Welcome to the GoodLife EDU podcast presented by
the Nebraska ESU Coordinating Council. I'm your host,
Andrew Easton. Thanks for joining us as we
discuss the latest in digital learning across Nebraska
and around the country.
Alright. I'd like to welcome everybody back for
another episode of the Good Life EDU podcast.
And welcoming back today, Katie Novak, to the
podcast who, I think when I went back
in the show notes, I saw that, it
was 2022,
the last we had the opportunity to speak.
Oh my goodness. Sounds like forever ago. Yes.
A lot has changed,
in almost 2 years since then, and,
excited that we get a chance today to
revisit UDL,
and talk about all the things that are
kind of evolving with that conversation,
nationally and and really internationally,
and highlight some of the great work going
on in Nebraska as well and some opportunities
to connect around this conversation. For folks that
don't know Katie, she's an author, educator,
consultant who's focused on multi tiered systems of
support. So really, that that message and that
work lands right in the heart of the
things that are going on in our state.
And so really grateful, Katie, for your time
today. Thanks for coming back to the GoodLife
EDU. Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah. And so catch us up. Right? Like,
for those that aren't familiar with UDL, maybe
we start there and give a a very
you know, go listen to the previous episode
or check out some more of Katie's resources,
for a deeper dive. But maybe to set
the table for today's conversation, what are we
talking about?
So what I would love to talk about
today is just how the framework of universal
design for learning is evolving,
but also the importance of really creating systems
that better support our educators
to be able to meet the needs of
all students. Because once people understand
what universal design for learning is,
there are additional barriers sometimes that are put
in place by a school, by a district,
by departments of education
that actually create
hurdles to being able to meet the needs
of all students in a way that is
authentic and meaningful. So we'll talk a little
bit about UDL and the importance of building
a multi tiered system with UDL as the
foundation
to better support everyone in a district.
Fantastic. And for folks who are not familiar
with universal design for learning,
just a brief snapshot of where that comes
from and what we're talking about.
Yeah. So the the most simple thing is
when a teacher is able to universally design
learning,
the lesson is designed in a way that
any student would be able to access and
benefit from it. So universal means everyone.
Obviously, designed for learning
means that we're designing learning for everyone. And
there's this misconception,
I think, that some teachers say, well, my
class is really successful already. And so my
next question would be, is your class truly
inclusive? Is it really representing
the population of kids that we serve in
this community.
So we can predict that an inclusive class
would have students who have a need for
acceleration,
other students who might have a need for
more academic support,
and then there's lots of ranges
of needs
academically, behaviorally, socially, and emotionally.
So, essentially, it's thinking about what really is
it that all kids have to know and
do, and what are the high probability barriers
that would prevent a student from
really learning at high levels, from making growth
from where they are to where they are
going, and then providing lots of options and
choices within a classroom
so that students have different pathways they can
choose for how they learn, what materials they
use, and how they share what they're learning
focused on really specific standards,
which not only allows for
many more kids to be successful, but it
also helps to bring a lot of that
really important future ready work where we want
kids to be critical thinkers. We want them
to be able to collaborate. We want them
to be problem solvers because
we're competing with robots that are really good
at passively receiving information and spitting that information
back out.
And how we're gonna set ourselves apart
is that
really human component of learning, having agency, being
independent.
And so we really have to change the
way that our schools and classrooms are designed
moving from really teacher centered instruction
to student centered instruction where kids have those
options and choices. So universal design
is a theoretical framework that helps teachers to
think about what flexibility is gonna be necessary
to support and challenge students while also putting
them in the driver's seat of beginning to
make decisions about their own learning.
And in that response, I heard specifically what,
I would identify as being those UDL principles
Yep. Where you're talking about,
things ranging from how they learn to the
materials to the way that they show what
they know and things related to that. And
so for folks that maybe aren't familiar with
those principles and some of the guidelines that
follow,
CAS framework
that comes, with those UDL guidelines has recently
updated. So,
maybe a little bit deeper dive to some
of those nuances as you understand them.
Yeah. So I'm gonna start with an analogy
just because if you're hearing about UDL for
the first time, that explanation may seem so
overwhelming. How on earth are we meant to
challenge and support all students? What do you
mean providing all these options and choices?
So one of the the first ways that
I described UDL, and this is about 15
years ago, was just thinking about a dinner
party where if you're gonna have a a
really big inclusive dinner party, you have 30,
40 guests coming,
you would not serve a one size fits
all casserole. Nobody would do it. We wouldn't
re serve a plate where we say, you
know, you get a big slice of this
meaty cheesy lasagna,
and you get a piece of garlic bread,
and everyone's gonna drink a beer. Like, we
simply wouldn't do that. Why? Because you would
say, well, I mean, people have very different
dietary needs, and some people are vegan and
some people are gluten sensitive and some people
don't drink alcohol, and we know that.
And so we
instead say, what's really the goal of the
party? Like, maybe we could do something kind
of fun, like an Italian theme party. But
we say, well, what is really our goal?
And then what are all the different options
and choices that we could provide?
Cocreating
a party so that it works well for
everyone. So I might say, I make an
amazing lasagna. I'll also, like, you know, put
together a salad bar,
and, I will have, you know, some beer
and some wine and some soda. But then
also, like, why don't we potluck this? So
this is what I'm gonna have. Everybody's welcome
to bring their own dish. And then when
you come to this party,
you then look at this buffet, and you're
like, okay. Well, you know, this is what
I wanna eat, and I need an extra
napkin because I'm pretty messy. And, oh, I'd
like a to go cup because I wanna
go outside and whatever it happens to be.
And we don't look at that as being
way too much work. It's just the way
that we approach planning is embracing all of
these differences
and saying we know that one size fits
all is not gonna work.
And so the same is true in a
classroom. So I was an English teacher, and
so a really traditional way to have an
English class would be we're all gonna read
a hard copy of the same book, and
then we're all gonna write an essay about
that book. And that's kind of like your
one size fits all dinner party. But when
we look at the 3 UDL principles, we
have to provide multiple means of engagement, multiple
means of representation, and multiple means of action
and expression.
It really helps us to recognize the barriers
of one size fits all design.
So I might say, for example, if I,
first of all, have everyone
read the same exact book,
I mean,
sticking together through a
300 page novel, that's a lot of time
and commitment. I am not opposed to having
a shared reading experience, but it doesn't have
to be 300 pages long. So I might
say, you know what? The goal
of reading this book and writing an essay
is really understanding how characters interact over the
course of a text. So why don't we
have a shared reading experience around a really
short passage?
And then I can encourage all of my
learners to choose another text where they feel
like the characters
connect to them in some way. They have
the same interest. They
have the same identity. And then we're gonna
compare and contrast those texts, and I'm gonna
allow students to either work alone or work
together. And in that, I'm providing them with
these different pathways
for choose something authentic, choose something interesting.
You decide how you're gonna work towards this
goal. But when I have this shared reading,
I can't just hand it out in hard
copy because I'm excluding multilingual learners. I'm excluding
kids with visual impairment. I'm excluding a kid
who just simply forgot the glasses that day
and or doesn't decode at grade level. So
I might say,
here's the text. It's digital. You can have
a printed copy. You can have your partner
read it out loud. You can access it
digitally to have it read aloud to you,
look up the words you don't know, maybe
have it translated in language 1 first before
you read the English version.
And then the goal is not
writing because that's not a writing standard. The
standard the goal is to understand how characters
interact. So it doesn't have to be an
essay.
If it was a writing standard, it would
be different. But so I then say, alright.
First, we're all gonna have this shared reading
experience of the short story, then you're going
to choose another text to compare and contrast,
can work alone or with partners. You can
choose how you're gonna access that text. You
can have a choice of how you're gonna
share what you learned about characterization.
That might be an essay. It might be
a video. It might be a class presentation.
It could be something incredibly creative,
like, you know, multimedia
poster or something like that. And in it,
I can say to students just like my
dinner party.
You know what? I've come up with these
options, but why don't you potluck some ideas
here? Is there any other way that we
could learn about these characters?
Is there any other ideas for how you're
gonna share what you've learned given this rubric
and the success criteria is not negotiable? This
is, like, the the point, but let's talk
about this together.
And so it's not like the responsibility is
all on me, and I stand by as
a designer. There is a much better chance
of every student being supported,
every student being challenged,
and also every student having lots of opportunities
to be more self aware, to be more
critical about their thinking, to say, I feel
like this is what I'm gonna choose today
and why. And because I'm not up in
front of the classroom the whole time, I'm
enjoying the proverbial party because I'm walking around.
I'm checking in with every learner every day.
I'm providing feedback. I'm redirecting.
I'm saying, oh, you've gotta try that salad
over there. Try that dressing. You know, it's
amazing.
And it it leads to a very different
type of classroom where we're shifting over to
student led where a teacher is much more
a facilitator.
So the UDL principles have been the same
for decades.
The UDL guidelines
are updated
periodically based on the best research and evidence
base available in education.
And given what we're trying to do now
competing with robots,
UDL guidelines 2.0
was very focused on teachers providing all of
those options.
There's a big shift to now working with
students to codesign those options, and there's also
a much bigger emphasis on the importance of
building learner agency,
helping learners understand what they need to do
to create strategies that will allow them to
be successful,
really putting learners in charge of understanding what
they need to do in terms of emotional
regulation.
And this all comes together
to make this big shift to say that
we're not only
teaching content
anymore.
We are really helping kids develop as learners
because the content
is out there if you know where to
find it. And throughout your response there,
the return to scaffolding scaffolding scaffolding
because in any learner group, you're gonna have
a few folks that take that opportunity and
run with it because whether it's in their
previous experience or their own creativity, they're able
to lean into those opportunities for choice and
space. But where there might be a reluctant
learner or one that doesn't have the I
mean, there's a myriad of reasons why perhaps
that, because as a former classroom practitioner myself,
there are times where you go,
oh, well, if I gave this though, a
third of my students would just look at
me dumbfounded and not know which one to
select
or,
you know, drag their feet a little bit
about stepping into those spaces because the responsibility
of driving your own learning is is more
work.
And so I think, you know, the scaffolding
pieces that you're referring to there are really
important.
And how do so how else would you
recommend
or some other strategies maybe to encourage students
to be able to bring their own dish
to the potluck?
Okay. So
teachers will tell me all the time, there
are some students who simply just won't make
choices, and I'm like, just follow the kids
to the cafeteria.
They're all amazing at making choices. Right? They
go down to the cafeteria.
They know, nope. I do not want cheese
on that slice of pizza and extra chocolate
milk and, oh, the Doritos over. So I'm
like, they are really good at making decisions
when they know what they want.
But the truth is is if I say,
here's 3 different ways that you could take
notes. I'm gonna give a really short presentation,
take notes.
Kids have never tried any of them. Right?
And so I think in some ways,
it's not that it's, like, you know, easy
or hard. It's like, I just don't know.
And so one of the things that I
would do with my students all the time
is I would always talk
about Goldilocks
and how Goldilocks
tried the 3 chairs and then the 3
porridges, and then she said this one is
just right. And it doesn't mean that her
decisions would be the same if she went
back and it was freezing cold
or if she went back and she had
a bad back. Right? Because context is really
important. So, you know, Goldilocks could go back
in the winter and and say, oh, that's
not too hot now. It's perfect because I'm
freezing. And so I would say, you know,
we're gonna do a really low stakes
trying all of these. It will not be
marked. It will not impact your grade, but
I want you to understand what the option
is.
I want you to see exemplars. I want
you to get feedback, and then reflect on,
like, when that might work for you, when
it doesn't work for you.
So with note taking specifically,
I might say something like we're gonna work
on t notes, you know, 2 column notes,
t notes, sometimes called Cornell notes. We're all
gonna do that for 2 weeks.
And there's still flexibility within it. You could
do it in hard copy, in a binder.
You certainly could do, like, a an online
digital notebook.
But I would really focus on teaching the
strategy, why we use it, how we use
it to study. I would allow students to
use it on, you know, open note formative
assessments, having them compare it with each other,
pull up exemplars all the time. And then
after a couple of weeks, just thinking about,
like, why
would this strategy be something that's effective? And
how would you maybe change the strategy, and
how would that be better for you? Then
we would maybe move to now let's do
sketch notes for a couple of weeks. And
then we might move to okay. You know,
now let's do more of, like, a a
a protocol for note taking. Like, you know,
3 things I learned, 2 questions I had,
you know, one thing I wanna know more
about, something like that. And then after I've
spent a lot of time building those routines,
then I could say to students,
okay. So I'm gonna be doing a presentation.
I need you to take notes. Here's the
3 driving questions that you're gonna try to
answer. I want you to think about what
is the best way for you to
create a visual artifact of what you're learning.
And I've presented 3 different ways, and maybe
you want to, like, fold some of those
ways together where it's, like, 2 column sketch
notes. Or maybe it's, you know, oh, well,
can I do it that way? Can I
do it that way? And I feel that
sometimes we don't give enough time for that
exploration
for students to figure out what actually is
going to work for them. And in my
own practice, and I was a classroom practitioner
for 13 years, I I didn't ever have
students who couldn't make choices
much of the time. Now there are some
days that just based on variability, the kid's
like, I'm not choosing anything today.
And we all deserve a bad day, so
it's okay. But, you know, over time, I
think that students would really begin to understand
that there was, like, a preference.
And I think another key point there is
that
if you're saying there's something that is easy,
it wasn't designed well.
There shouldn't be an easy.
So if I'm saying you have to answer
these three questions in a way that you're
able to then come back and cite evidence
from them,
there's no real easy thing. Some students just
might really prefer and have a strength with,
like, you know, just visual
memory, and they're, you know, much better at
kind of creating something that is artistic, and
they'll remember it that way. You have other
kids who might need to use voice to
text in their 2 column notes because their
typing is too slow.
And, ultimately,
none of those are easy because they all
reach the same goal. And I I think
there's a lot of bias
of what we consider
to be easy when it's actually efficient. But
as adults, we use these efficiencies all the
time.
Yeah.
Couple of things to build off of that.
I get so excited just learning about all
the different strategies and things that you're leveraging
there
to make these opportunities for access available. And
it made me think first of all, one
idea was focus on the ideals principle of
representation.
It was always interesting to me to see
the ways in which some kiddos would say,
I'm actually gonna watch the video,
take a,
written copy of that same piece of information,
and take my own notes on it, even
though that was a separate choice,
and then get close enough to the direct
instruction station,
to be able to listen in there, which
all three of those were meant to be
different options. But when a student says something
to the effect of, is it okay if
I or can I, the opportunity to say
yes,
and then maybe highlight that for everybody else
so that everyone understands the degree to which
you can
make your own dish, and should be the
one who's intentionally designing that to kind of
play off of what you're saying there would
be would be something worth pointing out? And
and I also heard you specifically use the
word preferences there. And can you
denote the difference between that and learning styles?
Because,
an example I've given in the past, is
to say, like, with my own daughter, for
example, if you ask where does she work
best,
if she's working on math, it's at the
table, and she's reading this on the couch.
And context, to your earlier point, certainly matters.
And so I just wanna, like, kinda press
into some of those key points from your
previous comment there and and a little more
space to to denote the difference between learner
preferences and learning styles.
Yeah. So some of it is a little
bit of semantics. So,
there is no such thing as learning styles
that has been, you know, very much debunked
in the research, but some of it is
just the way that we talked about learning
styles.
So the idea of learning styles before we
had really good, like, BMRI
images before we knew a ton about the
brain, there was this belief that we were
wired for different types of learning,
that some people were visual learners and some
people were auditory learners, and you'll hear adults
say that all the time. I'm a visual
learner. And once they got into people's brains,
they realized that that was not
true, that we're not wired for one type
of learning, that people who are even blind
or visually impaired will use their visual cortex
of their brain in different ways, that it
comes down to, yes, we have cognitive strengths
and, yes, we have cognitive preferences,
but the idea of a style led to
this really fixed mindset
that I only can learn this way.
And so just taking that word style out
and saying, you know, generally, I I have
a a pretty good visual memory. I actually
still like to take notes by hand. I
remember where they are on a page. I
have, like, a pretty good, like, oh, wait.
Where was I? I can see it.
But there are some tasks of which simply
you just can't
learn in that way because of the context.
Right? And so, you know, the example is,
you know, skiing.
As you could say, I'm an auditory learner,
and you could say, I'm a visual learner,
and I wanna see somebody ski or I
want someone to explain to me how to
ski. But, ultimately, I gotta put the skis
on and ski, which is kinesthetic.
And so the idea that there is only
one style,
I think a lot of the research is
simply that it it closed people off to
trying other paths. But then there was a
lot of research that was done
that showed that people's styles were actually much
less effective
than, like, a multimodal
learning and having lots of different opportunities. And
so they did this really interesting study at
a college where they asked students, what's your
learning style? And then they said, prepare for
the exam in that style
versus
prepare for the exam by attending these extra
help sessions, by doing these done problems, by
looking at these other copies of exams, and
students did much better
when they used evidence based test taking
preparation strategies
as opposed to just, I'll just listen to
all of the lectures again. It just wasn't
as effective.
And so the idea
is that as much as we have these
preferences and we have these needs and certainly
people have cognitive strengths,
The key to moving away from the language
on learning styles is just don't get stuck
and just say, you know what? I feel
like when I'm reading, the best place for
me is on a couch, but sometimes the
couch isn't available.
And so when I'm in the college library
and all the seats in the couches are
taken,
I have to be open to figure out
what else might work for me because I
just don't have that option right now. And
that's really what we're trying to do is
just recognize the cognitive flexibility
that every time we make a choice,
and this is Mike Anderson's work. I love
Mike Anderson.
His work is to say whenever we make
a choice, we're balancing three things. We're balancing
what we want,
what we need, and then logistically
what is available.
So if you say to me, hey, Kate.
Let let's go out for coffee.
I'm like, okay. I would love,
an iced latte right now.
But, oh, it's a very bad decision because
it's already 12 30 while we're recording this,
and that's a little late for me to
be caffeinated. So I want it to you
know what? I'm gonna get a decaf iced
coffee, and I want it at this really
amazing little cafe in Australia.
And you're like,
we're Nebraska?
So you're not getting it from Australia,
But I'm sure we can find you a
decaf iced coffee somewhere else. Right? And so
a lot of teachers will say, I would
love to give students an option to do
this video, but we don't have animation software.
Then it's not an option. Right? Like, logistically,
if you don't have it, you don't have
it.
So I would always say to students, like,
I love your idea. We have 15 minutes.
What you're proposing is going to take 4
hours. We don't have 4 hours.
So let's look at what you want, what
you know you need to do to be
successful, and then what is available, and let's
make the most responsible decision we can
knowing that if it is not a great
decision,
I'm gonna check-in with you formatively, and and
I'll say, like, how is this working? Are
you moving in the right direction? Remind me
of the goal for this project. Right? Do
you need more support?
And we can always change our minds, but
you can't sit there and do nothing.
Well, I I wanna point out in what
you're sharing there too what the learner must
feel
emotionally from the opportunity that you're describing, right,
to, recognize him as an individual enough to
give him this sense of autonomy and the
flexibility to make these decisions and to construct
for them, which is really a teacher clarity
piece, these three questions that should drive Yep.
Your leaning into one of those.
And I I think with those
types of,
enhanced communication around the things that we're doing
intentionality,
obviously, then, you know, that's that's just good
practice in addition to the design of this
experience itself, which to play off of your
earlier point,
is more than talking to a robot.
That there's actually, you know, nuance to this,
that can only be lived out through that
person to person interaction.
And so I love that. And and before
we kinda move to the next point here,
though, I do wanna play off of that,
potentially, if we're talking about AI here, piece
and say, to what degree
do you find that the AI tools that
are available, I'm gonna have to speak to
anyone in particular,
provide
an avenue for whether it is resource creation
or new ideas,
to help support this effort and this work,
because to
provide
these many choices is a mindset and an
understanding of a number of strategies that maybe
are outside of the ones you would personally
use. And the development of the resources and
materials necessary
can also be a big lift. So do
does AI help with that?
Oh, I think AI is incredibly helpful to
kind of boost the productivity and efficiency of
both teachers and students.
And I think that there is definitely a
way to use it really ethically and productively
and a way that there's an overdependence
on the robots to think for you. So
Kat Tucker and I, dear friend, Kat Tucker,
we've written 3 books together. Our 4th is
coming out this
fall, and it's actually it's about AI in
service of strong pedagogy.
And throughout the book, we kinda show the
nuances of how you can use it, but
also you must really understand the framework
to recognize
where the AI falls short.
So it almost allows you to, like, really
just kind of offload the, like, depth of
knowledge 1, depth of knowledge 2, just kind
of create something for me quickly so I
can really critique it and compare it to
what I know about the research and then
continue to have a conversation with the robot
to make it really great. Because, you know,
is it great for coming up with ideas?
Absolutely.
But if you were to say something to
one of the bots and you were to
say, I have a writing standard, and
it's really that students will be able
to write informational text where they are doing
research, reflection, and analysis.
K. Those are the nonnegotiable. So I have
to unpack for kids. Like, what does it
mean
to research? Right? And and what is the
criteria for really high quality,
research
sources? And then what does it mean to
reflect, and how is reflection different from analysis?
Right? And what does that look like? And
so we're gonna look at some
which I can provide multiple means of representation
for those exemplars.
You know, peer review. What do you notice
that's strong about this? But, ultimately,
I want kids to have a choice
of what they're gonna write about. If you
were to ask an AI bot to universally
design that task, it will give you options
like, well, some kids will really struggle with
writing, so just allow
them to make a presentation. No. No. Bad
robot. Because we have to produce
writing. Now
the nuance of that is you can produce
writing with voice to text.
Right? You can produce writing by first having
a story line, explain to the teacher exactly
what you wanna have, and then maybe creating
an outline and then using AI to produce
something. But I think that a lot of
the times,
it doesn't have the ability to think as
critically as we do to say,
no. Writing has to be produced, but I
definitely wanna leverage emerging
assistive, augmentative, and artificial intelligence.
And then it will give you something else.
And then you're like, okay. I love that,
but I have students in my class who
have really significant intellectual support needs. I need
more scaffolds.
Right? Or I love that, but I have
some student. And so I think it's the
conversation.
It I think of it as, like,
an instructional
coach slash assistant
where
the having the conversation and continuing the conversation,
it can be an amazing, amazing thought partner,
but it's not
hopefully ever going to be reliable enough
to just say,
give me 4 ideas for an assessment and
use them exactly
because we can't guarantee it's gonna be right.
Sometimes it nails it, but sometimes you say
no. Like, that would be, quote, unquote, too
easy, meaning that it's not the expectations are
below grade level, which is never appropriate.
Right? Or sometimes you might say, well, that's
not construct
relevant,
which means that the the option doesn't actually
lead to the same goal. Like, if if
writing is the goal, we need to look
at lots of great examples of writing. We
need to think about all the different ways
that writers
kind of preplan, how they plan, how they
organize, what are the tools we can use
for editing, revising. Right? That can be really
flexible, but, ultimately,
writing needs to be posted online in a
way that we can interact with each other,
and that's not negotiable. So what are all
the ways that we can do that? So
I think that that's a a good reminder
as I love it,
but I think that we always have to
keep our skill set
our skill set really, really current so we
can make sure that we're guiding the robot
to do what we really need it to
do.
Love all that as it pertains to this
conversation because those tools have a lot of
potential, but I I like what you say
there about keeping our skills sharp. And the
need to to do that is multifaceted. Some
of that is professional learning,
and some of that is the structure, which
is something else we talked about getting into
within which you're learning and being supported as
you grow in this work. And so, you
know, as someone who gets a chance to
support classroom practitioners and also school leaders in
their support of those teachers.
What do you see as being some of
the successful attributes
of, I'll just use it again, supports that
come around teachers in in growing in UDL?
So there's this really amazing resource I'm totally
obsessed with. It's called Guskey's for as in
Tom Guskey.
Guskey's,
5 levels of professional development evaluation.
And
in it,
he essentially talks about how when we provide
professional development to teachers,
generally, we
I would argue that we often measure it
at a level 1 or a level 2,
which is, like, did you like it?
So I go into a district. I do
a full day workshop on UDL.
You know, it's like the spark that gets
people excited. I model a bunch of lessons.
I show a bunch of routines. We talk
about how we can shift to student led.
We play with AI tools. People are so
excited.
And if I really nail it, you know,
95% above will be like, yes. It was
an awesome presentation.
You know, she was so knowledgeable. It was
time well spent. I learned so much.
And that's it. Right? That's all they get.
Right? And
level 3 is, like, is the organization
truly prepared
to advocate for and support and move this
work forward? So for me, that is
instructional coaching. That is
instructional leaders in teachers' classrooms every single day
making unannounced observations, providing non evaluative feedback. It's
about professional learning communities. It's about instructional
rounds. It's about coming back to whatever the
focus of professional development was within faculty meeting
structures, within future professional development days. And so
that level 3
is often, like, not something that we proactively
and intentionally
plan for where someone will say, we would
love for you to come out and get
people really excited about UDL. And I'm like,
k. I got it. Right? Like, give me
my orders.
You say jump. I say how high, but
that fire is gonna extinguish
fast.
So what is your plan for stoking that
fire? How do we keep that fire burning?
And this needs to be touch points weekly
throughout
the year. So what's your scope and sequence
for supporting this? And that support means when
teachers are doing it, how do we celebrate
the heck out of the fact that people
who are so overwhelmed are willing to try
something new? Perfect. How do we know that
people are making these shifts? And then how
do we celebrate that? And when teachers are
not,
how do we help them? And how do
we say, listen. Like, this is where education
is going. We know that you're capable of
doing it. What do you need in terms
of instructional materials? What do you need in
terms of coaching? Is there someone that you
wanna observe? Like, we can help you.
And then it needs to be constant feedback.
Level 4 is are we actually implementing these
things in classrooms?
So people will sometimes have me come out
where I know for sure that teachers do
understand what universal design for learning is. And
then you go through classrooms and you see
what would have been really strong teaching, you
know, 20 years ago. Still very, like, teacher
direct instruction,
a lot of, you know, students being passive,
much more teacher talk than student talk. You
know, things like that that we saw
decades ago and were successful before we had
much more inclusive diverse classrooms and before we
had this emerging technology,
but we're just not seeing it in classrooms.
And so that 4th layer is if your
professional development can't change
the structure of your classrooms, the pedagogy of
teachers, what
right, then we're not gonna get to level
5, which is
actual outcomes for kids are different.
Right? Kids are
reporting much higher levels of engagement and belonging.
Kids can, in a a survey, say, I
have so many options and choices to share
what I'm learning. I am able to achieve
things that I didn't think were possible. I
am known in this classroom community. Right? And,
like, I do creative project based work every
single day. You know? So we have to
measure that, and and that, again, is gonna
lead
to increased attendance,
decreased, you know, behavioral disruptions,
increased learning, which is, like, what we do.
Like, that's where the business of.
And
it's so it seems so far away because
it's so long term. And so it's like
we're measuring professional development on how happy people
were after a 2 hour session
when in fact,
that is the smallest tip of the iceberg,
and the system really needs to be prepared
for how we're going to keep this at
the forefront
to help teachers to do this well. Do
they have time together to plan? Do they
have ongoing professional development when they have questions
and they get stuck? Do they have expert
early adopters and lab classrooms so they can
see it in action? Do they have instructional
coaches to get in there? Right? Do they
have, you know, opportunities to get feedback on
next steps, and are they able to correlate
those changes in practice to increases in student
outcomes? So we need not just data meetings,
but an authentic culture.
Whereas
I get to look at data and say,
holy moly. Like, I know that what I'm
doing is making a positive impact. You could
be, darn sure I'm gonna keep doing it,
versus, okay. What I'm doing doesn't seem to
be positively impacting kids. Can someone help me?
Because I feel like I'm doing what you're
asking me to do.
And for some reason, it's just not making
a difference. So can someone help me? If
teachers don't have that,
then we're simply not going to have the
culture that we need to to really have
adult learners who are willing to take risks,
that are willing to try these new things,
and that will have the the capacity to
change the outcomes of kids. Because what we
are doing right now
is producing the outcomes we're experiencing, period. Right?
The system is so good at producing the
outcomes that we currently have, and those aren't
good enough for anyone. Teachers are working way
too hard to have outcomes like that. So
we have to teach differently, but teachers need
support to do this.
I couldn't agree more. And in thinking about
some of the ways in which we talk
about some of this work in Nebraska, we
talk about coherence where we wanna make sure
that all of our efforts and initiatives align.
In the spirit of that, around a year
ago, we did a webinar where we brought
together some folks,
who are committed to HQIM with this high
quality instructional materials,
and some folks that are steeped in UDL
to, like, also say that that we're not
talking about different things here. But I have
had the opportunity to collaborate with, educated outside
of Nebraska. So I'll, like, just completely take
us away from my my home stay here,
as an example. But where some of the
instructional materials can become so scripted or at
least implemented in a way that feels so
scripted. The educators don't always feel like they
have the autonomy and space to be a
learning experience designer.
And I do think that both can coexist,
and I've seen that take place as I'm
sure you have as well.
And so maybe just a little bit before
we kinda bring things to a close,
to speak to
maybe the Venn diagram that is a little
bit better or where that rub,
takes place because,
I know that there is an opportunity for
these to coexist.
Totally. So what I would say first is
high quality instructional materials are inclusive,
period. So just because something is purchased doesn't
necessarily
make it high quality.
If it's high quality,
it is aligned to grade level standards.
It is, you know, really, really user friendly
for teachers,
and it is inclusive by design. Right? We
wanna make sure that, you know, a really
good instructional program will have a digital component
where you have the work book in front
of you, but you can also access it
digitally so you can have it read aloud
to you so that you can go through
simulations.
But what I would say is I have
never ever worked with a group of teachers
who were using a really high quality instructional
material
that weren't able to see how incredibly,
incredibly,
universally designed it could be by reading between
the lines of the teacher's manual.
So I recently worked with the science department,
and
the materials were incredibly high quality. So on
ed reports, you know, they meet all of
the,
the criteria for grade level alignment for teacher
usability.
Right? It's digital. It's hard copy. There's manipulatives.
But it will say something like,
students will view the simulation.
Okay. Great. So as a teacher, I might
say, I have a really big screen,
and you all can come over here movie
theater style, get all comfy and cozy. You
can watch the simulation there. If you'd prefer,
you can watch it on your own device.
That allows you to pause it to change
the contrast
to translate the closed captions. So you can
either do big movie screen style, or you
can do it on your own device if
you want something a little more sensory sensitive.
You wanna work through on your own pace.
You know?
First, again, as I shared before, trying it
out, like, this is what this experience is.
It's loud. We're not pausing it versus the
other one. Then it's like read.
Okay. Great. Would you rather read it in
hard copy? Would you rather read it digitally?
Do you wanna sit in a small group
and have somebody read it? Then there's, like,
a question, and it's like, have students answer
the question. Like, it literally is like, here's
the question.
It doesn't say must be in open circle
every 2 student answering. It doesn't say must,
you know, carve in your own blood in
notebook. Like, it's like kids will answer the
question. So right there, it's like, alright, loves.
How do you wanna answer this question? Everybody's
watched the simulation. Some are sitting on the
ground. Some have their earbuds. Some are taking
notes in a notebook. Some are typing it.
They all have access to the same text.
I'm walking around because I'm not standing there
reading it, you know, checking in. Okay. You
seem distracted. Why don't we move over? How
are you doing? Right. I'm using formative assessment.
I might pull small groups if necessary. And
then I'm like, okay. Everyone has to answer
this question.
Let's do it in a way that is
visible because I don't know how to read
minds quite yet. So, you can either, you
know, do a combination of words and pictures.
You can record your voice and tell me.
You could
that is one 1000% using those materials with
all integrity. Right? Because it's all about formative
assessment tasks. And when I said it, the
teachers were like, oh
my word.
And this is, like, every unit. Every unit's
kind of like this. And I'm like, yeah.
So I think sometimes
we just have, like, this kind of historical
bias of read
is
we're gonna I'm gonna stand up in front
of the class, and I'm gonna read it.
Watch. I have a smart board. We might
as well all come together and watch it
at the same pace. Answer the question. Must
be on these lines in the notebook.
But, like, it doesn't actually say that. And
so I always think about, like, the flexibility
of verbs. Right? What are the ways students
could answer the question? And if it says
right, what are the ways that students could
write? But I am a huge advocate for
high quality instructional materials. I don't think that
any teacher should have to create things from
scratch. I think that it is
like Sisyphus pushing the rock
up the hill, and it keeps rolling back
down. It's like an old big myth because
it's like the standards are always evolving. The
technology is always evolving.
And I wanna give teachers the best foundation
for being amazing,
which is time with colleagues, great professional development,
amazing instructional materials. And then I use all
of those things and say,
you know what? Like, I've been doing these
mini lessons like the curriculum says. The kids
don't seem to remember them very much. I
wanna make sure I have some note taking
just because it feels like they're missing it.
So I'm gonna make sure, number 1, that,
like, I have one kid who's, like, recording
me in an iPad so I can post
it on, you know, the Google Classroom so
they can come back to it. And I
also want them to take some sort of
notes so they can make their thinking visible.
And so I can provide a couple of
options that like, I need the autonomy to
do that as an educator.
And I would say that if you are
an educator really advocating for,
you know,
what type of flexibility
is already, I guess, you could say,
set in the curriculum, because sometimes it will
say students can talk or students can write.
But there's a lot of times where it's
just you have to read between the lines.
Students will read this passage.
Through the lens of UDL, there are routines
that you you could have every time you
get to reading a a high quality text
that you don't have to ever
recreate the wheel. You don't have to go
into AI. You know, there's really only a
couple of options. Right? Hard copy, small group,
digital.
That's it. Right? Make a pretty slide, and
every they have to read, you bring it
back.
Well,
so grateful for those insights across a myriad
of different ways in which, to think about
not only the implementation of this work, but
ongoing support of it. For folks that are
absolutely loving this conversation like I am, you
can actually come and listen to Katie Novak
here in Nebraska at Kearny,
on September 27th. So the Nebraska MTSS Summit
is taking place on September 26 27th,
and so I encourage folks, to find the
time to be able to be a part
of that event as Katie's gonna keynote, on
day 2 there on 27th.
In addition to that, Katie, what other resources
or where can people find you and information,
pertaining to this this topic, to support them
as they, hopefully, are inspired, by our conversation
today and look to learn more?
Yeah. So I'm at novakeducation.com,
n o v a k,
and I have lots of different resources. I'm
always blogging. I actually just started a mini
podcast.
So, like, I am always so honored to
be on podcast and to have these amazing
conversations,
and then I'll go to present for, like,
a 2 hour session. And I love giving
people opportunities to explore resources.
So when we talk multiple means of representation,
you know, do you wanna read something? Do
you wanna listen to something? You know? Do
you wanna watch something?
And
in my presentations,
I started trying to balance kind of different
modalities to say, okay. Think about it. You
know, do you wanna just sit here? If
so, I've I've made some hard copies of
kind of some short articles or some tools
like the UDL guidelines.
You can also access them digitally from my
presentation.
But then I started recognizing just how trapped
a lot of educators are at a school
and how nice it would be to just
go for a walk or, like, get in
your car to go grab a coffee down
the road. And I was like, oh, I
so wish that there was a podcast that
I could balance in, like, 15 minutes
to say, you can either sit and you
can explore this resource. You can do it
alone, or you can do it with a
partner. Or you know what? Maybe you just
need to get out of this place and
get fresh air and sun, or maybe you
can put in, like, an online order at
Starbucks and just drive over and pick it
up. You got 15 minutes. And so my
goal was to create a consumable
podcast.
So every time I present, I can model.
You don't have to be in here sitting
in a chair
where the temperature is never right and the
the technology is never right. And
instead, if you're feeling like antsy,
then throw in your earbuds, and you can
listen to it. So every one of the
podcast episodes is 10 minutes or less. And
that means when I give a 15 minute
period to explore resources, there's enough time to
transition out to the track,
listen to the whole podcast,
transition back, or get, like, a pretty good,
again, Starbee's run. So, it you know, there
are so many brilliant podcasts for, like, a
nice long commute, but it's like sometimes in
a faculty meeting, you wanna say, you know
what? Why don't we all, like, build our
background knowledge of UDL? And then it's like,
okay. Let's all read the same article.
And, okay, that's fine if we can make
it accessible.
But I think by 3 PM, everyone is
so done sometimes
with, like, oh my gosh. People will sometimes
say to me, I'm allowed to leave the
room. I'm like, I I I can't tell
if you're kidding. Like, you are a highly
trained professional.
Of course, you can leave the room. Like,
please please. And you know what? If Starbucks
is backed up, like, I'm so happy when
you come here. Don't worry about if it's
a couple minutes after. But, you know, I
think that
that has been a really exciting new project
because it's allowed me to model
in some ways how we can be a
little bit more flexible with learning.
So make sure that you're checking out all
of those. We'll put links to those respective
resources in the show notes. The only thing
I'm not sure that I caught was the
name of that podcast.
Yep. It's called the education table. Like, come
to the education table for a quick snack,
and every episode just answers a question. So
what is UDL?
What is the ideal number of choices when
you're giving students options? You know? What how
is UDL related to differentiated instruction? So they're
really, really small bites of professional development, which
will allow educators
And to support folks who are really passionate,
wanna keep learning, but just need a different
way
to engage that. Just just need to not
be in the room that's either 92 degrees
or 57. Just you know?
Oh, I love that. And I I hope
in our small way, we get to do
that with this show as well. And and
the only way that we get to is
from folks like yourself being generous with their
time supporting,
our listeners. And so, Katie, thanks again, for
being on the show. Thank you for traveling
to Nebraska,
to share in person, and I hope really
wanna encourage folks to be a part of
that conversation on September 27th.
Again, Kate, thanks for your time, and we
look forward to seeing you in September.