Universal Design for Learning aka UDL

 I know what you are thinking, "universal", akin to that "one size fits all" costume you bought for the pink power ranger that was not truly "one size fits all" just to mess with your friends and co-workers.  Thankfully you had enough sense not to wear it to work, but the memory remains...

In this case "universal" doesn't mean one size fits all.  It is about building your lesson plan to meets all types of learners, from people who can read and understand, auditory leaners (that's me!), to visual leaners and many more in between.  After reading about UDL, I realized that I truly had a grasp on the preparing lessons for this instinctively.  In elementary and high school I had an extremely hard time personally as an auditory learner.  I rarely took notes, instead I focused on the lectures and remembered what was said and discussed.  This led to many problems of being accused of cheating, not paying attention, etc. etc. even though my grades were always good.  There was only one class that I couldn't handle auditory learning in, and that was math.  It was way easier for me to look at the book and figure it out for myself.  Having come from a background where I wasn't in the "norm" for learning, I am extremely sensitive to the needs of non-traditional learners.

We have recently been working on a lesson plan to teach our peers or a classroom.  I am actually going to be teaching some of my fellow colleagues in the theatre program how to use Qlabs to create ordered sound cues.  To be honest, I'd already planned on doing this anyhow, as I have a ton of experience using the app and I want my students to surpass me, so I am giving them the benefit of my hard work in hoping they can build on top of what I teach them.  To do this, I will be preparing an instructional video before hand to guide someone through the process of creating a Qlabs session and adding a file to the cue list.  I will also show them how to compress and consolidate the session as well in the video.  I will then take the video after I have made it and cut out the key parts and make a power point presentation and instructional guide with pictures and text as well to assist any that may want it that way while I am demonstrating how to do it live.

Another part of the UDL I really enjoyed and was already doing naturally is setting clear goals.  I have a goal to have everyone work on getting sounds for a very short play.  There will only be 3-5 people working on this, and they have volunteered because they want to learn how to use Qlabs more effectively.

The one thing I can't change all the way is giving people options.  Even though I would like to provide an abundance of options, at the end of the day we are going to use Qlabs as it is the most commonly used app for sound cues in the industry.  While my initial lesson is just a very rudimentary introduction to lining up sound cues in order and choosing sounds, my more advanced lessons later on will also focus on the more robust features of Qlabs such as video projections, autoforwarding, cue calling, lighting cues, etc.  At the end of the class we are going to go over the sounds that were chosen for the short play and do a read through of the script with the sounds added that day.  We should be able to have a group feedback about the choice of sounds and the appropriateness to the play which will provide immediate feedback.  Since I am giving each person a small section of the play, but telling them that they need to work together to unify the sound of the play, that will create an atmosphere that will foster collaboration and community.  All of these things are part of the bigger UDL picture.

Graphic courtesy of www.cast.org click on picture for direct access.

Now after seeing how the UDL is laid out, I can honestly say, that since I prepare most things digitally, that providing a censored version of my own lesson plan to students would be absolutely no problem at all, and would probably cover most of the spoken material I would go over.  Seeing as I like to play around with video apps and programs, making videos would give me a legitimate reason to write off that costly habit as a work related expense, and make my significant other happy about me getting the new toys.  It's a win win for everyone.

SOURCES

“5 Examples of Universal Design for Learning in the Classroom.” Reading Rockets, 18 Dec. 2019, www.readingrockets.org/article/5-examples-universal-design-learning-classroom.

“Until Learning Has No Limits.” CAST, 21 Aug. 2020, www.cast.org/.

“The UDL Guidelines.” UDL, 31 Aug. 2018, udlguidelines.cast.org/?utm_medium=web.