Universal Design for Learning Strategy Database

Embed choices that align with the learning goal

• Give choices in content to explore
• Give choices in tools used for exploration or production
• Give choices in types of rewards or recognition available
• Give choices in opportunities for practicing and assessing learning
• Give choices in the design or graphics of layouts, etc.
• Give choices in the sequence or timing for completion of tasks

Use a collaborative approach among learners and educators to co-design learning goals, activities, and tasks.

• Take a poll/vote: Allow for students voice in choosing activities and tasks. 

• Decision-making participation: As teachers design lessons, allow for students to participate in decision making. For example, in studying the life cycle, we can either read a text about a butterfly, or a tree...let's take a vote!

• Co-created goals: Co-create personal academic or behavioral goals.

  • Each student may have a personalized reading level they need to achieve (Student A will achieve a Level O by EOY, Student B will achieve a Level Q by EOY)

• Conferring: Allow students to meet individually with teachers to discuss and monitor academic and behavioral goals. 

  • For example, a student may meet with the teacher every two weeks (this may vary) to discuss individual progress with a goal. The student may share their perspective on their progress with a goal and whether or not the goal should be modified. 

Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be:

• personalized and contextualized to learners’ lives
• culturally relevant and sustaining
• socially relevant
• age and ability appropriate, and
• appropriate for different racial, cultural, ethnic and gender groups.

• Real life problems: Introduce relevant problem situations that match scenarios the students encounter in their own lives.

  •   Culturally relevant examples: Ensure that scenarios represent the identity markers of your students. Ensure that the names, locations, and activities used in scenarios communicate an awareness of your student’s language and culture. 

  • Socially relevant examples: Ensure that scenarios represent things that students are socially familiar with (e.g. include books or math story problems with protagonists from shows students watch). 

  • Age and ability appropriate: Ensure that scenarios represent age and ability appropriate things that students are familiar with 

• Vary activities and sources of information

• Tell a story: that aligns with the students’ personal interests or experiences to hook students into the lesson

• Post/state lesson objective: Introduce the lesson objective by verbally stating it in addition to having it posted for the student to see/view throughout the lesson and refer back to.

  • It's important to have the objective stated and the beginning of the lesson and posted for all learners to reference over the course of the lesson.

• State a language objective: In addition to the content objective, it’s important to specify what you expect from your students in terms of language. For example, to accompany a content objective like “SWBAT conduct a science experiment”, an accompanying language objective could be “SWBAT orally state their hypotheses to their partner using a sentence frame”.

• Numbered Heads Together: This is an activity to invite active participation. In this activity,  put students in groups and give each student a number. Provide time to respond to the prompt, and then cue which “number” you’ll be calling on to give them time to prepare their response.

• Talking chips: This activity invites participation and monitors airtime for all students. In this activity, students are given a certain number of “chips” that indicate how many times they must talk in the group discussion.  The conversation ends only when everyone has used all of their chips.

• Lines of Communication:  Students line up facing a partner; they then share ideas with each partner, taking turns speaking and listening. Students change partners at the signal (can use timer).

• Exploration: When introducing a new topic, provide students with an opportunity to first explore it on their own--for example, through a web search, a library search, etc.

• Experimentation: Provide students with opportunities for open experimentation. For example, in math class students can have 5 minutes to work with a partner to experiment with building shapes out of blocks that have certain numbers of sides.

• Student self assessment: In order to develop expert learners, it’s important for students to reflect on their own learning processes. You can facilitate this by offering opportunities for students to evaluate their own understanding, or growth in understanding, using a rating tool (i.e. 1-5; 1 need help/5 totally understand). Use a final or end of unit rubric to help students evaluate their own work.

• Reflection templates: At the end of the lesson, provide opportunities for reflection in the form of independent writing, a “collaboration board” on nearpod, a poll, or a turn and talk.

  • Reflection prompts might include questions like, “How did you engage with the material today?”,  “What is one thing that you did to improve your writing today?”, or “What did you learn about yourself as a learner today?”

• Student note templates: A tool for students to capture things they want to remember (i.e. Things to Remember).

• Visualizations/sketching: In order to allow students to brainstorm solutions to problems, provide students independent work time to sketch diagrams, webs, maps, etc to solve problems (i.e., sketch/label what it might look like to work collaboratively with your tablemates).

• Act It Out/Reader’s Theater: To support student understanding of a complex text or a math story problem, you might have them act out the story. To support students' understanding of a complex story, you might assign different characters/roles and have students read collaboratively as if it were a play.

• Multiple ways to solve a problem: Encourage students to explain multiple ways to solve and explain their thinking. In mathematics for example, encourage students to share different ways to solve a word problem. For example, we can use repeated addition or multiplication to solve the same problem. 

• Simulations: To support students’ making sense of new concepts, have them create a simulation of what it might look like (i.e., recreate a Renaissance event, etc...)

• Double Entry Journal: A double entry journal enables students to record their responses to text as they read. Students write down phrases or sentences from their assigned reading and then write/draw their own reaction to that passage. The purpose of this strategy is to give students the opportunity to express their thoughts and become actively involved with the material they read.

Nurture playfulness in a variety of forms

• Outdoor play
• Sensory play
• Imaginative play
• Play through the arts

Incorporate opportunities for exploration, experimentation, and discovery

• Explore how educator and learner biases can impact the learning environments

• Create space and ways for learners to share the biases, threats, and distractions they may be experiencing

• Nurture a culture where mistakes are a part of the learning process

• Cue student in advance: In order to support students who are learning English, it’s important to never force or surprise students by asking them to speak when they are not ready. In this strategy, teachers check in with students before calling on them to increase predictability. 

  • For example, a teacher might ask a question, circulate while students are considering/working on the question, and conference with a student 1:1 to see if they are interested in sharing their answer. If they are, when the class comes back as a whole group, the teacher will warm call this student to share their response.

• Quick jot: Provide students the option to share ideas in writing, with a peer or with a teacher before sharing out whole-group.  

• Think-Pair-Share:  When asked to consider an idea or answer a question, students write their ideas on paper (think). Each student turns to another student nearby and reads or multilingual learners their own responses (pair, share). It’s important to pair your English Language Learner with a supportive pair.

• Call and Response/Choral Response:  Whole class practice for students to use target words, phrases. Use choral responses (everyone says the same thing at the same time) to lower the anxiety and create a whole group activity with minimum stress on the individual.

• Total Physical Response:  Use gestures to communicate meaning and allow students to respond with pointing and gestures. This allows communication for non-verbals students and creates a supportive environment in which multilingual learners can participate in the learning. 

• Visual Cue Cards: It can be challenging for newcomers (or multilingual learners in the silent period) to communicate and express basic needs at school. Cards that ask (with a picture) “May I go to the Bathroom?” or say “I don’t feel well” can be placed on a student’s desk or on a ring. This can be comforting to multilingual learners and may lower the ‘affective filter’.

• Increase comfort with use of language of instruction: Incorporate choral reading/singing. Increase opportunities for students to follow along orally with familiar/repeated texts/poems/songs.  Other examples of use of language opportunities:

• Play Pop It: To support increased comfort with use of language and initial sound production, students engage physically with the initial sounds they hear in texts. Students chant the first sound of targeted words. Can be a whole group or small group activity.

• Sing it out loud: To support increased comfort with use of language (syntax, phonics, vocabulary acquisition, and fluency) when introducing new vocabulary or new sentence structures. Music lowers the affective filter and is a stress-free/engaging way to make concepts sticky. When using songs, repetition is key!

• Tap-A-Word: To support increased comfort with use of language, students practice pronouncing words or phrases by using a combination of claps, hitting the table, and snapping the fingers.

• Visual reminders: Include charts, calendars, schedules, visible time cues etc. that can increases the predictability of daily activities and transitions

• Creation of class routines

• Alerts and previews: 

  • Visual or auditory alert when it’s time to transition between activities

  • Opening credits or highlight reel before beginning an activity to preview what’s to come

• Options that maximize the unexpected: In order to engage learners, teachers can include surprising activities in contrast to highly routine activities. For example, after completing a routine morning meeting, the teacher can surprise the class with a guest speaker. (Ensure that this change in routine is previewed for students that rely heavily on routines). 

  • Create spontaneous breaks:  This may look like providing a break at an unexpected time.

• Vary Noise Level: Vary the presence of background noise or visual stimulation, noise buffers, number of features or items presented at a time.

  • Strategic seating: Ensure multilingual learners, or other students who might benefit, are seated in close proximity to the teacher in order to hear the language and see the lips of the teacher

  • Create quiet space: Create a quiet corner (optional for students) in the room where students are at “silent” noise level when working independently. 

  • Noise cancelling headphones: allow students to choose when to use them for independent work

  • White noise: create a white noise corner for students to use during independent work

• Vary Length of Time: Vary the pace of work, length of work sessions, availability of breaks or time-outs or timing or sequence of activities

  • Varied work session protocols (i.e. a 10 min work protocol, 20 min work protocol)

  • Break options: 2min water break, 5 min to put head down

• Vary Touch Level: Allow some students may use physical manipulatives, other students digital manipulatives, and other students to draw

• Vary group work expectations: When engaging in group work, create multiple options.. For example, allow students to choose their own partners, work in diverse teams, work alone, or choose the best option for them. 

• Vary social demands of presentations: For some students, public speaking can be a highly stressful public display. Allow students to present their work in multiple ways including visuals, slides, pre-recorded audio, or video.

• Monitor airtime: Ensure that there is ample opportunity for all voices to be included by 

  • Talking chips: Each person is able to add to the discussion one time by using their chip

  • Cold calling: Ensure that the classroom culture has been developed to support cold calling, or calling on a student without prior warning, that doesn’t increase anxiety. Ensure that multilingual learners are given a preview of the cold call or are given non-verbal ways to answer the question (ie, pointing, gesturing)

  • Allow for rehearsal: Include a quick jot or turn and talk that allows students to prepare their thoughts for the whole class discussion.

  • Use an anchor chart: Anchor charts with visuals and vocabulary can support learners in participating in the conversation. (ie, if discussing “What was the character like in the story?”, have a list of character traits available on the anchor chart)