying by the reciprocal with the phrase “keep, change, flip”. Here the “keep” 
refers to keeping the numerator (top) the same, “change” refers to changing from 
division to multiplication, and “flip” refers to flipping the fraction in the 
denominator (bottom).   
 When your teacher guides processing, this involves helping you towards 
completing your goals and making sense of the content. This involves a wide range 
of teacher-skills done with the purpose to help you learn the “what” of the content. 
For example, your teacher may have daily review on past concepts that have 
already been taught. This would be done to help you build a solid, foundational 
understanding. Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is your 
understanding towards a mathematical concept. Patience is key for both teacher 
and student as your teacher works towards bettering your understanding.  
Lastly, maximizing transfer of the content refers to applying knowledge to 
new situations. For instance, after completing the pizza problem, your teacher may 
give a problem where you are designing a city, and ⅜ are set aside for parks but the 
other ⅝ need to be split up amongst 10 other corporations. The process for solving 
the city problem is similar to the process for solving the pizza problem.   
 
Multiple Means of Action and Expression 
This principle deals with the “how” of learning (udlguidelines). For instance, you 
have probably asked yourself “​How​ do I use fractions” or “​How​ do I use this 
(insert unfamiliar mathematics concept)”. Through multiple means of action and 
expression a teacher has students partake in physical actions, expression and 
communication, and executive functions (udlguidelines). 
Physical Actions 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, a variety of ways to respond 
and optimizing access to assistive tools (udlguidelines).  
A variety of ways to respond means your teacher provides an environment 
where learning is physically accessible through assistive tools(udlguidelines). This 
means you are guaranteed the right to be able to partake in and respond to the 
content being presented in a universally designed classroom. For instance, say you 
need a computer to write out your computations when dividing fractions. Allowing 
you the option and needed resources, like a list of needed symbols, to complete 
your assignment with a computer would help make the content more accessible to 
you. To elaborate, providing symbols, such as ​÷, or providing a program that allows a 
student to write in mathematical notation would be done to make using the 
computer more accessible. This is because not all mathematical notation and 
symbols are on a standard American keyboard.     
Expression & Communication 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, multiple means to 
communicate, multiple means to construct thoughts, and the skills to become an 
independent learner (udlguidelines).  
 Multiple means to communicate means allowing you flexible options to show 
your work and respond to the content during the learning process. In a 
mathematics class, this could look like using desmos, geogebra, paper and pencil, 
fraction tiles, or other mediums to express and find solutions. 
To build off that, multiple means to construct thoughts involves giving you a 
variety of ways to show what you have learned. For instance, say your teacher gives 
you a project where you have to explain the multiplying by the reciprocal rule when 
dividing fractions. Your teacher could have you explain your project on paper, with 
slides, a website, a song, a dance, or any other appropriate object.  
Lastly, the development of skills in becoming an independent learner involves 
your teacher building up your skills and fluency within the content so that you can 
take ownership of your understanding. A non-mathematical example would be taking 
off the training wheels after learning how to use a bike. Similarly, your teacher will 
guide you towards the day you no longer need the training wheels. A mathematical 
example, would be your teacher presenting you with a high level dividing fractions 
problem. This would be done after you have gained fluency and confidence with the 
material through your teacher’s guidance.   
Executive Function 
This guideline involves giving you, the student, guidance and support towards 
goal-setting, managing relevant information, and enhancing the monitoring process 
(udlguidelines). 
Guidance and support towards your goal-setting involves your teacher helping 
you make goals and helping you implement the goals. That is, your teacher helps 
guide you in your goal-setting as well as how you plan to reach your goals. For 
example, lets say your goal is to get help once a week with dividing fractions. Your 
teacher might suggest you find a fixed, consistent time every week to so that the 
tutoring becomes a regular scheduled event. Consistency helps when trying to 
reach your long term goals.  
Managing relevant information involves your teacher encouraging you to stay 
organized and accountable. This may look like keeping an agenda or a table of 
contents within your notes. An organized agenda will help you be able to stay 
accountable and remember assignments and commitments you have going on that 
month, week, or even day. Also, a table of contents can help you easily look back in 
your notes when you need to recall a certain topic, word, or process.  
Lastly, enhancing the monitoring process involves reflecting on your goals. 
This means looking into your growth and also analyzing where to go next with your 
goals (udlguidelines). This would be done when your teacher would encourage you to 
engage in meaningful reflection. For example, your teacher may ask you how the 
weekly tutoring sessions have been going, what sort of improvements have you 
made, and what you still need help in. These questions and prompts allow you to see 
your progress as well as where to improve through meaningful reflection.  
 
Resource  
The UDL Guidelines. (2018, August 31). Retrieved from 
http://udlguidelines.cast.org/