Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

[downer]

I'm sure you all know about Universal Design for Learning.

https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/designing-your-course/universal-design-learning
https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

I don't know when it was invented but it seems fairly recent. I'm sure it has its pros and cons. It seems to be well intentioned.

I have a couple of questions. Well, maybe more.

1. If you have "flexible" deadlines, don't all the students just go for the last possible time they can submit?
2. Wouldn't implementing the approach be a lot more work for me in teaching?
3. Is it actually evidence-based, or just a bunch of ideas that sound good to a few people?

[the_geneticist]

I've had minimal exposure to the UDL materials, but it comes with some caveats.  UDL is the product of the CAST company.  No, it is NOT evidence-based, but they sure would like it to be.  Yes, it is very recent.
Many of their ideas are more geared towards the K12 crowd, not so much for college classes. 
But as they say, pick the tools that work to solve a particular challenge. 
I think flexible deadlines in college are a very bad plan.  The motivated/organized students will still finish early, some folks will still never finish.  It's the students who need consistency and structure that will struggle in a sort of "mushy/flexible" plan.  The intent of flexibility is to give more time for students who need more time to process & ask questions & try again.  The reality is that unless you build in a lot of reflection, intermediate steps, and personalized support/review, then the flexibility just turns into a way for students who need structure to get behind.

[dismalist]

From the link:

Based on the premise that learners access information differently, this principle means providing flexible and multiple ways to present information. For example, using PowerPoint as a visual supplement to your lecture.

Power point? A breakthrough discovery, home run. Another Semmelweis.

Flexible deadline? Submit the homework when the church bell rings, as in pre-railroad days. Pick your church.

Go to Northern Italy, where everybody is fifteen minutes late. Go to Southern Italy, where everybody is -- late.

Apparently, the cell phone has made it worse: http://www.beyondtoscano.com/entertainment/italian-punctuality-reliably-unreliable-217/

This is just the equivalent of the cell phone coming to pedagogy.

[hungry_ghost]

The motivated/organized students will still finish early, some folks will still never finish.  It's the students who need consistency and structure that will struggle in a sort of "mushy/flexible" plan.  The intent of flexibility is to give more time for students who need more time to process & ask questions & try again.  The reality is that unless you build in a lot of reflection, intermediate steps, and personalized support/review, then the flexibility just turns into a way for students who need structure to get behind.

Sorry, brief & early thread hijack: this is incredibly helpful for me to read right now.
I have a student who has been given "flexible deadlines" as a disability accommodation, but she is super sharp and does NOT need extra time to process. She has time management problems, and she does benefit from a lot of structure. She talked to me about this yesterday, and she clearly feels that something is off about the "flexible deadlines" plan in her case ... like she's now got an extra long rope with which to hang herself, instead of the short rope she had before.
I think what she actually needs is more structure and assistance with breaking down big projects into intermediate steps, but with deadlines remaining fairly firm.
Thanks so much, I think I know what I will do for her now.

[mamselle]

The thread title to me suggests Aristotle turning in his grave, wherever that may be.

M.

[Puget]

The motivated/organized students will still finish early, some folks will still never finish.  It's the students who need consistency and structure that will struggle in a sort of "mushy/flexible" plan.  The intent of flexibility is to give more time for students who need more time to process & ask questions & try again.  The reality is that unless you build in a lot of reflection, intermediate steps, and personalized support/review, then the flexibility just turns into a way for students who need structure to get behind.

Sorry, brief & early thread hijack: this is incredibly helpful for me to read right now.
I have a student who has been given "flexible deadlines" as a disability accommodation, but she is super sharp and does NOT need extra time to process. She has time management problems, and she does benefit from a lot of structure. She talked to me about this yesterday, and she clearly feels that something is off about the "flexible deadlines" plan in her case ... like she's now got an extra long rope with which to hang herself, instead of the short rope she had before.
I think what she actually needs is more structure and assistance with breaking down big projects into intermediate steps, but with deadlines remaining fairly firm.
Thanks so much, I think I know what I will do for her now.

Yes, this! This is the evidenced based thing! You might want to introduce her to the concept of SMART goals-- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound-- notice that time-bound is the opposite of "flexible deadlines"!

Our accommodations office sometimes does give a "limited extensions" accommodation, but requires them to ask in advance and leaves it up to instructor discretion whether the extension is reasonable. However, I think they mainly give this to students with health issues. It is totally counter productive for students with time management issues.
To their credit, they also have started giving an "accommodation" (which is really more just a nudge to the student) for the student to meet with the instructor for assistance breaking large assignments down into smaller steps and making a plan to complete them (on time!).

[mamselle]

Second the 'SMART' goals (we had something similar, called 'SPAM-O,' same idea, the "O" was for "objective").

The "M" part, (measurable) would match to the "T" for "Time-bound."

Although I was fussing about having to do scaffolded assignments on another thread, it is indeed what students with specific learning issues need.

One of my music students can only take dictation a measure-at-a-time because he has thought processing management issues. We're working towards him being able to do more, but it's got to be done slowly because the sounds cram up in his head like train cars piling up, and he can't 'hear' the inner tones separately, which is what one has to do to write down something they've just heard.

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

1. If you have "flexible" deadlines, don't all the students just go for the last possible time they can submit?
2. Wouldn't implementing the approach be a lot more work for me in teaching?
3. Is it actually evidence-based, or just a bunch of ideas that sound good to a few people?

At first glance it would appear to be the sort of thing written by an Ivy professor used to working with highly motivated and capable students, and one who has plenty of time to teach and research and then take a nap in the hammock in the backyard.

I have over 100 students every semester and anywhere from 2 to 4 preps per semester.  Having each student choose different assignments and then assigning themselves point values (or whatever) would be an administrative nightmare.  And how am I supposed to compare student work?  If one kid designs a graphic narrative to explain basket weaving, and another writes a research paper, how am I supposed to grade those equally?

Mid-semester evals are fine, and a couple of times I've done that, but that is what grades are for----and I am already swamped with grading.

And our students are motivated to get the job done and go home.  I cannot entirely blame them for being a little distracted and even unmotivated, they work long hours at crappy jobs to pay for the schooling they are only marginally interested in.  They are moderately invested in their own learning as a means to get a job so they no longer have the crappy jobs---less then half will succeed. 

In other words, sure, give me a lot of room and time to teach, give me a job that is not a daily grind, give me mature, motivated students, and some of these suggestions might be interesting to explore, but I suspect they will simply generate a muddle. 

[kiana]

Flex deadlines can be useful in a limited aspect -- for example, letting students have a few "passes" to turn in work up to x hours late, or having work due at midnight but not officially "late" until 8am. I'd put this along the lines of "humane course policies that make life easier".

But wholesale "Here's when I want it and here's the latest I can accept it" does indeed result in 1/3 to 1/2 of people turning it in at the last minute, which is a nightmare if you're trying to scaffold or trying to set deadlines to keep people on track.

An "assignment bank" has actually worked really nicely for me in courses like math for liberal arts, but would be abysmal in an algebra class.

[FishProf]

I have swung, pendulum-like, between having hard deadlines for each assignment or a wide-open 'everything is due by the last-day' policy.  Post-Covid, I am becoming convinced that the 2nd option is just setting my students up for failure.   They had so much slack over the last 2 years they have either lost, or never learned, how to meet deadlines.

[Caracal]

Flex deadlines can be useful in a limited aspect -- for example, letting students have a few "passes" to turn in work up to x hours late, or having work due at midnight but not officially "late" until 8am. I'd put this along the lines of "humane course policies that make life easier".

But wholesale "Here's when I want it and here's the latest I can accept it" does indeed result in 1/3 to 1/2 of people turning it in at the last minute, which is a nightmare if you're trying to scaffold or trying to set deadlines to keep people on track.

I certainly don't call it "flexible deadlines," but I do give extensions to whoever wants them-and I make sure to tell students this before assignments are due. But, yes, I only do this when it really doesn't matter to me, not when there's scaffolding. I'd say its usually somewhere between 1/4th and 1/2 of students who ask for an extension. I do want students to actually write me and figure out how much extra time they need.

Is it just me or is universal design often pitched in weird ways that emphasize systems, rather than basic principles that can be applied in simple ways? I think there's something to the idea that enforcing rigid deadlines all the time can hurt some students. Outside of the classroom, deadlines are usually rigid when they need to be, and flexible at other times. Making deadlines flexible-when you can-is a basic courtesy when you're dealing with people who have various responsibilities, both work and non work related. That can be applied to the classroom easily enough.

[downer]

Regarding flexible deadlines: I give a small daily penalty for submitting work late. It isn't a big deal if a student submits work a day or two late. Once it is two weeks late, it is a significant penalty.

My understanding of UDL is that it wants to avoid negative language like "penalty". This in line with other avoidance of negative language. We prefer to talk of "challenges" or "special" rather than "disability" or the "R word". Presumably we should also avoid the language of "fail" altogether. The approach should be focused on rewards and incentives rather than penalties. We should avoid judgmental language.

Personally, I think this is mostly horseshit. We can try appealing to students' intrinsic desire to learn and benefit from education, but most students want to get through the class and their education so they can earn money. The student incentive is to avoid the penalty. Of course student work and performance is judged. I'm not inclined to take the approach seriously until I see some good evidence that it works better than the approach it is meant to replace.

There is an additional issue to address: the idea is that it is meant to be universal design. This means that everyone gets the special treatment and no one gets treated differently. But this clearly is completely incompatible with the ADA and the requirement that we give students who qualify different learning and testing conditions. So it seems apt at best for an idealistic learning community not governed by US law.

[Caracal]

There is an additional issue to address: the idea is that it is meant to be universal design. This means that everyone gets the special treatment and no one gets treated differently. But this clearly is completely incompatible with the ADA and the requirement that we give students who qualify different learning and testing conditions. So it seems apt at best for an idealistic learning community not governed by US law.

That's not right. There's nothing in the ADA that requires anybody gets different learning or testing conditions. If you have an accommodation that gives you extra time on exams, but a class doesn't have exams then there's no need for that accommodation.

[Istiblennius]

I will confess to being a real fan of incorporating UDL into my classes. Here's one example of one way I use that in practice:

Students read a paper each week and are able to select one of three discussion questions to answer. They have flexibility both in the question they choose to answer and the way in which they answer it (they can write a response or use the video feature in our UDL to record a response orally). They all read the same paper, but the way in which they engage with it gives them some flexibility within the context of the questions I prepare for them.

They also have a grading contract that allows them some flexibility in timing - they have to answer at least 3/4 of the questions by the due date to earn a B or higher, (which for my upper level Bio students is the equivalent of a "passing" grade) but they can submit the other 1/4 late up through the end of the term so they've got some wiggle room there. Again, everyone has to complete all of the assignments, but they have some flexibility in timing that helps them stay on track while still allowing for a couple of tough weeks here and there. Those tough weeks could include a mental health crisis, a flare up of a chronic condition, or an caregiving emergency (children, siblings, older relatives). It doesn't matter why you need the flexibility, but you've got it. Just like it doesn't matter if you have a wheelchair or are pushing a stroller, curb cuts help you navigate the sidewalk.

The dirty secret here - this flexibility has made my own planning and grading and engagement with students so much easier and less fraught. 

[downer]

There is an additional issue to address: the idea is that it is meant to be universal design. This means that everyone gets the special treatment and no one gets treated differently. But this clearly is completely incompatible with the ADA and the requirement that we give students who qualify different learning and testing conditions. So it seems apt at best for an idealistic learning community not governed by US law.

That's not right. There's nothing in the ADA that requires anybody gets different learning or testing conditions. If you have an accommodation that gives you extra time on exams, but a class doesn't have exams then there's no need for that accommodation.

Well, I take your point, but the issue still exists.

What if you say we have flexible deadlines: I want your work by date X, but everyone can have until date Y to do the work.

Can't students with certain disabilities say that they need to have a later date than Y?

I am not sure where UDL stands on timed tests. Is it completely against any time constraints?