Hi Friends, In a very pleasant Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to you wherever and whenever you may be. This is thinking cluesive. I'm Tim Vegas, sometimes you need to pivot. And today, I'm pivoting with my podcast production. For those of you watching on YouTube, you are seeing a static image of me with my voice in the background. And that's because with the short week and three additional episodes to produce, I'm running out of time to get everything done. recording and editing video intros and outros, take up a considerable amount of time. And so for the last few episodes, I'm going to do a bit of a hybrid production, where I use a static image, along with the video interview. I know this is probably a bigger deal to me than it is to you because you can access these episodes anytime you want on either a podcast platform like Spotify or Apple podcasts, or on YouTube. So why am I bringing it up? Tim, you could have just produced these episodes on your own time table your own way, and no one would even know here is why I think it is useful to talk about this. As a teacher. Sometimes you have to pivot, you run out of time with a lesson, you have to change the assignment. Or you have to change a strategy because you realize you aren't reaching a particular student or group of students, or you realize this lesson isn't good enough. And you have to start over here is me telling you that pivoting even in the middle of something is okay. It's part of the process of being a reflective educator. So I guess I'm trying to model that change is inevitable. And it's all going to be okay. This week. My guest is Louis Lord Nelson, author of design and deliver. We will discuss universal design for learning and how you know if you are actually implementing it more about Louis right after this break.
Welcome back to Think inclusive from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Each week we bring you conversations about inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. This week, my guest is Louis Lord Nelson, an internationally recognized universal design for learning leader, Best Selling Author and podcaster. A former special education teacher, Louis lead UDL implementation at the district level was awarded her postdoc by caste has influenced change at the national level and has helped shift mindsets across the globe. Louis has worked with educators across the US, Africa, Australia, Asia, Canada and Europe, and recently completed work with USAID, the US Agency for International Development and implementing partners to clarify their application of UDL across low and middle income settings. Our topic this week, how do you know if you are really implementing UDL? Before we get into my conversation with Louis, I want to tell you about our sponsor for this week, and the entire month of June the Described and Captioned Media Program DCMP is the nation's leading source of accessible educational videos. Membership is free for families and school personnel with at least one early learner through grade 12 student with a disability and includes free access to 1000s of videos and educational television series with captions, audio description and American Sign Language. DCMP also provides guidelines for captioning and describing educational media as well as professional development and elearning resources. DCMP is fully funded by the US Department of Education. And did I mention it services are free? Check them out at DCMP dot o RG. And now my conversation with Louis Lord Nelson. I went for free time this week. I'm going to preview a bonus episode. That will drop later in the month.
Louis Lord Nelson, welcome to the thinking cluesive podcast.
Thank you, Tim very much. I appreciate it.
Louis, I did not prep you for this, but that it's Eve has such an interesting name. Did we talk about your name?
I did. I can.
I would like to know. Sure. Sure.
That's fine. So we'll start with Louis. My formal name is Louise. It's Louise. And the day I was born, I was nicknamed Louis, by a relative. And I kept that somewhere in school, I think they decided I was Louise until I was in third grade. And then I put the stake in the ground and said, No, I'm Louis. And I spelled it ello UI. I chose that. That was me, Lord, maiden name. And it's very important to me in that I'm the end of this trail of the tree. So my parents had two daughters. I'm the second. And so that, that that branch of the tree ends. And so I thought, I really want to keep that within how things go. In addition, though, the teachers with whom I taught, all called me, Lu Lord, that's just what I was called in the building. And so when I said was getting married, they were like, you can't drop blue Lord, and I was like, Well, I can be Louis Lord Nelson. They were like, yes. It was bad. You scope. Otherwise, it's Joe. I really wanted Lord to be announced. It's important to me. Absolutely. It
does roll off the tongue very nicely. Louis. Lord knows. That sounds really nice.
Yeah. And as I tell people, though, I'm the only one and I can't do anything nefarious. I can't.
I can't hide. So, Louis, Lord Nelson. It's only me. Not I really, really can't do anything messy. I don't want to but anyway, right. Okay.
I'll apologize
from either England, or, or French, Canadian or the French. They're like Lord Nelson, you're like, I think I'm related to Horatio and then I have to say, no, no, I didn't lose. There's nobody in my history that lost an arm during
areas. Okay. Well, I know I put you on the spot. So thank you for being a good sport there. Well, okay, so speaking of Louis, Lord Nelson, being in print, it's actually on the book that I have right next to me, design and deliver a second edition, published by Brooks publishing, which is actually one of our sponsors for this season. So thanks, Brooks.
This is a great book. And in the book,
you, it's about planning and teaching, and you're using Universal Design for Learning. But you describe UDL as a buffet, which I thought was really interesting, a really interesting way to think about it, where the learner is the customer. So I wonder if you could expound on that for us? Like, what's the best way for educators to think about designing lessons? And how does the buffet fit into that?
Right, so within universal design for learning that design thinking is what drives us. And design thinking, first and foremost, is focused on the customer. It's focused on the user. It's focused on those individuals that are coming to that whatever that product is, well, in the education world. That's our customers, our learners. And that's any learner. So whether you're a superintendent, and you're designing board meetings, or designing meetings for your staff, or you're a teacher in a classroom, and you're designing for your learners that are coming in, they're younger, that that's, that's where that focus is. So then, the next step back, of course, is to think about within that buffet analogy is what all is going to be involved in that buffet. The downside of that analogy, is that sometimes people will get overwhelmed, and they'll think, you know, they'll picture a buffet and think, oh my gosh, I can't do that. every single lesson, there are many others that have used this analogy for many years. It's, it's not my it's not. It's not owned by anybody, I just want to make that clear. But the the part of the analogy that it's a stopper for people, like I said is that they get, oh my gosh, how can I do all of this? Well, you think more about your environment. And then you also think about your lessons. But the more that we do in the environment, the more we design upfront, the more flexibility we have in that environment, the more we can offer to our learners, the more of that buffet that can be there. I am going to flip to the lesson side, though, because I want to talk about if it's okay, some dynamics that that teachers face. So we know that there are a lot of teachers that are in districts, classrooms, on teams, where the curriculum is provided to them. And that curriculum is a really tight curriculum. And in fact, they're asked to teach one of those lessons a day. And they're supposed to get through X number of lessons in a month, X number of lessons in a unit. And that is intended to march them toward whatever their state assessment is. And this is a reality that many, many of our educators are experiencing. And so then when they hear about the buffet, there is an instant clash, right? How to why provide choice, when I'm told that I need to stick with what's written in my teacher guide. And I'm not seeing where that is. Add to that layer, that when a teacher's receives a new curriculum, there's a lot of time spent learning that curriculum, just even learning how to deliver that. So where do we find grace and space. And that, again, goes to your learning environment. And so you're looking at those guidelines. And I know we're going to talk about that more later. But you're using that as a way to think about just how your students are coming into your environment, how you're making those resources available to them, how you manage that classroom, how you physically set up that classroom, those relationships that you have, all of those things are so incredibly impactful. So for my colleagues, who feel like they're really more locked in Toward that end, just want to express that part that's so critical for them to feel like, oh, okay, I can enter this framework, I can think about the buffet, I'm just thinking about my learning environment. And then for our colleagues who have, like the other end, where they have more flexibility, because there are plenty of classrooms where teachers really have that they have the set of state standards or benchmarks. And they're expected to collect the resources, they're expected to design from the ground up. And so then they have more flexibility in that area of choosing the layers of resources, the layers of strategies that they're going to use. And so then their buffet is probably going to look a little bit more expansive when it comes to the lesson design.
Does that make sense? Yeah, and, and also just based on learners that they have in that environment as well. Because what, what I'm hearing you say is, if the learner is the customer, we have to get to know our customers, we have to get to know our learners in order to know what kind of environment we're really designing. Right? Yeah, it's true. So we get to know them, we also have, we also have that wonderful thing of learner variability. So there's really not an audience out there in the world, literally, because I get to go around the world where I can ask the question of how many of your learners are reading below grade level. There's not an audience out there that doesn't raise their hand unless they're in some extraordinary setting. And there are other types of barriers that I can mention. And when I say the barriers, but saying that the the curriculum, where's the gap? Is there a gap between what your learners experience and what how the curriculum is designed? Where's that gap? And so you have that variability that you can anticipate, but then also, as you're saying, We have got learners, all of our learners we want to get to know. And so we plan for that. I really appreciate. There's a design cycle that Kavita Rao and Grace Mayo created way back in 2016. And over time, Kavita has had opportunities to upgrade that and upgrade that. And so it's even so it's in the second edition. And she's slightly tweaked it since then. And I really feel like this design cycle takes into account what we're talking here of what we're talking about here. So regardless of what kind of curriculum you have a curriculum experience you have, you need to identify the goal, you need to know what your learners are supposed to work toward. And that's part of design thinking. That's where you're going, what kind of what do they need? What skill do they need to walk away? With? What experiences do they need to walk away having? What knowledge? Are they are they supposed to gain? The next part of that is considering learner variability. And that's where you're saying, oh, okay, what are the barriers that my learners are likely going to experience on the way to that goal? And then, you know, what are their preferences? What support needs do they have? And in meeting those, and then the third step to that is designing those assessments, which sometimes sounds surprising to people? Because they're like, Wait, is it an assessment? Like at the end? Well, first of all, we have formative assessments? Yeah, do we need those, please do them. That helps us check our way. Check ourselves as we're going through, on our way through the lesson, or the unit and or unit. But the tight connection between goal and assessment, right? So ensure that when you're assessing, is really getting to the goal. It's not just kind of smattered out there. And then of course, yeah, your summative assessments, so ensuring that those are going to align. After that, then you're looking at those methods and materials. That's where we're really looking at those guidelines, or then implementing that. And then the final part of that design cycle, which really happens throughout but is articulated at this point is reflection. Oh, yes. Yes, definitely. Definitely. That's one of my favorite words, actually,
reflect and revise I should say, is that final step that they have, which I think is where you are going to reflection has been such a crucial part of our experience. So what kind of lessons did you learn through reflection? I'm just curious.
How much time do we have?
I think it was I, in general reflection was instilled in me in my teacher education program, as something that as an educator does, at at certain points of the year, but especially in between school years, and to always think about how to improve your craft. Maybe focus on one area to improve on. So that was just something that was so beneficial to me. And so yeah, that's, that's,
that's all Do you know, what I had to learn was the difference between reflection and self blame. Because I would, you know, whatever I was I so I was a special educator all the way through. And I was a collaborative, special educator. So I was working alongside my general education, peers. Sometimes we were co planning. Most of the time we weren't, we didn't get to that point until later on, in, in my career of being in the classroom. And it was really easy for me during reflection, to do more of this, I should have done this or that and carrying the weight, the burden of not having done it correctly, versus putting the energy into revising and improvement. So there's the moment of booth, I wish I would have done that better. But then Springboarding more quickly into What are potential solutions. And there are multiple dimensions for that. But I have to say that I see that in a lot of my a lot of the professionals with whom I work that are younger in the profession. So maybe it's part of the growth cycle for most educators. But it's always my desire to help people move from that because I know that I rode that horse maybe a little longer than I needed to. I would always get around to the revision And but, boy, it was painful along the way. And I'm like, you don't have to be that painful.
Right, right, exactly. Like you said before, where's the space for grace? Right? You really have to give that grace to yourself as educators. We briefly mentioned the UDL guidelines. So if you are new to this idea of universal design for learning, there is a fantastic visual representation. Kind of like a graphic organizer. And it's on the CAST website. It's UDL guidelines.cast.org. And, and as I'm looking at the webpage, it's saying that there's UDL three UDL 3.0 Coming UDL guidelines 3.0 coming. So I'm not sure what that is going to look like. But if you're new to UDL, and you're new to the multiple means of engagement, representation and action expression, this is a nice kind of really large view of what it means when we're talking about UDL. And I purposely did not start our conversation here. Because a lot of people already do know what UDL is. But if you are, if you're like, I don't, you know, this is a great conversation, but I have no reference this, this would be what we're talking about here. And they're wonderful. But because they are so kind of the big picture. Yeah. How do teachers know if they're actually implementing the guidelines implementing UDL? Yeah,
yeah, the information in the guidelines, net graphic organizer is exactly what I call it. It's really dense, it's really thick. And there's so many directions that you can go within each of those guidelines, and then what are currently called the checkpoints, which are those little dots within each of the nine boxes. Honestly, to me, this is a discussion that wavers between external validation and internal reflection. It's knowing whether or not you are implementing the guidelines, you've got both ends there. I prefer when educators are given the time and the space to learn deeply about the guidelines. And even within the checkpoints so that they can do that internal reflection, and are able to say, even if we just talk about the guideline of self regulation, so currently in the 2.0, that's the upper left hand corner, under engagement. And if teachers become familiar with what those things mean, what that means that they can do their own reflection of where did I help my learners? Have that self regulation today? I'm sorry, I said, the upper left hand corner at the lower left hand corner? Where did I help them? gain more coping skills? Where did I help them express those coping mechanisms. And that, to me is more powerful than having somebody else come in to your classroom. That's a model that many of us use, I'm asked to use it when I visit districts and classrooms. But I'll tell you the hard part there is I'm trying to I'm trying to guess what's inside the teachers head. Their intention was, what their plan was for using this. And so for me to look for proof is not the right way to go. For me to look for, for me to identify what actions I'm seeing, and then to have a conversation with the teacher later on about what their intention was. That gets back to the design aspect. So what was your intent with this activity? What was your intent with that student feedback? What was your intent with the physical design of your classroom? What was the intent of having that group of students work with one another? What was your intent with having that pullout activity? What was your See what I'm saying? So once you can have that conversation about intent, and if you're talking about UDL, and everybody is becoming more familiar with the language, then someone can say, Oh, well, I was hoping that my students would have some experiences working on coping mechanisms for that example. or if let's say we're talking about the guideline of comprehension, which is under representation, again, at the very bottom, oh, I wanted to provide many different opportunities for my students to comprehend that information. So if I'm visiting a classroom and talking with a teacher, and they said, Oh, I really wanted to use the guideline of comprehension, I would, that's what my intent was, I really wanted to help my students comprehend this information for a science project, let's say. And so in effort of that, this educator provided video options and text options and text to speech options and Buddy options. And so, you know, we had, we have the menu, we have the buffet, right? And so had I just observed this, I would see those. But I wouldn't know that maybe necessarily, that teacher was really focused on comprehension, because the beauty of the UDL guidelines is that possibly, that educator was also focused on or primarily focused on sustaining effort and persistence, and thought, Okay, if I give these different options, that I'm going to help my students practice those skills of sustaining effort and persistence. Now, the deal is, you could be doing both. And you could be doing multiple things with having those options provided, but it's understanding the intent. And so when I have that conversation with the educator, and then we're able to talk about that intent, then we can discuss, okay, what barriers did the learners maybe still experience? Or what barriers did we not anticipate with that design? So you came in with that intent, you came in with these materials and methods, and then that reflection part where there are barriers that were still experienced by the learners. And so that next time we go around, and we use that same, those same methods and materials, that we can mitigate those barriers that showed up in this lesson?
Yeah, it's so I'm not sure if I'm gonna say this, right. It's more about being aware of the guidelines. It sounds like you're aware of the guidelines. And when you're planning to keep those in mind. And sometimes you're going to focus on one aspect of the guidelines and another time, you're going to focus on another one. So it's not about hitting all of them all at once. It's just more of a support. In your planning and in your design. Am I Am I getting it? Right?
You are getting it? So write to him? Yes, yes, yes. And so we know that the guidelines are never checkboxes, Oh, I did this one, I did this one, I did this one, I did this one. But rather, it's saying I'm going to focus in on because I know the goal of my lesson. I know the barriers that my students tend to experience. So I'm going to focus in on whatever those guidelines are. And I will say that for our friends that are more experienced with the guidelines, and have learned about them and know them well, and have over time built them into their environments. That's why you have such rich learning experiences, because they are pretty much tapping into almost every guideline each day, because so much is embedded already into the learning environment. And that's part of the misnomer. People think, Oh, I've got to put them into every lesson. Well, that oh, my gosh, then you're trying to think about all these different guidelines. Was it? No, no, no, no, no, no, we really want to think about that learning environment.
Yeah, yeah. I think it's really easy. I can understand why people can get overwhelmed, you know, and it's not like, it's not like the guidelines are. You know, they're, they're, they're high. They kind of expect a lot out of the teacher, you know, like, when you look at the guidelines, you're like, oh, my gosh, this is great. This is wonderful. But I don't know if I can do all this, right. But I think somehow we need to let teachers know, to take the pressure off. And it's more of like a lens that you're looking through what you're designing as opposed to like you said the checkboxes right? You like that's not the that's not the point of the guidelines. The guidelines aren't Part, you know someone with a clipboard in the back making sure you do all of them.
Right. So the, you know, the point of UDL, and I'm speaking within the language of the 2.0 guidelines, because as you said, there are 3.0 that are coming out. And none of us know exactly what those are going to look like. We've had opportunities to give feedback and input, which is exciting and wonderful. And I'm so glad casted that, so but for right now, I'm going to speak to the 2.0. At the very bottom of those guidelines, if people do bring up the cast dot guidelines, UDL guidelines, then they will see it that very bottom row is, are the words purposeful, motivated, knowledgeable, resourceful, strategic, and goal directed. That's where we're taking our learners. That's the reason why we're using those guidelines is to help learners experience opportunities, experience, challenges, experience choice that lead them toward understanding so that anytime they're learning anytime in life, they're able to go, even if it's something they don't want to do, they're able to go, oh, okay, I can identify a purpose in this. And I know how to keep myself motivated to make it through this. Or, and sorry, so then the next renewal representation, I know how to find the resources that I need for this activity in this moment. And I understand what knowledge I'm supposed to take in so that I'm successful and can meet that goal. And then, oh, when I look at that goal, hmm, this learning thing that I need to do, I can strategize what I need to do to make sure I can meet that goal. And I know how to maintain those practices to make sure that I'm goal driven. I mean, everybody needs that in the workforce. But we all need to learn those skills and attitudes that help us become purposeful, motivated, knowledgeable, resourceful, strategic, and goal directed.
Yeah, this is, yeah, wonderful. So you said you were a special education, teacher, special educator, collab, and a collaborative one. So I'm wondering if you could speak to the amount of time that educators should be dedicating, and to designing lessons, but also learning the guidelines learning, you know, principles of universal design for learning? You know, it's hard. It's hard, especially right now, with teacher shortages and
general fatigue,
it being an educator and a school administrator. Have you found any tips? Or do you have any advice for educators who are looking about how, how to find time to collaborate, how to, or an administrator, how to fit that into the master schedule?
Yeah, so finding time to collaborate, and you hit the two words master schedule, and it's that it is crucial. And when we add from the administrator point of view, and from that side, structuring the day, so that your educators have that time to meet is is crucial. I will say also, that, for example, I was working with some teachers last a few weeks ago, and in their district, they weren't specials teachers. So music, art. And one of the discussions that we had was that they weren't really informed of shifts that were made to let's say, behavior plans, or even IEPs, or even just daily structures for learners. And so they would come into the specials arena. And when they were expecting to sign off on a student check in checkout form, or something like that, they didn't have that information. The students were like, Oh, I don't have that form anymore. And then it's like, Oh, wait. So your master schedule doesn't always provide room for let's say, general educators to meet with specials teachers. And so you have to create other communication platforms that are predictable and what I call tight, meaning everybody knows what the purpose of that communication channel is, and they understand how to you use it effectively and efficiently. So in some buildings, that's email, and everybody knows that the subject line is going to be whatever this is, you know, share out for the week, whatever the phrase is, and everybody knows that that's what that email is. And they know that they're going to get that information in that email. And in other buildings, it's an internal management system, where they trade that information in other buildings, it's face to face conversations, but we know how rare that is for timing. So I've seen multiple structures, but what I can tell you is that the best structures are well defined. And again, they're tight, so that, you know, everybody gets so many emails, and so to sift through all of them to look for that information is hard. But when you know that, that certain subject line comes up, you know, you can read that and you're gonna get your update that it's necessary for the planning time, then it goes back to a structure that everyone agrees upon and respects. Because time is so limited. And stories are valuable. But sometimes we need to tighten our stories, so that we're getting the critical information that's going to be shared. And so part of defining what that information is going to be is, I always ask that it's strengths based, do strengths based and detailed. And so if you're going to need to share, so for example, I wasn't always in I couldn't be in every general education classroom, right? I just that doesn't work. Can't be 15. Louise, because I was partnered with 15 Different general educators. But what they could do is provide me information about the learner, but in a strengths based way. So and that came in a way of student X. tried this. And this is where student X was successful. And this is where student X needed some more support, right? Instead of saying, oh, student X, going down the negative road, right? So when I hear oh, this did work, I can build on that. And then I can build up supports for the other pieces. When it comes to the other part of your question, with the planning time, and knowing the guidelines, this is why so many of us really hope to help people find I always say once you get a general overview of those nine guidelines, there's going to be one of them. Typically, there people like oh, it like sits well with them. Maybe they feel already kind of accomplished with it. Already, they've been like, Oh, I do some things that are related to that. Okay, that feels good. But what people cannot do is go, Oh, I already do that. Because that means you're done. And we're never done. We're never done. We're never done. I am still I am still trying to identify purpose in certain things that I have to learn as an adult, right. So I'm still building that skill. Right? Diving into the guideline, getting more and more examples, having more conversations about them. But if you sit with one guideline for an entire semester, that's great. That is great if your guests fee become so practiced with that guideline, because again, that graphic organizer, those guidelines are based on how our brain learns, and our brain is interconnected. So all those guidelines are interconnected. So inevitably, you're going to connect with other things, too. And it's that that's the wonderful, beautiful part about UDL. And so with the time, what I would prefer is that somebody's willing to say, this is where I want to focus. This is where I want to commit. And I can stay within this safe bubble and continue to dig deeper. But stay here rather than feel frazzled. And spending my time looking for things looking for resources related to all these different guidelines, but instead, stay narrow. And then what that does for your planning time is when we're talking about lesson planning, and you've determined your goal, and you've just start thinking about your assessments, Oh, does this guideline fit with my assessment? It will. But how, how does it fit within those assessments that I design? I'm designing Oh, how does it fit with the methods and materials that I'm bringing in to this lesson? If it's environment, how does that particular guideline fit with the environment that I'm creating daily for my learners. Yeah,
I think that this is very doable if you don't get too overwhelmed by the, but just by the guidelines itself or just by thinking about UDL and, and thinking about it as an add on as a, as opposed to a support. Right, I think I think especially for educators, who maybe are hearing from either administrators or coaches, there's they're saying, utilize the guidelines you to, you know, utilize UDL, and educators are thinking, but I already do so much, you know, I'm adding on to it, but it's not, it's not about that. It's about, it's actually enhancing what you're already doing. And digging deeper into into that planning process. It's learning to think differently.
And that is that can, that's the brain stretch, that is the brain stretch. And when I say it's about learning differently, majority it up majority of us came through a very different educational system. And it's that system that we mirror, in our classrooms even today. And so that's why UDL can feel like such a stretch for people is because it asks you to think differently asks you to approach planning differently, it asks you to approach instruction differently, it asks you to approach your learners differently. It asks you to approach pretty much everything differently. And that's why you have to click into your own executive functioning, and say, Okay, if I feel myself getting overwhelmed, I'm gonna just find my center point. We all know that it works best if we can do that collaboratively with somebody else. So if your teaching team, your collaborative partner, maybe your grade level is going to focus in on something that's always best, because then you can have those collaborative exchanges in conversations, and everybody's heading down a road together. So that's another piece that I've always seen works best when schools or teams are going to adopt this. If you're going solo, then you can, then I really do say, as you've done your review of the guidelines, you've listened to different things about the guidelines, then you find where you feel safe, secure, and I can take this step I can I can start to think differently with this one.
Louis, you have a lot of resources to support people. You have designed deliver. But I am assuming there's other ones that I just add that are not on top of my mind. But where can people find your resources and find find you if they want to know more about UDL? Well,
I appreciate that. So my website is the UDL approach.com. So all one word, the UDL approach.com. So there I do have other books that I've written about universal design for learning, but I think them the most accessible piece is that I do host a podcast myself. And it's called UDL in 15 minutes. And so in a short 15 minutes when you're folding clothes, or washing dishes or walking your dog outside, you can listen to folks share their stories about their work with universal design for learning. I'm constantly inspired by what my guests discuss, and think about 119 episodes, maybe 120 coming up soon. And yeah, so they're from all over the world. And folks tucked into corners. I have an interview with someone from Syria, for example. And they're using UDL within a country that has been in war for well over 12 years. And livable, and so and how they have been empowered by the framework. And then I have you know, I just it I just get so excited about the different educators that I have. So there those are there. There's typically a blog that's associated with them. There's always a transcript, I create a YouTube that has an I call a video montage. So the educator that I've interviewed sends in photos, images, and so the YouTube is kind of a slideshow of those but then I also have audio descriptions if they want to have that. And then I I've just other resources that are on there videos, whatnot, interviews those things. And so folks, you're welcome to go there. And you can contact me through the email that's on the website or the contact form.
GDL approach.com. Yes, sir. All right. Okay. All right, Louis, are you ready for the mystery question? Oh,
my gosh, I don't know. But we'll try.
Let's do it. This has been one of my favorite things to do with my guests. So we're just gonna keep on doing it. All right. This, the top one is, what's the last thing you've done that you were really proud of?
Wow,
focus on that. There we go. That's the last thing that you've done that you were really proud of?
Oh, um, I'll sort through because I am happy to say I'm proud of different things. But okay, so um, we have a sump pump discharge out the front of our house, we live on a hill. And that discharge has been the bane of my existence and ugly. And so I through the process of lots of reading and watching different YouTube videos, figured out how to engineer and create, essentially a dry creek. And so that took a lot of physical activity, but a lot of planning some good math. And it's turned out really well. So I'm very proud of that. Excellent, excellent.
That's great. You can learn I mean, there's so much you can learn on YouTube is unbelievable. I know, I know. This is not this is not well, this is not what I'm proud of necessarily. I mean, I'll get to that in a second. But just this is not a plug for YouTube, either. But it's like, I'm finding myself more and more. Like if I'm sitting down and like eating because I eat lunch, you know, whatever. And I normally I pull up YouTube, and I'm like, What do I want to learn today? You know?
It's so true. It's so true.
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I've learned I've learned so much, especially with audio and video production. Like, that's kind of what I'm consuming right now. But okay, so the thing I'm, I'm the most I'm really proud of not the most, but really proud of it is I, I just started playing pickleball with a friend of mine. And I used to play tennis a long time ago, you know, a long time ago. And, and so my A buddy of mine is like, Hey, there's this community pickleball league Do you want to join? And I was like, I don't know how to play. And he says, Neither do I. And so, and so I'm like, Okay, let's do it. And so for the first Oh, six or seven games, you know, we were we were absolutely awful. Like, we had not won a game. Okay. But this last weekend, we played a team that we had already played and lost to them. And we played so good. And we got our first win a couple a couple of weekends, weekends ago. And this upcoming weekend is our pickleball tournament. Don't expect us to go far. But I learned a lot and I'm actually having a lot of fun. It was not fun losing. It's not is not fun losing. Okay, just putting that out there. But we did win a game and I'm very proud of that.
I grew up as a tennis player. So we had a really big the National Junior Tennis League, which was the Arthur Ashe League. That was very popular in my area. And I played tennis for years. And so I have looked at pickleball and I've been like, Oh, I wonder if I'm going to be able to transfer and generalize which is in UDL. Those. Michael Bell took a pickleball Well, it's
it's, it's, I think I've used more of my ping pong skills than I do my tennis skills. I would say that's true. I can see that. I can see that. But it is fun. It is I'm glad I did it. We had to slog through, but again, it's so I will continue to play pickleball I probably won't be signing up for any more leaks anytime soon, but, but I am enjoying playing St. Louis Lord Nelson, thank you so much for spending some time with me on the big loser podcast.
Thank you so much for having me as a guest and
that time means it's free time. This week, I wanted to preview a bonus episode that will drop next week sometime not exactly sure when. I don't know if you've heard the story of Ashlynn rich, a young woman who happens to have Down syndrome that was excluded from fully participating in her high school graduation ceremony. She and her classmates, they were in a segregated, disability specific special education classroom for students with intellectual disabilities. They were kept in a hallway during the ceremony, and after going up on stage to shake hands and get diplomas, they were escorted out of the building and were not permitted to stay and sit with their peers. This story got national attention and a resolution that the family wanted. For the bonus episode, I interviewed Ashlyn and her mother Linda about the experience. And that's going to be next week. Very much looking forward to bringing you that conversation. All right. That is it for this episode of thinking cluesive thinking cluesive was written, edited, designed, mixed and mastered by me Tim Vegas, and is a production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Original Music by miles credit additional music from melody. Thanks to our sponsor this week, the Described and Captioned Media Program. Learn more at DCMP dot orgy. Only a few more episodes of season 11 Before we take some time off for the summer, over 140 episodes are available to you to catch up on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. So check them out. Thanks for your time and attention and remember, inclusion always works. MCIE
