Universal Design Learning (UDL) can be defined as a method of teaching and learning that ensures all students have an equal chance of succeeding. It is not the goal of UDL to find a single method for teaching all students. The purpose of UDL is to eliminate any barriers to learning using a range of instructional methods. UDL is all about incorporating flexibility that may be tailored to each individual’s skills and needs. As a result, UDL is beneficial for all ranges of students as the concept of UDL has always been to make learning accessible and available for everyone, regardless the background, race, physical ability and many more! In UDL, classes for disabled and special needs people can be conducted online or from home, while elderly and adult learners can sign up for MOOC classes instead of physical classes.
Although UDL benefits everyone, especially the people with disabilities, people with special needs such as heights and nationalities, elderly and disabled people, ordinary people can still use the facilities built for them. For example, the closed captioning feature on smartphones and television is usually designed to help disabled people. However, ordinary people can still use it to help them when they go to noisy places such as airports and restaurants. In this case, the closed captioning feature will help them follow what is being said on TV or smartphones. This is what I meant when UDL is very beneficial for everyone. UDL is very flexible, and it provides a meaningful learning experience in learning and facilitating, accompanied by the diversity and ability of the students. Other traditional learning methods such as equality and equity do not provide equal learning opportunities, and they are quite unfair for students.
One of my favourite elements of a UDL classroom is the variety of materials. I would love to create some resources for my students to work on in my classroom so that everyone can choose what works best for them. My classes will not be restricted and fixed to one type of learning only, so students can personally choose what kind of materials they love and work on the task in a much-relaxed way, compared to the traditional classrooms. Students have their own learning styles, be it auditory, visual or tactile. Auditory students learn best by hearing and listening, while visual students learn best through reading materials and seeing pictures. Tactile students might love the idea of a ‘hands-on’ activity. We can see here that students’ learning styles are not restricted to only one way. Hence, I would love to have a variety of learning materials in my classroom, such as ‘research space’ where students with visual learning styles will sit down and engage in the minds-on tasks. As for students with auditory learning styles, I will put a laptop or computer where they can listen to the audio materials regarding educational topics and work on their tasks. As for the students with tactile learning styles, I will prepare hands-on activities that involve touching, drawing and moving, such as acting out stories or completing English art projects. When the study materials match students’ learning styles, that will help them to reveal what they are exceptionally good at in class. Every student does not have the same way of learning, so it is quite reasonable to break the traditional classroom’s routine and build a new one for the upcoming generations.
Next, I would love to incorporate different choices of assessments in my classroom. I will provide several options for my students to turn in their assignments or school assessments. They can submit their works in terms of written assignments or essays, recorded presentations, posters and infographics, or they can even sing and act! I believe that students have many ways to showcase their learning and understanding for each topic, so I would love to give them the chance to go creative and show me how unique their thinking and creativity are. Some students always have difficulty transferring their creative ideas into reports. Some students have low self-esteem and confidence when presenting their assignments, resulting in a reasonably low mark in every assessment. Students in this generation and upwards are and will be very good at using technology, so they might hate the idea of just having one option to submit their work and showcase their talents. That is why having several options of assessments will be one of my ways to switch my classroom from the traditional way to the UDL one!
Lastly, the flipped classroom is also something that I will use in my classroom. It is due to how convenient it is as it is students centred. I am a student now, and I found flipped classrooms very beneficial for me, so I would love to use them in my classroom. I will assign my students to watch an online lecture or educational videos at home and review course materials according to the instructions given earlier. Students will no longer be involved in a passive role; instead, they will engage more in class. As I will be teaching English in the future, there is a high chance that I will be doing a role-play in the class. So, I will assign my students to read literature text materials beforehand at home. Once they are in the class, I will proceed with teaching other components of literature, such as the character traits, and my students will decide their roles. When everything is already fixed, we can go straight to the role-play in the next class. Incorporating and using flipped classrooms in my class is something that I look forward to because it will be enjoyable and time-efficient!
Undoubtedly, UDL brings more good than harm for both teachers and students. Nevertheless, there are a few disadvantages for UDL. Some of them are, first, the higher authority might not support the way classrooms are handled using the UDL concept. School high authority, such as principal and headmaster or college’s dean might still love and be stuck in how traditional classrooms are handled as they think it is more organized and teacher-centred. They also might love the idea of educators controlling the whole classroom, so fully incorporating UDL in the classroom might be easier said than done. For example, it might be hard for teachers to secure funds to use different materials in the classroom. The higher authority will also hate how students are “scattered” around in the classrooms instead of sitting in the same place and listening to the same lecture. Second, although the idea of using different types of assessment might sound fantastic, it also has its own drawback. There will be times when educators will be in a ‘dilemma’ and have a hard time marking students’ work fairly as students use many methods to submit their works. In this case, educators must choose the best way to fairly evaluate all students’ works, regardless of the medium they use.
To fully use UDL in today’s classroom might be challenging, but we have to strive to make it happen to make school a better and happy place for all students. UDL truly breaks down learning barriers in the way it does not leave a single soul left out in terms of education. UDL is very flexible, and it is way more accessible for students to showcase their talents, speciality and strength using this approach. I genuinely hope that I can use UDL in my future classrooms.
Disclaimer: The photo was taken from Google.
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