#306 – Universal Design for Learning, with Dr. Sam Johnston

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Sam Johnston, Chief Postsecondary and Workforce Development Officer at CAST. She offers insights into the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines and how they can be used to improve and expand access to learning. She dives into the three core principles—providing multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression—and offers a preview into the upcoming release of an updated version 3.0 of the UDL Guidelines, which will be released on July 30, 2024.

Read a transcript of this episode.

We envision a world where all learning experiences in school, the workplace, and life are intentionally designed to elevate strengths and eliminate barriers so everyone has the opportunity to grow and thrive.

CAST Vision Statement

Resources

The following resources are available from AVID and on AVID Open Access to explore related topics in more depth:

• Assistive Technology, with Christine Fox (podcast episode)
• Accelerate Learning by Designing for Personalization (article)
• The Shift to Student-Led: UDL and Blended Learning, with Dr. Katie Novak (podcast episode)
• Accelerate Learning With Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (podcast episode)
• Design for Accessibility With the Universal Design for Learning Process (article)

Broadening the Definition of Learning

Our guest, Dr. Sam Johnston, says, “When we define learning too narrowly, which we often do in schools, so many people are left out.” In other words, when learners are all asked to learn and express that learning in the same way, we limit their possibilities and fail to get a full picture of what they know. Universal Design for Learning is a framework that can help educators consider ways to be more inclusive with their instruction, empowering more students to learn to their potential and effectively express what they have learned.

Sam states, “I think the more we use the guidelines to bring in more perspectives—to bring in more ways of being, and doing, and thinking, and acting, and more identities—the more we’re going to just find that our brains are these amazing, malleable things, and when we put them together with other people’s brains, they’re even more amazing.” The following are a few highlights from this episode:

• About Our Guest: Dr. Sam Johnston is the Chief Postsecondary and Workforce Development Officer at CAST. In this role, Sam collaborates with a talented team to increase access to middle- and high-income careers for populations underrepresented in the workforce. Sam focuses on design-based research, translating universally designed tools and strategies developed through codesign with stakeholders into practical applications in the field to improve education, training, and workplace practices.
• Defining Intelligence: Sam says, “I really am someone who thinks an awful lot about how we frame intelligence. And really, the fact that one thing that UDL really points out to us is that we frame it too narrowly, so we lose all sorts of people along the way.” She adds, “I’m someone who thinks about learning all the time, and I think about it in a lot of different ways . . . [with] Universal Design for Learning as a framework to really open up more ways and more promoting and valuing different ways of being a learner in the world.”
• Origins of CAST: CAST evolved out of an intent to update practices based on new laws protecting students with disabilities in public education. At the same time, technology integration was gaining traction in schools. Sam says, “CAST sort of grew up alongside the first personal computer and realized that if you actually brought those technologies into the learning environment, they enabled an amount of flexibility that actually allowed people to look quite capable in environments where we treated them as not capable, and that very often is something that happens with people with disabilities.”
• Accessibility for All: Sam points out, “CAST was really a pioneer in making learning materials accessible and usable by all.” CAST leaned on the work of learning sciences, neurosciences, and ed tech to “create environments that were really more thoughtful about how everybody can participate, make sense of information, demonstrate their understanding, and really be motivated.”
• It’s the Environment: UDL came out of CAST’s early work. A central premise of UDL is: “Barriers aren’t inherent in the learner. They are really about the interaction between the learner and the environment.”
• Helpful for Everyone: Although assistive technology and UDL strategies may originate with learners who need accommodations to succeed, these scaffolds and supports ultimately benefit all learners. Sam expresses this point, saying, “We learn the most in the margins, and the margins are where innovations happen where they are necessary, but these so often are things that benefit everyone.”
• UDL Framework: “The UDL Framework is really a way of using a framing to really plan for and address the variability that’s going to show up in any learning environment,” says Sam. It leverages what we know about the recognition, strategic, and affective networks in the brain. Sam explains, “The idea of these three principles are very enduring. We can always think about how we represent information. We can always think about supporting different ways to access and express understanding. And we can always think about motivation.”
• Three Principles: There are three main principles in the UDL Framework: providing multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement.
• Multiple Means of Representation: This principle is all about making sure that information is presented in multiple ways, so all learners can access it. It includes supports like text-to-speech and speech-to-text software as well as making sure that all learners see themselves in the concepts being shared.
• Multiple Means of Action and Expression: This principle is largely about authentic and differentiated assessment. How can we make sure that all students have an appropriate and empowering way to express what they know? Sam also reflects on the need for socially just assessments that are fair and valid. Are they meeting the learners where they are at?
• Multiple Means of Engagement: Sam explains, “When we think about engagement, it’s really about optimizing the environment so that everyone can learn from and with one another.” She adds that it is powerful when we’re in an environment where “everyone is on fire.” This can include offering choices on how to demonstrate proficiency or ways to reduce anxiety before a test. It also means finding ways to include everyone in the collective work of the classroom. Sam also says, “I think the biggest thing with engagement to me is providing options for people to have their identities validated. . . . When we define learning too narrowly, which we often do in schools, so many people are left out.”
• Technology: Technology can help learners access content regardless of format. “It’s very powerful in terms of creating the flexibility we want in our learning environment.” says Sam.
• Technology to Build Community: When speaking about technology, Sam suggests, “Use it as a way to bring people together.” She explains her own practice, saying, “I use technology to build community, to amplify learning, to make sure everybody’s learning can be expressed and understood and shared, so I think it’s always about: What’s the goal? Why are you using technology, and how does it support bringing people together and allowing people to be optimized in that environment?”
• Version 3.0: CAST believes that the UDL Guidelines must evolve. Sam says, “I think it’s really about evolving with what we know about learning, about teaching, about human beings, and about really acknowledging and valuing people.” In that light, CAST is finalizing a 4-year collaborative process of revising the UDL Framework, with the new version set to launch on July 30, 2024. Sam explains that the focus of “Guidelines 3.0 is centering equity in ways that it needs to be centered and thinking about inclusion in different ways.”
• Amplifying the Amazing Brain: As mentioned above, a sharing from Sam is, “I think the more we use the guidelines to bring in more perspectives—to bring in more ways of being, and doing, and thinking, and acting, and more identities—the more we’re going to just find that our brains are these amazing, malleable things, and when we put them together with other people’s brains, they’re even more amazing.”
• The Power of Conversation: Sam says, “We all have different life experiences. We all come at this in different ways and care about it for different reasons. So when we sort of riff off one another and learn off one another, that learning environment is so much more beautiful, and I think that’s what I want to see.”
• A Final Thought: Sam offers a final thought to close out the show: “There’s so many ways to be capable. There’s so many qualities we need in the world. For us to be really successful as a society, we have to be different. We can’t have all the same qualities, or we would never solve a single problem.”

Guiding Questions

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• How do you define intelligence?
• How can we make learning accessible for everyone?
• What role does the learning environment play in accessibility?
• What are the three principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines?
• How might you use the UDL Guidelines in your classroom?
• What role can technology play in UDL?
• What is the focus of version 3.0 of the UDL Guidelines?
• Why is a learning community so important to maximizing human potential?

Extend Your Learning

• CAST (official website)
• UDL Guidelines (CAST)
• About Universal Design for Learning (CAST)