Week 5 Blog Post

Week 5 Blog EDUC 5313 - Universal Design for Learning  

     

    As I prepare for another busy week exploring my masters coursework while teaching my 1st and 2nd grade special education students here in Oklahoma, I have been reflecting on our shared goal as educators - making learning entirely accessible, engaging, and meaningful for every single child in the classroom. In this week's post, we are diving into Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and how intentional technology integration can transform our foundational learning goals and lessons.

Part 1

Selected Article: Rao, K., Smith, S. J., & Lowrey, K. A. (2017). UDL and Intellectual Disability: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go?. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 55(1), 37–47.

In this review, Rao, Smith, and Lowrey (2017) examine how the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework is applied to support students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, (also know as IDD). A primary takeaway from the authors is that UDL moves educators away from reactive, retrofitted accommodations toward proactive instructional design. Rather than waiting for a student with significant learning differences to struggle with a standardized lesson and then modifying it on the fly, UDL requires teachers to intentionally design flexible goals, methods, materials, and assessments from the very beginning.

The authors highlight that applying UDL for learners with intellectual and developmental disabilities allows them to access standards-based, core academic content rather than solely functional life skills. By embedding multiple options for representation, expression, and engagement into the unit design, educators lower cognitive and physical barriers without lowering learning expectations. The article emphasizes that when flexibility is built into the general structure of a lesson, students with IDD demonstrate higher engagement, greater conceptual understanding, and increased self-determination.

In our early elementary special education classroom, math instruction often focuses on foundational concepts, such as addition within 10 using compose/decompose strategies. Applying Rao et al.’s (2017) findings directly transforms how I design our "Making 10" math lesson.

Instead of distributing a uniform printed math worksheet and assigning standard plastic counters as an afterthought for students who struggle, I proactively structure the math lesson around my learner's varying needs:

    - Proactive Flexibility: The core mathematical objective—understanding that numbers can be combined in different ways to equal 10—remains constant for all students, but the pathways to reach and demonstrate that objective are fully flexible from minute one.

    - Reducing Scaffolding Barriers: For students with fine-motor delays, speech-language processing needs, or attention differences, the lesson embeds choices: physical unifix cubes, touch-screen visual ten-frames, and verbal/audio response options.

By designing the lesson through a UDL lens, my students with developmental and learning differences are not singled out for "different" materials; instead, flexible entry points are a natural, integrated feature of our math community.

Part 2

    Visiting the CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines provides actionable checkpoints for embedding meaningful choices into daily instruction. To ensure my 1st grade special education addition lesson is accessible, engaging, and rigorous, I have integrated two specific CAST strategies:

#1: Multiple Means of Representation (Guideline 2: Offer alternatives for auditory and visual information / Guideline 3: Provide options for comprehension)

To ensure every learner can grasp the concept of adding addends to make 10, I integrate multi modal visual and tactile items:

• Instructional Practice: During the direct instruction and guided practice portions of the lesson, math concepts are presented using physical visual ten-frames alongside interactive touchscreen digital ten-frame counters that provide visual and auditory feedback.

• Classroom Application: When introducing the problem "6 + 4 = 10", students see the numerals, hear the problem read aloud via screen reader support or teacher modeling, see physical visual dots placed in a frame, and interact with bright, color-coded digital counters. This multi-sensory representation ensures that students who struggle with abstract symbolic numbers can anchor their understanding in concrete visual and tactile patterns.

#2: Multiple Means of Action & Expression (Guideline 5: Provide options for expression and communication)

Recognizing that special education learners possess diverse expressive language and motor capabilities, I provide multi-modal response options for students to demonstrate their math mastery.

• Instructional Practice: Students choose how they express their mathematical thinking during independent practice and formative checks.

• Classroom Application: A student can demonstrate how they built 10 by:

  1. Verbally explaining their thinking while pointing to physical blocks.

  2. Recording a quick 15-second audio explanation on a tablet while dragging virtual counters into a ten-frame app.

  3. Drawing and color-coding their ten-frame directly on a dry-erase board or tablet screen.

By separating the math objective (demonstrating that 6 + 4 = 10) from the motor or speech requirement, students show true mathematical competence without being blocked by potential expressive or processing delays.

Part 3

    The 2024 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP), A Call to Action for Closing the Digital Access, Design, and Use Divides, emphasizes that access to devices alone does not equalize education. The plan specifically highlights the Digital Use Divide—the difference between students who are invited to actively use technology to analyze, build, produce, and create vs those who are assigned technology for passive task completion, such as digitized worksheets or point-and-click drill games.

Historically, special education classrooms have been particularly vulnerable to this divide. Students with disabilities are frequently assigned repetitive, passive skill-and-drill software that frames them as passive consumers of technology. The 2024 NETP champions UDL as an essential framework to bridge this gap, ensuring technology is leveraged actively for all learners regardless of background or disability status.

Reflecting on this guidance within my 1st grade special education classroom reinforces why technology in our math lesson must be active and empowering:

    - Moving Beyond Passive Drills: Rather than placing a student in front of a skill drill app where they click correct answers to earn digital stars, tech is used as a tool for creation and expression.

    - Active Co-Design & Exploration: Using digital ten-frames, audio-recording apps, and multi-modal digital math journals empowers young learners to act as active problem-solvers and co-designers of their learning. Students actively manipulate digital objects, record their own mathematical reasoning, and share their visual solutions.

When we combine UDL principles with the active technology mandates of the 2024 NETP, ed-tech stops being a digital babysitter or a high-tech worksheet. Instead, it becomes a powerful equalizer that gives our young special education learners full voice, agency, and creative ownership over their mathematical learning journey.

References

• CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org

• Rao, K., Smith, S. J., & Lowrey, K. A. (2017). UDL and Intellectual Disability: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go?. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 55(1), 37–47. doi:10.1352/1934-9556-55.1.37

• Office of Educational Technology (2024). A Call to Action to Close the Technology Access, Design, and Use Divides: National Educational Technology Plan. Department of Education.

Week 4 Blog Post

 Part 1: 

I used the Lesson Plan Generator in Magic School AI to create a lesson for my first grade special education reading group - to teach VC and basic CVC words. Because of my students' academic delays, my lesson plans do not always align with their current grade level, and instead align with their current instructional level. 

For this lesson I asked the Magic School AI generator to align with the Kindergarten  Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts - Standard 2: Reading and Writing Foundations Objective K.2.PWS.4: "Students will blend letter sounds to decode simple Vowel/Consonant (VC) and Consonant/Vowel/Consonant (CVC) words (e.g., VC words = at, in, up; CVC words = pat, hen, lot)."  I also connected the lesson to ISTE Student Standard 1.1.c Empowered Learner. I felt this fit best because in a special education setting - immediate, non-judgmental feedback is critical for mastering skills, like  phonemic blending. It shifts the student from a passive receiver of instruction to an active agent who uses digital tools to self-correct and build confidence at their own pace.

In my opinion, the Magic School AI lesson would be considered a mid-quality level lesson for my classroom and it's needs. The lesson does align with the standards I provided, and mentions throughout how it connects to both and even offers differentiation and assessment ideas. So some may consider that "sufficiently rigorous" however, my classroom is highly specialized and in need of a keen eye on each student's individual needs and learning strengths/weaknesses. For example, the lesson mentions a few ideas for words to use (at, in, up, cat, sit, sun) but does not take into consideration that having a mix of  vowel types when I asked for a very beginner level lesson plan - would actually be pretty tricky for my students. Early on we focus on one specific vowel only and offer a mix of real and nonsense words (at, an, as, ad, av, ap, cat, rat). Then as far as the technology piece, it suggests I track down pictures and add them to the whiteboard of a cat, sun, and insect for the opening. The issue I have with that is my students at the opening are already overwhelmed, so starting off with CVC words immediately can cause them to shut down. To improve I would use a program like Nearpod or Canva to create interactive and repetitive slides that incorporate spoken recordings, slide & reveal, guess the missing sound, etc that stay specifically in the objective of VC words first, before building up to the next skill level. For a lesson plan generator like this to be considered "sufficiently rigorous" to me, it would need to have generated specific technology platform examples, as well as specific word lists - knowing I gave it my standards, objectives, specific classroom needs and their strengths/weaknesses. To me, (and as discussed during our class) Magic School ai and programs like it are wonderful for inspiration and basic structuring - but a qualified educator is absolutely essential to lesson plan designing and implementing.  

Magic School ai Lesson on VC and CVC word building

Part 2:

For part two, I chose to try out the Magic School AI Educational Song Generator. The premise of this tool is that when given a topic, age range and song style, it would generate song lyrics and then an actual song with different voice options. I chose this tool because coincidentally I have been searching for a former teacher's "friends of 10" math addition song I remember she would teach her students to help them remember math facts through the use of a rhyming catchy song. I attempted to recreate it using this Song Generator - and I would give it a solid 7/10 score. Although it missed the mark in some areas, I am impressed how quickly and creatively created an auditory educational song that I personally could not have thought up on my own. I found this tool very useful, especially with students like mine who can be multi-modal or need multiple learning styles in lessons in order to increase working memory and long term storage. For this tool in particular, it would have to be used to to deliver instruction - especially for students who benefit from auditory learning. However, it could also be an alternative form of assessment if older students used it to create a song for a project they were working on. 

Part 3:

 After reflecting, I would conclude that I can see the benefit of the AI tool and my school special education team could use it to develop lesson ideas for students who are higher or lower than they are generally use to servicing. The challenge with any AI tool is with an instructional lesson that is generated for you rather than created by you, on your own, you are not fully invested or comfortable with how it will all unfold. The AI tool's other features like IEP goal support and parent email generation could be useful for communications that are sent to families for newsletters and general announcements but I don't think it would be a smart idea to use it for more serious topics or the final IEP goal creations, as only the data and team should finalize those based on the unique student. I do feel AI tools can be helpful, however based on the Guidance and Considerations document, and my background in privacy laws - serious thought must go into the use and information provided to tools like these, before they can find a place in the school setting. I have only just started to dip my toes into the world of AI tools - it both excites me and worries me. However, I am looking forward to exploring more options during this course, and beyond.   

Week 3 Blog Post

 Chapter 4 and Nearpod Exploration

This week we dive into Chapter 4 of How People Learn II highlights how executive function, self-regulation, and reconstructive memory fundamentally shape a student's ability to learn. In my 1st and 2nd grade special education classroom, I see daily how students do not simply "store" information; rather, they reconstruct memories based on the environmental and contextual cues we provide. This concept directly reinforces Gura’s vision of a creative learning environment, where students need active, meaningful engagement to consolidate long-term memories rather than passive instruction. Similarly, the ISTE Standards emphasize empowering students to take ownership of their learning, which requires the very metacognitive and self-regulatory skills the chapter identifies as critical to academic achievement. I will use Nearpod to translate these theoretical frameworks into an interactive presentation, utilizing its dynamic features to model how educators can scaffold working memory and provide rich retrieval cues for diverse learners. 

NearPod Link

References

Gura, M. (2020). Fostering Student Creativity. EdTech Digest the State of the Arts, Creativity, and Technology 2020: A Guide for Educators and Parents.

ISTE Standards for Educators (2024). Retrieved from: https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures. The National Academies Press. 

Rivero, V. (2020). A Whole New Class of Art. EdTech Digest the State of the Arts, Creativity and Technology 2020: A Guide for Educators and Parents. pp. 12-20.