If this podcast episode was a meal, it probably would contain five courses. I hope you're hungry.
My name is Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you are listening to think inclusive, a show where with every conversation, we tried to build bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. You can learn more about who we are and what we do at MCI e.org. For this episode, I speak with Katie Novak, an internationally renowned education consultant, author, graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and a former assistant superintendent of schools in Massachusetts.
With 20 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching and 11 published books, Katie designs and presents workshops both nationally and internationally. Focusing on the implementation of inclusive practices, Universal Design for Learning multi tiered systems of support and universally designed leadership.
Katie and I discuss her book UDL. Now, she untangles some of the misconceptions about Universal Design for Learning, explains how UDL applies to instructing learners with extensive support needs, and why equity isn't really a scary word. Thank you so much for listening. And now my interview with Katie novec.
welcome Katie Novak to the thinking cluesive podcast again, this is this is number two, your your the in the two timers club?
Oh my goodness, it's such an honor.
I don't think we've ever had anyone
past few times. So, you know, it's it's right there. It's there.
I mean, it's for it's something to reach for, for me. So let's jump into the questions.
You know, teachers are stretched thin, like never before. Why should schools and districts prioritize Universal Design for Learning?
Okay, so I have a couple of answers for that, you know, when I think about universal design, I've really shifted to thinking about it as like these core beliefs that drive our planning and design work, which is just simply that we have this incredible diverse variability of students who are so incredibly unique and different from each other, but also dynamic, and they're always changing. So I think in traditional models, really responsive, teachers always tried to provide students with what they needed. But there was almost like, this lack of understanding about how much students actually change. And as like a mom, I find myself in this situation all the time where I'm like, I know what my kids like to eat for breakfast, and I make them all what I think they want. And then they're like, oh, I don't eat that anymore. And I'm like, since when you add yesterday, so we have this variability of students who are different from each other, but also incredibly, incredibly dynamic. And that makes planning for them really, really difficult, because it's kind of like a moving target. The other piece is just that we have to believe that all students can work towards mastery of these firm goals. And so if we're trying to embrace variability and think about firm goals, it may lead someone to feel like they have to create 30 different lessons or 100 different lessons for students, because we're really trying to be responsive. And this is problematic for two reasons, the first of which I already talked about, which is that students are constantly changing. And we as designers might not get it right. The other much more problematic thing is that students are becoming really compliant and dependent on us to make decisions for them. And that leads to that third piece of like valuing expert learning. So at this point, I think most teachers absolutely recognize variability and that students need different things. We have spent a lot of time focusing on standards and teacher clarity, and what really is it that students have to know and do but I believe that teachers are often completely buried because we're feeling like we have to do everything for all of these students. And then we're looking at data and it's like, gosh, some students, despite the fact that we're bending over backwards, aren't really making growth and more problematic. They're not thinking critically, they're not super self aware or super self reflective. And so universal design is thinking more about how do we create a classroom that really empowers students to spend more time thinking about what really are the firm goals, and what is it that
I need to know and do and what's the best pathway for me to do it. And they can help us co design these experiences. And so I think that teachers who are really overwhelmed are overwhelmed because they're doing too much for students that students are perfectly capable of doing themselves. And it's not resulting in the impact that educators deserve or that students deserve. And so we really need another way.
What I really liked about what you had to say, was, educators are working too hard. And they don't need to be. Right. Right. And I think a part of this is a that goes along with UDL is a huge mind shift, that the responsibility is not all on the teacher, that you give some of that responsibility to the students. And that seems to be really scary. And rightly so. So when you're when you're kind of explaining UDL to people who are, like, I'm not, I think it's a curriculum, I think it's, you know, just these three pillars, like they just don't get it like, how would you explain it to someone who's just confused about what it is?
Yeah. So, you know, I often talk about it in analogies, just because we really do see examples of things that are universally designed all around us. And, you know, I've I started by talking about this dinner party analogy that like, if we really wanted to invite 40 people over to our house for dinner, we are past the days where we would just serve a casserole like a shepherd's pie, or a lasagna, with the expectation that everyone is going to have the same exact portion on the same exact, you know, play and, and I know that if I invited 40 people over and put like a cheesy, meaty lasagna, I know that that's not going to work for everyone. Because I can recognize that I can predict that there will be people who are lactose intolerant, who are vegan, who are gluten sensitive, who just might have, you know, not love Italian food, or whatever it happens to be. And so what a lot of people will do is they'll recognize the fact that this one size fits all learning doesn't work very well, for students, we might have a textbook, and we say, Oh, my goodness, some students are not decoding at grade level yet, or I have these multilingual learners, or I have students who don't have that background information yet. And so we start to create these individual dishes for everyone. And we do not have like a kitchen in a restaurant with unlimited staff and the limited ingredients. So in this dinner party analogy, if I serve this lasagna, there's a lot of people who are not going to eat, and then I start to go, oh, my gosh, I'm not a very good host, what do you want to eat, and I start making all of these different dishes. And it would be much easier if I said ahead of time, we're all going to have dinner together. And I want you to think about, you know, what should be the theme of our dinner. And I definitely have some ingredients to make some positive things, but how about we all have individual ramekins, and we can kind of make our own meal, or we can potluck, or we can buffet and that would be so much easier for the host and the outcomes would actually be better. So Universal Design for Learning is how do we recognize the barriers of one size fits all? And then how do we work with our learners to create kind of the options and choices on this learning buffet? And then allow them to choose for themselves? And you know, a lot of people get nervous about that and say, but what if students don't choose responsibly, and we have to predict that people will not choose responsibly because goodness knows I sometimes go up to a buffet and choose really irresponsibly. I'm like, oh, cool, red wine and brownies. That sounds like a really well balanced dinner. And it's really about setting a purpose ahead of time. What really, is it that you have to do? How are you doing right now? What's the goal? And then also reflecting after those choices? So I always say, what are you going to choose? And why are you going to choose it? And then we need to check in and say how is your choice, really allowing you to work towards those goals? And I feel like a lot of teachers already do provide students with flexibility and options and choices. And what's often missing is that metacognitive work of what really is the goal? What are your options? What are you choosing and why are you choosing it? And then going back to reflecting on Did you make a really responsible decision for your learning? So you know, I remember being a teacher, and you know, really being responsive to the fact that I had students who had disabilities in my classroom, and I would look at IEP accommodations, and I would just simply say, okay, so you need a graphic organizer, you need a graphic organizer, you need a graphic organizer. And then I would end up almost sitting with every student and filling out said graphic organizer, because I never went through the process of like, what is the value of a graphic organizer? Let's all try it. Let's all reflect let's take a No thank you. But let's try it without it. And then with it, which rating is stronger? What allows you to be more organized? And I think that sometimes we go well, I did universally design it because I gave the option or a gave the tool. But if we don't talk about how to use it, and how does it support your learning, we just end up with people making the same decisions over and over again, and we're expecting different outcomes.
And that's really what you're talking about with firm goals. Flexible means, right. And that that phrase comes up in the book, this is the first time I've read it. This is like what version three? Yeah, like? So this is the first time I've read it. But Has that always been kind of a mantra with UDL or?
Yeah, so UDL, I think we've always talked about firm goals and flexible means for sure. But I think that this book in particular, I focused a lot more on the expert learning piece is that first of all, we have to be really strategic in the flexible means that we provide. It's not just about options and choices, it's about all of these pathways actually lead towards the goal. So here's an example. The firm goal is that students will write an argument, that is the goal. And I'll see classrooms where teachers are like, Well, I have some students who absolutely struggle with writing multilingual learners, students, you know, who, you know, really like technology. And so I'm going to allow them to either make a podcast or and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, the firm goal is writing, every student has to produce writing. So when we're looking at writing through the lens of UDL, we have to recognize that yes, within our classroom, we have students who will have significant strengths in different aspects of writing, also areas that they need support. We know that some students might struggle with organization or, you know, language conventions. And so when we're thinking about what are the options and choices, it's like, what are the options and choices that I can provide. So all students have opportunities to produce writing. So it might be some students might really struggle with organizations. So they have the option to use sentence stems or graphic organizers or work together to come up with like a storyboard. Some students might struggle with just the physical nature, the physical aspect of writing, so I can provide options to use handwriting, a first draft, typing any assistive tech or augmentative communication devices. And I'm thinking about that ahead of time, because ultimately, what opportunities do students need so they can produce writing. And I think that there's this misconception that it's just about options and choices. And now students don't have opportunities to work towards these firm goals, because we're just kind of eliminating the goal. And so I always get people to be really careful about like, you know, choice boards are a great example of how you can provide options and choices. But I'll see many choice boards where the unit might be something like students will accurately use a protractor to measure angles. And there's an option that's like write a poem about a protractor No, no. There's no poetry in the less that poem is like a big giant group of shapes. And the poem is actually showing the accurate measurement. So it's, I think that sometimes people just go, oh, I want to have all these options and choices. But like, if I am preparing for a marathon, the options on the buffet would be very different than if I was just out for a Friday night. For fun.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the firm the firm goals, right? I mean, you have a, you have a goal in mind that everyone do this. The one thing were the few are the few things. And if the options are not leading to the goal, then they're not actually they're not actually the options,
right. And people will say that, well, what if students choose the easy option? I'm like, there shouldn't be an easy option. There might be more accessible options. But I wouldn't say that one thing is easier than the other. So you know, some people might say, I saw a choice board recently, that the real goal was understanding how complex characters interact over the course of a text. So that requires more than one character. It requires examining that over the course of attacks, right? The success criteria might require, you know, citing textual evidence or something like that. And, you know, one of the options was, you know, a diary entry from one character reflecting on their interaction with another character Another is a video montage of like two characters thoughts. And there were all these, like, really, really rich, amazing ideas. And then one of them was, pretend you're the character and write five tweets. I'm like, of course, I'm gonna pick that one, because it would take me two minutes to do while my classmates are spending hours creating this like video diary. And those should not be on the same choice board. And I feel like some people believe that universal design will, you know, will actually minimize rigor it shouldn't. So if we see an option, like you can either write this really comprehensive character analysis or create five tweets, those should never be options together.
Yeah. How does access for students with more significant disabilities fit in with this idea? Because I totally understand having a rigor for for the options, right. Some students are on a, you know, based on their IEP have a modified curriculum. So let's say they're included in a regular science class or language arts class, like, given the example about the characters. But they're not. They're not necessarily expected to to perform not perform, they're not expected to
then act as an entry points, potentially. Yeah,
thank you. Yeah. So the actress and entry points to the standard, right? How would you coach a teacher thinking about like, well, you know, there's this kid in my, in my class who, you know, they're not even, they're barely approaching this standard. So how am I going to provide UDL for them?
Well, so universal design for learning is really about first best instruction. And any of the options that I provided, let's say that we're all going to read a text. And we can either read it, or we can listen to it, potentially, it's on Audible. And we could do like a close reading in class alone or with partners, and then they have to respond with kind of how the characters interact. That would be for everyone. Then there's this layer of specially designed instruction, which would be individualized for the student. But the more that I universally design, the more that students would just simply have access. And so what I would say, if I had a student who had really significant support needs, is, first of all, we would still read the same text, it would still be access to grade level text. But it might be something like, we're going to just read this short passage of that text. So instead of giving an easier text, I could shorten the text because there's no standard that says that the text that you read must be a certain amount of words. But there are standards that talk about Lexile. So we might do an excerpt of that text based on a modification in an IEP. And then as students are working together, they could, you know, get together into like a storyboard or they could work by themselves. So they could be a part of any group and thinking about two characters and how they interact. And then what I would simply say is, you know, if you want to do it in video, or if you want to do it in writing, it would all be about like, well, then you just share how those complex characters interact. But we would look at what are the specific outcomes of that specially designed instruction. So it wouldn't be about providing like an easier option, it would be about well, there's options to podcast there's options to do writing, but that is truly about individualizing education. And universal design is about eliminating the predictable barriers. And so there are these different pathways. And then after universally designing, I'll still use data to differentiate instruction. And I will also have to read every student's IEP s and incorporate specially designed instruction. So when I talk about UDL, I'm often talking about it as like the design of the first best instruction, assuming that in my class, I have students who are multilingual, who are really struggling behaviorally, socially, emotionally, students who have really significant support needs, intellectually, academically, you know, linguistically, but then I also have to predict I have students who are significantly accelerated and might be beyond grade level standards. And so knowing that what options and choices can I provide? And then, in the cases where you have students with like, really, really individualized profiles, then that comes down to specially designed instruction, and I have to make this statement. As a general education teacher, I can deliver a specially designed instruction. There's this huge misconception that it has to be done by special educators, special educators, design the tips or the strategies that students need, but you do not need a special educator to deliver that. And that comes down to kind of a collaboration in some console. But what I I realized in my own practice of which I had fully inclusive classrooms is the more that I universally designed, the less I had to change something to really be designing with that specially designed instruction in mind.
I love how you talked about UDL being the the the first best instruction, it's the thing that we think about the first it's the overarching, would you describe it as you have UDL is kind of an umbrella. And then there's differentiated instruction and then even drill down it's special, specially designed instruction, or like, how would you describe that those work together? Because they're certainly not the same thing. I mean, you did, you did explain it. But I just I guess I just wanted to, to know your thoughts about like how re we really should be thinking about that.
Okay, so let's say that I was an English teacher. So I'm just going to talk about what I know best. So let's say that we are in a class and we are focusing on writing narratives, okay. So in a very traditional class, I might say, we're all going to read this story about a day at the beach. And then we're all going to write a story about the day of the beach, and we're going to use blue or black ink on paper, and you're going to leave a margin on the right one inch, so I can write that the feedback. That's how I started teaching. So it was we're all going to read this, and then we're all going to write our own stories, and it's going to be silent. And you're all going to do it in the same way. Because when I started teaching, we did not have computers in the classroom, we did not have audiobooks. Now, certainly there were things that I could have absolutely done to be more inclusive. So in traditional education, it was very one size fits all. And so if you couldn't do it, you were often excluded and sent to another level or another room, or you'd have, you know, a para educator or something like that. But it was like the general education teacher delivered something. And if it didn't work, then someone else became involved. And then over time, we started recognizing those barriers. And technology has helped us to eliminate them. But you know, back 20 years ago, I could have very much said, here's a story about the date the beach, you know, I had an opportunity to have a document camera. And so I might have said, let's look at pictures of the beach, let's all draw what we think of when we think of the beach, you can read this silently, or I can read it out loud, right? So you can still universally design with that technology. But that's all about I'm going to take this one size fits all. And I'm going to think about who's excluded. So some students can't decode because they're not decoding at grade level yet visual impairment, struggles with visual processing, those are things that I can always predict. Some kids might have forgotten their glasses or their contacts, or they have an ocular migraine. Who knows. So in my university design class, I might say, you know, I know in science, you're talking about coastal regions, and I want to do this really cool interdisciplinary thing. So we are going to read a narrative, a couple of different narratives that take place in coastal regions. And then once you learn more about the setting, you're going to kind of create your own narrative. And so let's read a couple of them. And so you can either access it in English, you can access it in a translation, you can listen to it, right. So I'm providing all these options and choices. And then it's time to craft a narrative. So it might be before you start, you can either fill out a storyboard, you can fill out a graphic organizer, and you know, you're going to tell me, what are your ideas for writing your narrative? We already know the setting, it's this coastal region, and you're going to think about who are going to be your characters, and what do you think your problem is going to be? And that they're gonna hand that in, right? So there's all these options and choices to comprehend the text, there's options and choices to organize, there's options and choices to share what they're doing. And then I look at them and I say, oh, my gosh, these four students don't have an idea. I need to pull them for a small group and say you don't have anything yet. That's differentiated instruction. So I'm being very responsive to students. And Carol Tomlinson, the mother of differentiated instruction always says, flexible grouping and regrouping. I'm not saying I'm gonna pull all the students who have IEP s, I'm saying, I'm going to pull students who don't have an idea, and therefore they can't start writing yet. So I might pull them for a small group, right? So universal design is they provide you with all these options and choices, differentiated instruction, as I look at the data, and I said, Okay, these students are ready to go, you start, you five aren't ready yet, I'm going to pull you right. So it's all about being really proactive, but then also being really responsive. And so I'm not going to say, Oh, you had options and choices and you didn't come up with anything. So now sit quietly, right? Teachers don't do that they start responding. Where the specially designed instruction comes in would be in that first component of universal design and might also be a part of differentiated instruction. Because let's say that I have a student and And it requires constant prompting and clarification. So at the very beginning, I might say, Okay, you have an option to either read it, or you might have an option to listen to it. I'm gonna read it out loud, if you choose to be with me to read it out loud, come over here. Tim, come on over here, I would have talked to you quietly, because I know that I need to prompt you and have you summarize, after each paragraph, I would provide that option to everyone, but it is specially designed for you. And that's, I think, where it kind of comes in. And you know, people say, Well, what if Tim doesn't want to come? Well, then we need to reconvene an IEP team. And say, you know, Tim is really struggling with this, but it is I am required legally, to provide you with the supports. And so I can provide what you need as an option in a universally designed class. And sometimes, maybe I wouldn't, so I could universally design a class and a student might come in who I recognize is, let's say, you know, like, a part of the deaf community. And, you know, maybe I, you know, I say, oh, gosh, like, this wasn't something that I designed for certainly, I've audible but like, I have to do a much better job of this. It might require me to design something differently.
I really liked that distinction, that a certain something that's specially designed for a student can be provided as an option for the rest of the students from for the rest of the learners. And that can be your it can be universally designed, but specially designed for this particular student. That it seems it seems confusing. You're right. Oh, I know. Well,
I was even talking about scaffolding recently, and somebody said, the weirdest scaffolding live? Does it live in universal design? Or does it live a differentiated instruction, I said, scaffolding can live everywhere. Okay, so let's take graphic organizer, right, just take graphic organizer in a traditional classroom, you're all going to read this in hardcopy, and then you're gonna fill out the graphic organizer that's using a scaffold but like, it's, you don't have an option to use it, you're just filling it out. Universal Design for Learning, I need you to organize your writing, you have a couple of different options, you can fill it a graphic organizer, you can create an outline, certainly I would have to teach students how to do both of those ahead of time, so that they can reflect on which one is better for them. Or I could say, you know, I just need to see evidence of how you're thinking about organizing, so you don't get too far. So you can choose this graphic organizer, or this graphic organizer, you can do it digitally. Or you can do it on a hardcopy, right. And differentiated instruction, I noticed that five students have done absolutely nothing to organize their writing, I pulled them for a small group and say we're all going to fill out this concept map together because I'm struggling with organization. And this is such a good story. And I want you to be able to flesh that out. So we're all going to fill it out together. Now that differentiated instruction. But what if I pull those five and say you all have to do a graphic organizer, here's three that you can choose from, we're going to fill out all three. Now I am universally designing the differentiated instruction that includes a scaffold, and people are like wearing the matrix, but it is so fluid. And I think that's what makes it really challenging is that we want them to be separate. And there's such an overlap in all of these strategies.
What if someone is listening? And they're like, Katie, this is this is too much. I've been in the classroom for 2530 years. You're asking me to do way too much whatever happened to just teaching, reading, writing and math? How would you respond?
Well, John Dewey, in 1910, he wrote an essay called on teaching and said to say that you've taught something when no one has learned it is like saying you sold something that no one has bought. So if students aren't learning, we're not teaching. We might be presenting we might be covering, we might be assigning if students aren't learning at high levels we have not taught. And I think that in more traditional spaces, it seemed as a general education teacher that I was more effective, not because I was more effective, but because my classroom didn't really represent all of the students in the school is that traditionally we separated students quite a bit. And I think that in some ways, teachers were kind of set up by the system, because we had teachers who truly were successful for years with students they served, and then we're realizing it's just the civil rights movement, this moral imperative, and general education teachers have to teach all students which means working very differently with colleagues. You And suddenly we realized I wasn't necessarily trained to do that. I don't know how to do that yet. And when we talk about universal design, there's really three things that I like to think about as the as what we need to be able to do it. Well, the first is the mindset of like, it is my responsibility to teach all students, students who have disabilities, our general education students, multilingual learners who receive English language development support, our general education students, students who have experienced really significant maladaptive behavior, unexpected behavior, there are general education students, and every general education teacher is, is in fact evaluated on their ability to teach all students right. That being said, the skill set is massive, right? So we have this mindset, I have to teach all students, I believe that it's my job. I know I have to work differently with my colleagues. And then there's like, how do I do it? And a lot of people are like, Oh, no, I believe in it. I just don't know how to do it yet. And the third piece is that systems piece is like, we have to support teachers way better, if we're expecting them to do this. So really high quality professional development, ongoing instructional coaching, time for collaboration and consult with special educators, right? How do we give teachers the support that they need, so that they go yes, I really, really want to provide the support to students, because I believe and understand it's my job. And I feel prepared to do that. Because I have really great resources, I have really written professional learning. And right now, we're kind of saying like, good luck, do it. And but this is how we have been required to serve students for a very long time. So I completely understand the frustration, I understand the feelings of anxiety and overwhelmingness. What I would say for teachers who feel like they can't do it all is it's not something that you're expected to do at the same time. That would be like, let's say that we suddenly decided that we all had to play basketball, okay. Now, people are like, okay, so what do we do? And I show a video of LeBron James, arguably one of the greatest basketball players, if not the greatest basketball player of all time. And I say, That's LeBron James, that's what you're going to do. And it's like, oh, my gosh, how on earth? Do you expect me to do that? That would be asinine to expect someone who has never played basketball to play like LeBron James, because some people are going to learn how to dribble in place with one hand, right? So what I always say to educators is really think about where you are in this spectrum. And my only thing, my only thing is move forward. Right? provide more options than you did last week, you know, empower students in a way, and that starts really small. So it might start with, instead of saying a turn and talk, we say, you know, here's the question, and I want you to take five minutes, would you rather turn and talk? Or would you rather write down your thoughts, and then we're going to come back together? And we're going to think about how that served our learning. So which do you think would be better for your learning and why? Right,
let's make a pivot to equity. Equity has become such a huge buzzword in our educational and political landscape. I mean, people are getting upset and calling school board members writing superintendents. How does equity fit in with UDL? And do you have anything to say to educators and family members who are concerned that equity is some secret plot to indoctrinate students?
So when I talk about equity, I wrote a book called equity by design with my friend Marco Chardon. And when I talk about equity, I generally talk about four things, which is equitable access to grade level classrooms, equitable opportunities to work towards firm goals, equitable expectations of being successful, and then this equitable feeling of belonging. And when I talk about equity, even in places that very, very much struggle politically with the word, when we unpack that it's really about the fact that in our public schools, every general education student should have access to a general education classroom. And it's our job to try to recognize the barriers to ensure that it is truly the least restrictive environment for all students. And so when we talk about the real goal, the real vision is that every single student could be in a general education classroom, where they have access to opportunities to learn at very high levels. And they have educators who truly feel that they can be successful. So it's very, very asset based, but also that they feel as though they belong there. They feel that they're challenged, they feel like they're supported. And I think people who struggle with that, imagine a one size fits all classroom of which simply would not do that. And so I think that sometimes there's this conflict, because we're thinking about, Oh, my goodness, we're going to put everybody in a classroom together, and we're going to give them the same experiences that we had. And then we're going to expect that all of them are going to be successful they wouldn't be is that like some students need more support, some students need more challenge. And that's going to change day to day based on how students are doing. And so I think some of this work is helping people to see like, what does a university design classroom look like, and ensure that we can both support and challenge students. But I think that in addition to that, it's all about recognizing that even if we do this, we're not all going to have the same exact outcomes. And I think that things have gotten like really conflated to say that if we all are in a classroom together, even if it's universally designed that we're all going to end up to be exactly the same, which just does not embrace human variability. So let's say that we all joined a fitness program together. And certainly some people are like an incredible shape, very strong, like, you know, very, very athletic a part of their identity is to be like, you know, a huge part of running and lifting, then there's some people who you know, very much are not interested in kind of a fitness lifestyle, like they have all this kind of deficit based, but like we did all come together. And if we all had opportunities to be a part of a gym that truly met our needs, right, we all have access to it, they'd have to offer a lot of different stuff, right? It'd be like a track for walking, they'd be like, really chill yoga, they'd have to have classes before work during work after work. For many people, it would have to be subsidized by work, right? So we wouldn't have to pay the fee. But even if all of us had access to this gym, and the opportunities to get in shape, and we had trainers who are like, you're amazing, and we all grew like crazy, we're not gonna run a four minute mile for goodness sake. And so people use that to say you shouldn't be together, because you're not all going to end up this, of course, we're not going to end up the same, that would be so depressing if we were like robots. But the fact that we're not all going to end up at the same exact place, doesn't mean that we shouldn't have the same opportunities and the same pathways. And my biggest pushback on like, really stringent leveling and separating kids is that we don't require kids to challenge themselves, we're always looking for the system to challenge them. And so a lot of, you know, families who have students who have traditionally performed quite well, are like, I don't want an inclusive classroom, because my students aren't going to be challenged. Because there's this really kind of antiquated model, that the teacher is fully responsible for challenging the student, rather than the student having a responsibility and the opportunity to like really create something that really challenges them. And then they're differentiated instruction, teachers can, of course, challenge students. But this is not only a teacher's job that students really need to become more self directed. So people do absolutely push back on equity all the time. You know, when we talk about who is often included in really advanced coursework, we know who it's going to be. We know that there's many groups, many identity groups, who we can predict are not going to do well as others. And that is, what is an echo ball, we'll have highest performing students, but we shouldn't be able to predict their identity. And we can. And I think that people struggle with that, for a lot of different reasons, but I think one of the reasons that we can really address is they simply don't see how our classrooms have evolved to support that kind of model.
What's one thing that you want our audience who you know, mostly educators, to walk away from our conversation?
I think it's about this does not have to be done all at once. And it does not have to be done alone. And I think that when you're looking at your next step, it's not about taking your classroom and totally transforming it overnight. But it's about saying that when I do this one thing, I know that it excludes some learners. And I could potentially minimize that by providing an additional option. And I think it's just starting with like, how am I going to provide a different pathway for students to choose, you know, tomorrow. And then another key thing is that when you provide that option, if students choose something that doesn't serve their learning, we do have to be responsive to that. And I think sometimes in universally designed classrooms, there's this belief that it's completely student led, and therefore you make your bed you sleep in your bed without saying, I want to talk to the three of you about the choices you made yesterday, because I didn't see a lot of progress. So what did you choose? How did it end up like this? And how do we make sure we make a better decision next time? And so a teacher becomes much more of a facilitator in that space, and it's not Just like I'm going to provide all of these options and choices, students are doing all these different experiencing things. But like, what is the goal? What data or evidence do I have that students are working towards the goal, and if they're not, I am responsible for pulling small groups and helping them to make better decisions, providing targeted intervention, potentially, or providing targeted enrichment or acceleration of like, I am noticing that given these really challenging options, you are not choosing them. And you're done really early, I'm concerned about your, you know, your lack of, of commitment to really trying to challenge yourself, like talk to me about this. And I think that the connections and the relationships, there can be huge. And another thing that I really struggle with is people say that by not providing this flexibility, they're preparing students for college, that is false. They're preparing students to get into college by taking these inaccessible standardized tests. But college requires a level of independence that most students don't have, which is resulting in the lowest retention rates of all time in higher education. So even though we're getting a lot of kids to college, about half of them won't even finish their freshman year, which shows me that we are not allowing students to build enough of their learning skills, whereas they will be able to do that independently, because they're so dependent on these educators to tell them what they need to do. And then they get into college. And then they're not able to like be really successful. So thinking about the importance of helping learners become more, give them more agency and more autonomy is necessary for their future. And so I would say those are the takeaways is start small, know that you're still going to have to differentiate instruction and let go of this pressure of preparing kids for college students are not prepared for college. They're just prepared to get into college. So how do we take it a step further and make sure that they can do this on their own?
Well, Kenny Novak, thank you so much for your time and being on the thick inclusive podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thinking cluesive is written, edited and sound designed by Tim VAs and is a production of MCE Original Music by miles credit. If you enjoyed today's episode here is one way that you can help our podcast grow. Tell a friend, family member or colleague about an episode you enjoyed. Special thanks to our patrons Melissa H. Sonia a Pamela p markussi. Kathy B Kathleen T Jarrett T Gabby M. Aaron P and Paula W for their support of thinking cluesive For more information about inclusive education or to learn how MCE can partner with you and your school or district visit MCI e.org Thanks so much for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works
