Hi friends. It's Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education. And it's been a big week for MCIE. Last week, we were at the 2023 tash Conference in Baltimore, which was absolutely fantastic. For pictures from the conference, make sure to visit us on the socials. All of our handles are on our website MCIE.org. After that conference, Brittany salmons, one of our professional learning coordinators, and I were in Phoenix, at the community of action meeting with the Educating All Learners Alliance, where we collaborate with organizations from across the United States to fund the project related to inclusive practices. I should be able to tell you all about that very, very soon. So all of this to say my plan was to release a regularly scheduled episode, but I ran a bit behind so we are going with a feeder up this week. Some of you are already familiar with Louis Lord Nelson, but just in case you aren't. Here is a little bit about her and her podcast UDL in 15 minutes. Louis Lord Nelson is an educator and author who has been involved in the field of special education, and Universal Design for Learning for over 30 years. She started as a teacher and then pursued a doctoral degree at the University of Kansas. She worked as a UDL coordinator for a school district in Indiana, where she helped implement UDL at the system level. She also wrote a best selling book on UDL called design and deliver planning and teaching using Universal Design for Learning which has been translated into two languages. She currently works as a consultant and speaker, supporting educators in applying UDL principles to their practice. And Louie is a podcaster. Recently, Louie turned the podcast interview table on herself and had her guest Dakota Huddleston ask Louie the ultimate UDL question. What does UDL look like? Louis shares how her new tool the UDL gears has helped UDL users in all fields, and around the world shift that question two, what are the consistencies of UDL application? Enjoy this feed drop. And after you listen, make sure to follow or subscribe to UDL and 15 minutes where ever you get your podcasts. Think inclusive. We'll be back next week. But until then, remember, inclusion always works.
Hello, and welcome to UDL in 15 minutes where educators discuss their experiences with UDL. I'm Louis Lord Nelson UDL, author and leader. Today I'm turning the tables on myself. Dakota Huddleston UDL in 15 minutes guest from Episode Eight is going to interviewed me about a new tool for UDL enthusiast and learners alike. It's called the UDL gears. Hi, Dakota. How are you? Hi, I'm
doing great. It's a beautiful day in Indiana, and I'm so happy to be here.
Oh, thank you so much. And thank you for interviewing me about the UDL gears.
Absolutely. I'm really excited that I can kind of turn the tables and ask you some questions. Please tell me what drove you to create the UDL gears.
So I've messed around with this concept that UDL is more than the guidelines a couple of times prior to this. First I wrote a tree for all your coloring book for UDL principles and practice and Alison Posey created the drawings. And that book walks the readers and artists because I think we're all artists, through those unseen pieces that we need to apply when we apply the framework. So learner variability, accessibility, flexibility, goals, rigor choice, and in my analogy, those are the roots of the tree. And it's that part of UDL that people like to frame as the theory of UDL, but without those roots, there's no UDL. So I had that. And that was great. And then all of a sudden, I said no, there's more. And so I created the UDL tapestry. And that idea was initiated on the back of a cocktail napkin on a Friday after I closed my computer, my brain kept going. So I eventually laid out three areas that weave together to create UDL, and again, thinking big picture here. The three areas are the content of the UDL guidelines, just you know, helping people know this is what a principle is. This is what a guideline is. Second, the constructs and concepts of UDL which expanded on the routes that were in the color input. And then third are the processes and practices that we need. So I was thinking about like articulating the clear goal using backward design, design thinking flexible materials, including all learners and scaffolding. And I wanted this to be a graphic where people could get a sense of UDL is fullness, and not have to read my entire book of design and deliver. So I figured out like a year and a half ago that, well, I wasn't done, I wasn't satisfied. And that's because my work places me in really deep partnerships with individuals and cultures around the world. And I've paid attention to some things. And there were four things that popped up. So first of all, there's like this definite enthusiasm about UDL around the world, which is really cool. And then second, some are starting to see that UDL is helpful for any kind of instruction. So whether that's k 12, post secondary trade instruction, meeting design, resource design, like anywhere that learning is going on. The third thing I noticed is that we know the language of UDL can be a barrier, but that's specifically challenging during translation across languages. And then fourth, I've paid attention to how UDL is communicated. And it's a vast framework. And that makes us so beautiful and so challenging at the same time. So unfortunately, it's often sliced apart in a way that might feel helpful, but ultimately leaves people uninformed and confused. And then sometimes they just can't even perceive the power of UDL. Yeah,
that's really interesting. So you were seeing a global need, but you also saw how complex any kind of framework can be across cultures and languages.
Yeah, yeah. And so you know, and you've experienced in your own learning environment that there's so much in the guidelines, but there's also a lot of language around the application of UDL, and those of us in the UDL world know that that language can be a barrier.
Right. And so you're not breaking down the UDL guidelines and those tool instead, you seem to really focused on the things that should be true across any setting that's applying to UDL. Can you talk more about that? Yeah.
So thanks. Yes. So I actually started with a persistent question that we know is out there, which is what does UDL look like? And so that made me think about things around all of us things that everyone in this world sees that have consistencies but are different all the time. And that's when I thought of a sunset. So essentially, I was thinking of an analogy, and I thought this would be a good way to help people see that they, the question is a different one. The question is actually, what are the consistencies of UDL application? So for the analogy, every sunset is different, but there are consistencies, like there's always a sun. There's, there's usually beautiful colors, and it signifies the end of the day. We have the same thing with the application of UDL, because it's different all the time, but there are consistencies. So I started pulling those ideas together, I kept playing with it, I kept challenging my own assumptions and pushing myself into counter arguments and looking for evidence. And I found myself grouping the ideas into three areas, which were skills, mindsets and practices. So okay, to explain this. I'm gonna use a term instructional leader, I use that within the graphic. Yeah, because I needed to find something that would include anyone who is creating and leading instruction, because well, like I said earlier, UDL goes beyond the classroom, right. So I wanted to discover what skills the instructional leader uses. When applying UDL, I wanted to identify the mindsets and practices that need to be in place, so the instructional leader can apply those skills. And then somewhere in there, the analogy of gears just made sense to me, because gears have those little teeth, which are also called cogs. And those cogs interconnect to make the gear turn the other gears and if the gear is missing, a cog machine doesn't just stop, but it's just it's not as efficient. It's the same with UDL. So if you haven't gained all the skills yet, yet, just keep moving toward acquiring them. You don't have all the associated mindsets, you're probably not really supporting all learners, even if you say you are but you keep working to expand your mindset. And the practices are just to set you up for success. So I wanted to articulate those skills, mindsets and practices. So those could become clear to people so they could see how their gears were working.
Oh, I love this analogy. It's a great one. I'm looking at the gears right now. So when I hover my mouse over the UDL gears, it's looking like the cogs are the skills individual skills, mindsets and practices. Yes,
you got to figure out ahead of time. Exactly. That's what they are. I ended up with 15 skill statements, and 14 mindset statements and 13 practice statements. And I know that some people will want to use that hover feature. So I made a PDF and ePub of the same information that's available at the top of the page. That
sounds like providing options for representation. Yeah. That is great. Awesome, very UDL. So just back to the content. You didn't just pull these together with good ideas, you made sure that they're talked about by people who are applying UDL. So where did you
book? Yeah, so I had to go beyond the juried research literature, the standard that I held myself to when I wrote, design and deliver and then my second book, culturally responsive design for English learners. Those books are heavily cited and go back to the grounding literature. And I think educators deserve that we all should know where all of this started. So we can understand the trajectory of growth or the missteps that the field has taken, it happens, right. So the challenge here is that the concept that I'm asserting is ahead of jury journals. So I used the caste roots of inclusion and disability to bring that research forward. But I had to go into what's called grey literature for the application of UDL. So one of the first places that I looked is actually on the CAST website, because right now they're working on the UDL rising to equity. And as stated on their website, they're re envisioning the UDL guidelines through the lens of equity. So I knew that needed to be part of this. I've been listening to my fabulous podcast guests like you for almost 100 episodes now, and I've heard a lot there. Graduate students are discovering things all the time and UDL colleagues around the world are constantly publishing research and white papers and reports. So I asked myself, Okay, what did these experiences with UDL look like what's talked about in the global literature, I have also seen and read materials that are filled with misconceptions and misinterpretations. So my big driving question for this was, what can I do to help more people see the beautiful diversity of instruction that can happen but also provide some identified parameters? So they feel comfortable saying, Ah, this is aligned with UDL. And I'll say again, the UDL gears were not based on applied research. This is created based on best practice and feel driven input. So the last thing that I did, I shouldn't say last thing, but during this process, I turned to my friends around the world. So I give a nod to my American counterparts, but I did not ask them to review this along the way. Instead, I turned to colleagues and Algeria and Belgium and Cambodia and Chile and Japan and Korea, Uganda, Wales, to ensure I was within the parameters of UDL that the language I used was not only clear, but it led itself to translation. So for example, you won't see the word variability in this work. Instead, that concept is broken apart to communicate it more effectively. And it was a fabulous piece to put myself into as a learner and an explorer.
Wow. So where where can people find this if they want to look at it?
So my website is the UDL approach.com. And to see the gears people can go to the UDL approach.com forward slash the UDL gears all one word? Well,
when I first looked at it, what I really appreciated the most was that mindset piece, really, the whole thing was very visually appealing. And I love the UDL analogies that I see. This is one that I already loved when I heard the word gear before I even saw and I thought, I can see where this is going. And I love this idea of it all snapping together. But the mindset piece, I really appreciate it because it's often something we forget about the necessity of keeping UDL as a mindset and getting in that headspace where we're really thinking a lot about providing these options and what that means for our learners. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that feedback. But thank you so much for interviewing me for this. So it's been fun to turn the tables but it's hard to express my gratitude for taking this time. Thank you so much. Oh,
absolutely. I love it and I can't wait to see where you go with these gears. This is very exciting. Thank
you to Kota. Sophie. For those listening to this podcast. You can find supplemental materials like an image montage with closed captioning that montage with audio descriptions, a transcript and an associated Look at my website the UDL approach.com forward slash podcasts. And finally, if you have a story to share about UDL implementation for UDL in 15 minutes you can contact me through the UDL approach.com And thanks to everyone for your work in revolutionising education through UDL and making it our goal to develop expert learners
