UDL and DI: Is there a Difference?

Yes! Let me explain.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching that offers flexibility in the way students access, process, and demonstrate their understanding of content and skills. The flexibility is built into the curriculum to remove barriers to learning for all students.

Some students may need an additional level of support to remove a barrier to learning. Some students may have skill gaps. Some students have extended absences. Others may be ill. Regardless of the reason, if a student is demonstrating a barrier to learning, teachers should differentiate instruction. 

The following chart depicts the main differences between the two instructional approaches:

Universal Design for Learning

Differentiation

Flexible instructional design intended to remove barriers to learning

Targeted instructional design intended to a remove specific students’ learning barriers

Proactive or Curriculum Design- considers variability of all learners

Reactive or Post-instruction or Assessment- considers individual learner’s needs

Student-directed: Students may choose the means of representation and expression

Teacher-directed: Teachers support and scaffold via changes to content, process and product


Katie Novak offers additional clarity in this VIDEO. Start at min 5:55.

Here's another way to think about the difference. Let's use the pyramid of student support. 
  • UDL is the base of the pyramid because UDL strategies are for all students. 
  • Differentiation is the second tier of the pyramid because only some students will need differentiation to remove barriers to learning. 
  • Specific Learning Disability is the top tier because only a handful of students will need special education services.

Why the confusion?

Teachers often associate Differentiation with providing choice. That association is too narrow. Choice is student driven. Differentiation is teacher driven. The purpose of differentiation is to “respond to students’ readiness, instructional needs, and learning preferences” (Heacox,1). Teachers may respond by differentiating the following:

  1. Content or learning task
  2. Process or instructional approach and/or
  3. Product or end result

When teachers differentiate instruction, they design the right task for the right student at the right time.

The big takeaway for teachers is to supplement UDL with differentiation.



Reference and potential Resource:

Heacox, D. (2012). Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom. Free Spirit Publishing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Won't Students Think?

Image
I have been reflecting on our students' use of AI. I bet the appeal is that AI thinks for them.  Why is this so attractive?  Daniel Willingham's newest edition of Why Don't Students Like School  provides insights that might help us understand our students' resistance. Our minds are designed to avoid thinking.  Thinking requires you to retrieve information from long-term memory and the environment and then use your working memory to combine that information in new ways. As a result, thinking is slow, effortful, and uncertain.  "Most of the time what we do is what we do most of the time" (6).   So instead of thinking, we often rely on memory. This is because our memories do not require much attention and work very quickly.  This is true of every one of us, not just our students. But here's the catch. We are naturally curious, so we will think under the right conditions.  Those conditions are shaped by our perceptions.  When solving a problem o...
Read more

Motivating the Unmotivated

Image
When I was teaching high school students, I often heard, “Why do we have to learn this?” This question was easy to handle compared to what teachers are facing today: apathy. We have gone from “Why do I have to learn this?” to “I don’t care if I learn.”   During meetings on our benchmark assessment data, I hear the same comments from teachers about students who are not making progress. “He refuses to do any work.” “I’ve tried everything, but she doesn’t care.” Motivation is tough, particularly for the screen-addicted teen. For years I relied on Pink’s findings in Drive to help teachers engage students.  According to Pink, intrinsic motivation comes from three sources: autonomy, competence, and purpose.  Autonomy means that you have some control over the task. Teachers can create autonomy through choice. UDL, specifically representation and expression, provide many ways to allow for choice in materials and end products.  Competence is the belief that you have the a...
Read more

The Goldilocks Principle of Teaching

Image
 “Not too Hard, Not too Boring" Educators are keenly aware of the impact of stress and trauma on a student’s ability to learn. When stressed, students are unable to attend to and therefore, retain new learning. We can blame the amygdala. This little walnut-shaped organ essentially controls learning. If information from the environment is stressful, the amygdala will send signals to the instinctual center of our brain, releasing cortisol which impedes our ability to think for at least 20 minutes. The process is called downshifting. Unbelievably, studies have shown that cortisol remains in the body for several hours.  I was surprised to learn that boring experiences are as stressful for the brain as feeling overwhelmed or anxious . Teachers can combat the “Goldilocks principle” by using stories, humor, choice, movement, and novelty in their lessons (Hattie). It’s not hard (or boring) to design learning experiences using the "Goldilocks principle."  The following activity...
Read more