UDL in 15 Minutes

20: A visual organizer for your July listening

It's July which means summer holiday in most of North America. And even though UDL in 15 Minutes is taking a production break, I've made a table of past episodes to make it easy for listeners to find the episode they want to hear for their first time or second, third, or fourth. Happy listening!

19: An inclusive 7th grade ELA classroom produces expert learners. Rebecca shares how.

Special educator Rebecca Chappell shares how she and her English Language Arts colleague used Universal Design for Learning to design how they would integrate Quizlet and other methods and materials to ensure all of their learners improved their understanding and application of some challenging vocabulary terms.

18: Justin ensures his pre-service teachers learn about UDL, examine using UDL, and experience UDL as learners.

Hear how Justin Freedman, an assistant professor at Rowan University, provides his pre-service teachers with a 365-degree relationship with UDL. Not only do they learn about it and observe other lessons and learning environments implementing UDL, they experience a learning environment designed by Justin using UDL. Justin also shares how and why he become a professor and his research accommodations at the college level.

17: After 27 years, a focus on self-regulation within UDL has rocked her teaching!

Karlene Warns, a 27-year teaching veteran, shares how she’s helped her kindergartners gain the self-regulation skills necessary to support their executive functioning capabilities. During the podcast, we address that push and pull felt by so many teachers – when to spend time on skills that feel more like behavior and when to dive into academics. Karlene shares what’s been successful for her.

16: Camille shares why and how fourth grade teachers changed how they assess their ELA learners.

This special edition of UDL in 15 Minutes was recorded in front of a live studio audience at the UDL-IRN Summit on March 28, 2019. Camille is a Learning Coach at Sunflower Elementary School in Lawrence, Kansas and during this episode, she shares how she and the fourth grade teachers devised a system to help their learners show what they know in English Language Arts through their use of the UDL principle of Action and Expression. Students gained new levels of ownership, participation, and expression by brainstorming, planning, designing, and creating their creations to demonstrate their knowledge of main idea and detail.

15: Using her own teaching experiences, Melissa designs UDL PD for her district.

Melissa discovered UDL as a 7^th grade English teacher but recently transitioned to become a district resource teacher who helps other teachers learn about and implement UDL. Hear how she started weaving UDL into her classroom using small steps and how she uses that same model as she brings UDL to others. She also shares a UDL tool she redesigned to fit the needs of her adult learners.

14: How Adria Gold shifted from accommodations for some to support for all through UDL

Hear how Adria Gold, an English Language Arts teacher from Prettyboy Elementary in Baltimore, Maryland responds to her variable learners through chunking her materials. In addition, she shares how she breaks down her expectations so all of her learners know where to start and how to participate in the lesson.

13. Kim Babeu shares her system for building community at the high school level

Kim Babeu introduces us to a system she uses called SPORT which encompasses both behavior and academic supports. It has lowered barriers for her anatomy and physics students so successfully at Toltecalli High School, in Tucson, AZ that their grades have gone way up. During our conversation, Kim and I explore how the system overlaps with UDL. The associated blog dives into the intentional use of the UDL framework.

12: Dan Schmidt reflects on the power of “why not?”

Dan’s 26 years as an elementary school teacher have taught him a lot, but one of his biggest lessons was when he learned to ask, “Why not?”  Hear how combining that lesson with UDL has led him to create an incredibly flexible, open, and non-threatening math classroom.

11: Engaging 8th graders. Monica tells us that it can be done!

Monica Watson-Bedard a Grade 7 teacher at Millidgeville North School in New Brunswick, Canada, shares her lessons after conducting action research to discover how choice affects student engagement in assessments. Her take-aways have a surprise tucked into them!