In this chapter, we focus on creating inclusive and equitable Tier 1 learning environments for all students by focusing on inclusive practice, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), differentiated instruction, and deeper learning. One of our favorite sayings is “You can't intervention your way out of weak Tier 1.” Throughout this chapter, we discuss the components of an evidence‐based Tier 1 classroom that supports multiple tasks and formats while diverse students work toward grade‐level standards by engaging in authentic tasks.
I love carrot cake. Ever since I was little, I have requested it on my birthday. To me, carrot cake is best when it's a whole meal. Think carrots, pineapple, walnuts, and cream cheese. When it's done right, it weighs a ton! When I'm introducing myself, I do not often lead with my love of carrot cake, but in a presentation last year, I did.
I kicked off a session on MTSS with an optimistic opener, inspired by CASEL's (2019) “3 Signature Practices Playbook.” The playbook offers “practical ways to introduce and broaden the use of SEL practices in classrooms, schools, and workplaces.” I used the Mix and Mingle activity, which builds community by encouraging participants to interact with each other, and sets the expectation that everyone's thinking and voice are valued. Below are the steps if you want to replicate the activity, and then I promise I'll get back to the carrot cake.
Since I was introducing MTSS using the baking analogy, I used the Mix and Mingle optimistic opening activity with this prompt: “What is your favorite dessert or treat that reminds you of your come‐from place?” The use of “come‐from place” is intentional not to exclude anyone who wasn't raised in what they would consider a home. On my card, I wrote “carrot cake.” As a part of the mingle, I chatted with a superintendent in a district in Vermont and shared details about my mother‐in‐law's famous recipe. When the timer was up, the session continued. A year later, that same superintendent invited me to his district to work with his amazing leadership team to support them in their MTSS needs assessment process. I was happy to be included in the meeting. When I arrived, however, he shared how happy he was to have me as a part of the team and then—wait for it—brought out a carrot cake so I would feel at home. I was nearly brought to tears by the kindness.
The act of being invited to the meeting included me, but the gesture to welcome me with something that was meaningful was inclusive practice. How can we create learning environments where everyone feels they belong? Certainly, I am not advocating that we bake desserts for all our learners, but that we get to know them deeply, that we learn about their interests, and that we design instruction with them in mind. It is not enough to invite them into our learning spaces if we cannot also give them what they need so they always hear the message, “You get to be exactly who you are, and you are welcome here.”
During the past decade, the concept of inclusive education has been evolving from simply placing students in general education classrooms to engaging all students in the general education curriculum through whole‐school applications, and providing full membership and belonging among age peers (Choi et al., 2018). There is clear evidence about what works for learners, but many students do not yet have access to the resources and support they need to succeed. A study, “The Opportunity Myth” (TNTP, 2018), summarizes the research on the practices necessary for student success.
Most students—and especially students of color, those from low‐income families, those with mild to moderate disabilities, and English language learners—spent the vast majority of their school days missing out on four crucial resources: grade‐appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations… . This lack of access is not random. It's the result of choices adults make at every level of our educational system. We're asking all adults whose choices affect students' experiences to commit to unraveling the opportunity myth.
As leaders, we can unravel the opportunity myth by creating systems and structures that ensure that all students have access to inclusive classrooms that provide them with grade‐appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations who make students feel as though they truly belong. This is the foundation for our multi‐tiered system.
All students, regardless of disability, English language proficiency status, income, race, or academic performance, can receive Tier 1, 2, and 3 services. All students are general education students first, and the focus of MTSS should be creating strong Tier 1 systems and supports. Recent research argues that inclusive education is connected to the movement for effective schools and school improvement, making it clear that what happens in general education classrooms, in terms of organization, interventions, and activities, has a critical impact on the academic success of all students (Arnaiz‐Sánchez et al., 2020).
One of our favorite sayings is this: “You can't intervention your way out of weak Tier 1,” because Tier 1 general education classrooms provide the foundation for a multi‐tiered system. Understanding what effective Tier 1 programming looks like is critical to creating changes necessary to meet the needs of all learners.
Too often, inclusive placement is tangled with inclusive practice, as if physical presence in a room equates to being inclusive. It does not. Inclusive practice includes the removal of barriers concerning participation, achievement, and presence while also using instructional and behavioral strategies that improve academic and social‐emotional outcomes for all students, with and without disabilities, in general education settings (Ellery, 2020; Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2019).
Inclusive practice is at the heart of equity in schools. Waitoller and Kozleski (2013) defined inclusive practice as a movement that emerged in response to systemic exclusion of students viewed as different (e.g., students with disabilities, ethnically and linguistically diverse students, and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds) from meaningful and equitable access and participation in education.
The United Nations (2020) recently published an article, “Universal, Inclusive Education ‘Non‐Negotiable’.” The article notes, “The core recommendation of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report is to understand that inclusive education means equal access for all learners, notwithstanding identity, background or ability.” According to UNICEF (2013) in the State of the World’s Children report, “Inclusive education entails providing meaningful learning opportunities to all students within the regular school system. It allows children with and without disabilities to attend the same age‐appropriate classes at the local school, with additional, individually tailored supports as needed” (p. 7).
Universal Design for Learning is a powerful framework to operationalize the right to education, supporting educators in maximizing desirable challenges and minimizing unnecessary difficulties (International Disability Alliance, 2021). UDL is a framework for designing learning experiences, so students have options for how they learn, what materials they use, and how they demonstrate their learning. When implemented with a lens of equity in a multi‐tiered system, the framework has the potential to eliminate opportunity gaps that exclude many learners, especially those who have been historically marginalized. If we want all students to have equal opportunities to learn, we have to be incredibly purposeful, proactive, and flexible (Novak, 2021). UDL creates a learning environment that is the least restrictive and most culturally responsive and trauma‐informed for all students.
The term “Universal Design” was coined by architect Ronald Mace in 1988 who defined it as the “design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design” (Center for Universal Design, 1997). Buildings where all people could not enter were deemed “architecturally disabling.”
In Mace's (1998) last public speech, he shared more about his philosophy on UD. He said:
Universal design broadly defines the user. It's a consumer market driven issue. Its focus is not specifically on people with disabilities, but all people. It actually assumes the idea, that everybody has a disability and I feel strongly that that's the case. We all become disabled as we age and lose ability, whether we want to admit it or not. It is negative in our society to say “I am disabled” or “I am old.” We tend to discount people who are less than what we popularly consider to be “normal.” To be “normal” is to be perfect, capable, competent, and independent. Unfortunately, designers in our society also mistakenly assume that everyone fits this definition of “normal.” This just is not the case.
UDL is based on research in cognitive neuroscience that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate learner variability. UDL is defined by Higher Education Opportunity Act (PL 110‐135) as “a scientifically valid framework for guiding educational practice that (a) provides flexibility in the ways information is presented, in the ways students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged; and (b) reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports, and challenges, and maintains high achievement expectations for all students, including students with disabilities.” Given that inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings is contingent on teachers' ability to use inclusive instructional strategies, wide‐scale commitment to UDL will be critical in creating multi‐tiered systems (Scott, 2018).
Before effectively implementing inclusive practice, we must embrace the concept of variability. As stated in UDL Theory and Practice, a book by two of the founders of UDL, “From one perspective, human brains are remarkably similar. But to neuroscientists, this similarity is an illusion” (Meyer, Rose, and Gordon, 2014, p. 29). All learners learn in ways that are unique to them. This is referred to as variability.
We want to caution that embracing student variability is not the same as designing instruction based on learning styles. An article in the Atlantic, “The Myth of Learning Styles,” shares the pervasiveness of the learning styles myth (Khazan, 2018). More than 90% of educators in various countries believe in their presence and use them to design instruction. But spoiler alert—there is no such thing. This is not to say that we do not have a unique mix of strengths and weaknesses, cognitive variability, multiple intelligences, or preferred learning approaches. But our brains are not wired for a single “style” of learning.
If someone says, “I am a visual learner,” or “I need to hear it, to learn it,” this idea stemmed from the theory of learning styles. There is just one problem: the theory is not grounded in science. Multiple studies have proven that learning “styles” are no more than learning “preferences” and that a preference doesn't lead to better learning outcomes (Nancekivell, Shah, and Gelman, 2019).
If we cater to a student's “learning style” by giving the “visual learner” more visual information and more aural information to the “auditory learner” or more movement to the “kinetic learner,” we will shortchange their learning process. This does not mean we can't embrace multiple forms of intelligence and provide numerous scaffolds and supports. We should provide visual, auditory, linguistic, conceptual, and sociocultural scaffolds, but not because of learning styles—because of variability.
In UDL Now! A Teacher's Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning, third edition (Novak, 2022), variability is unpacked in terms of interpersonal variability and intrapersonal variability. Certainly, as educators, we know that our learners are very different from each other. This is interpersonal variability. There are still models where “struggling readers” are placed in a different classroom than “advanced readers” because the student needs are different, but this doesn't embrace intrapersonal variability. For example, we may be in an “advanced” reader group. It is likely that our group will not receive options to listen to the audio version of the text or access sentence stems because we “do not need them.” But what about days when we are exhausted and having a terrible day, or when we forget to wear our glasses, or when the most responsible thing we could do for our mental health is to take a more accessible pathway to find balance? Instructional groups, when they are used for placement, do not embrace intrapersonal variability. Our needs are always changing.
The lack of appreciation of learner variability, especially intrapersonal variability, causes many learning environments to be restrictive and disabling to students. According to Liz Hartmann, an adjunct lecturer on education at Harvard University and an expert in UDL (2015), “When teachers embrace the conceptual shift of the UDL framework and learner variability, they understand that severe disabilities are part of the natural diversity that is to be expected and embraced in classrooms” (p. 58). When this shift occurs, educators are much more likely to provide the options and choices necessary for students with disabilities to thrive in inclusive classrooms.
Once educators embrace variability, inclusion, and the promise of UDL, they adhere to three principles when planning learning experiences: provide multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression. Considering these principles removes the barriers that make curriculum and instruction “disabling” to learners, especially students with disabilities (Meyer, Rose, and Gordon, 2014):
The three principles of UDL support educators in creating multiple pathways for students to learn and express what they know while empowering students to make choices about their learning. Although this framework does allow students with disabilities to thrive in their classrooms, it also increases the engagement and achievement of all students (Scott, 2018). Understanding the three principles is the foundation for building learning experiences that work for all students and make effective inclusion possible. The three principles of UDL support educators in providing options and choices so students have pathways for how they engage with learning, learn, and share what they know.
The UDL principles are further broken down into the UDL Guidelines (CAST, 2018), a collection of evidence‐based strategies that embrace variability and support expert learning that are continually evolving. As of the publication of this book, CAST's website notes, “Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative. This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes.”
UDL Now! (Novak, 2022) reminds readers, “Know that regardless of the language of the current or future Guidelines, they are just that—guidelines. They are not prescriptive and “one‐size‐fits‐all. Think of the guidelines as a Swiss Army Tool that can be used in many ways.” Because UDL and its core principles have evolved with education, it has grown to impact every major education initiative today.
UDL is sometimes confused with differentiated instruction, a complementary but different framework. Whereas UDL is about proactively designing flexible learning environments where students can make choices to self‐differentiate their learning, differentiated instruction is an approach where teachers modify curricula, methods, materials, and assessments to address the diverse needs of individual students and small groups of students (Tomlinson et al., 2003).
Given this discussion, the differences may not be obvious. Table 3.1 identifies what makes each of the frameworks unique.
Table 3.1 Components of UDL and differentiated instruction.
UDL | Differentiated Instruction |
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Source: Adapted from Choudhury (2021).
The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD, 2021) published a research brief that examines evidence‐based approaches to accelerating learning. This brief discusses the importance of UDL and robust multi‐tiered systems. They advise:
The connections to UDL are explicit, but there are also areas where differentiated instruction (DI) is necessary, specifically when noting that some students need “additional time to integrate necessary prerequisite skills” and using “small group instruction.” In inclusive classrooms, teachers use feedback from formative assessments to create groups of students. After reviewing the results of universally designed assessments, you will often find there are three categories of students (McGlynn and Kelly, 2017):
In a universally designed classroom, students access firm goals and flexible means but their outcomes are not the same. To accelerate learning, teachers need to create small groups of students based on data to provide additional instruction or support. This is where differentiated instruction comes in.
These frameworks complement each other in a multi‐tiered system, but first, best instruction should be designed using the principles of UDL. When evidence suggests that students need additional support, intervention, or enrichment, teachers can differentiate instruction to supplement, not supplant, universally designed learning experiences.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is often thought of as simply providing choice, as a lesson planning template, or as a framework for curriculum design, but it is much more comprehensive. It is the expression of a belief that all students are capable of learning. When crafted and implemented with this belief, instruction can help all students succeed in inclusive and equitable learning environments. In UDL Now! (Novak, 2022), UDL is described in terms of beliefs, skill sets, and systems:
We have had many leaders and educators ask us for UDL‐driven resources focused on what an educator must possess to successfully engage in UDL for students. To look at this another way, what capacities does an educator need to have/be able to do to remove barriers to learning when designing Tier 1 instruction that is inclusive and equitable? Table 3.2 identifies skills necessary to universally design instruction. Consider using Table 3.2 in one of the following ways:
Table 3.2 Skill set of a UDL practitioner.
Predictable Barrier | Skills |
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Students may not be interested in content or may not know why content is important. |
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Students may lack motivation to continue to persist when there is a significant challenge. |
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Students may struggle with self‐regulation and expected behaviors. |
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Students may not be able to comprehend instruction if only a single modality is used (overreliance on lecture, or text, for example). |
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Students may struggle to comprehend the language or symbols used in the learning environment. |
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Students may struggle to express what they know if given a single modality without adequate scaffolding. |
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UDL can also offer a framework for viewing and calibrating inclusive instruction to help increase teacher efficacy. Building teacher efficacy is the practice of building “teachers' confidence in their ability to promote students' learning” (Hoy, 2000). The team at Novak Educational Consulting (2022) created a UDL look‐for document to help teams calibrate their understanding of UDL (see Table A.1 in Appendix A). This tool can be used by teachers, instructional coaches, and evaluators to observe and set goals for more universally designed learning opportunities in the classroom. The tool was designed with a focus on instructional coaching, and instructional coaching questions, because of its documented impact on teacher efficacy. Research is clear that instructional coaching can significantly impact teacher efficacy when the following elements are in place (Javius, 2020):
The book Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL (Chardin and Novak, 2020) demonstrates the need for deeper learning experiences aligned with UDL. Not only do students need access to classrooms that are engaging and universally designed, but they need those classrooms to celebrate their identity. The section “Where to Begin? Reflecting on Ourselves, Our Students, and Our Systems” notes, “Education today should be designed to elevate and celebrate the voices of students. A focus on teaching advocacy and channeling student passions in our classrooms needs to replace our focus on depositing knowledge to students sitting passively in rows” (p. 6). This is a call for deeper learning experiences for all students.
The Learning Policy Institute defines deeper learning as “teaching and learning practices that enable students to learn core academic content in ways that apply their knowledge to relevant problems” (Hernández and Darling‐Hammond, 2019, p. 3). Deeper learning approaches help students think critically and solve meaningful, complex problems using mathematical, scientific, and creative reasoning.
Deeper learning experiences require collaboration, effective communication, and self‐directed inquiry, enabling students to “learn how to learn” and develop academic mindsets that increase perseverance and productive learning behaviors (Roc, Ross, and Hernández, 2019). When classrooms are designed with UDL and deeper learning, all students can demonstrate mastery, identity, and creativity, defined below (Mehta and Fine, 2019).
The book In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School (Mehta and Fine, 2019) offers the following explanation of the three virtues:
In the spaces that teachers, students, and our own observations identified as the most compelling, students had opportunities to develop knowledge and skill (mastery), they came to see their core selves as vitally connected to what they were learning and doing (identity), and they had opportunities to enact their learning by producing something rather than simply receiving and knowledge (creativity). Often these spaces or classrooms were governed by a logic of apprenticeship; students had opportunities to make things under the supervision of faculty and older students who would model the creative steps involved, provide examples of high‐quality work, and offer precise feedback (p. 7).
Incorporating deeper learning into your MTSS work is critical to ensure that all students have access to enriched environments where they are challenged and stimulated, and higher‐order thinking and performance are expected (Noguera, 2017). Deeper learning draws directly from research on culturally responsive pedagogy, which ensures that diverse students engage in academically rigorous curriculum and learning, feel affirmed in their identities and experiences, and develop the knowledge and skills to engage the world and others critically (Escudero, 2019). Gloria Ladson‐Billings (1995) proposed three main components of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: a focus on student learning and academic success, developing each student's cultural competence to assist students in developing positive ethnic and social identities, and supporting students' ability to recognize and critique societal inequalities. All three components must be utilized to lead students to academic achievement, cultural competence, and sociopolitical awareness. It is critical to ensure that all students have access to culturally sustaining pedagogy, a theoretical stance proposed by Django Paris (2012) that “seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling” (p. 93).
The integration of this research and the focus on mastery, identity, and creativity in the definition of deeper learning is based on a deep belief that all students can engage in authentic, meaningful, and rigorous learning experiences with their peers. We want to design systems that consider student safety, foster belonging, and support agency (Riley, 2018).
We want to ensure that each student's physical and psychological safety is central to the design of our systems and environments. Here, not only are students' physical safety needs being met, but they feel safe to make mistakes in our classrooms or come to an adult when they need emotional support. When it comes to belonging, we want to make sure that all students feel that they are valued members of our learning community. We also want to promote agency so all students, regardless of identity, feel empowered to play an active role in their learning.
The Kaleidoscope Collective for Learning, a project of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), provides tools and protocols to support the development of deeper learning experiences. The Collective defines deeper learning tasks as tasks that have a clear purpose, provide students with diverse perspectives, and require students to create meaningful products. The Collective's definitions of purpose, perspectives, and products, shared below, are particularly insightful, aiding educators in evaluating the efficacy and potential for deeper learning in any given learning experience. The application of these definitions serves as a benchmark for assessing a task's potential for comprehensive and meaningful learning. (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2023b).
As with all evidence‐based instructional practices, it is critical to create a multiyear strategy to close the research‐to‐implementation gap. Just as UDL requires shifts in beliefs, skills, and systems, so does a transition from more traditional models of instruction to deeper learning and traditional assessments to deeper learning tasks. In a report from the Learning Policy Institute, “Deeper Learning Networks: Taking Student‐Centered Learning and Equity to Scale” (Hernández and Darling‐Hammond, 2019), researchers share four key insights that can inform districts and schools seeking to expand access to deeper learning and equity in a wide range of settings. As you reflect on the implications summarized here, note the relationship to implementation science, improvement science, and what you have learned about MTSS (p. 8):
To ensure that all students have access to UDL and deeper learning, we have to organize our schools and districts for success. In addition to providing teachers with professional learning to transform Tier 1 instruction, we have to integrate multiple components into a “comprehensive package of school supports comprising school leadership, parent‐community tiers, and a student‐centered learning climate” (Bryk et al., 2010). The recognition that we need a systems lens to ensure all students have access to inclusive, equitable, authentic deeper learning experiences is why you are reading this book. We are called to create systems and structures so we can guarantee that every child in our district has opportunities to learn at high levels with their peers while engaging in a meaningful and rigorous learning environment. Understanding more about inclusive practice, UDL, and deeper learning can help you to craft a vision for the work ahead to drive your strategy moving forward. As you prepare to craft that vision, take a moment to pause and reflect on the following prompts that will help you to brainstorm a vision for the students you serve that incorporates inclusive practice, UDL and deeper learning.
The purpose of MTSS is to ensure that all students have equitable access to Tier 1 classrooms that meet their needs academically, behaviorally, socially, and emotionally. Equitable MTSS requires significant shifts in mindsets, skill sets, and how our systems and structures are designed. When leaders are immersed in strategic work to create more comprehensive multi‐tiered systems, they have to demystify what it means to have inclusionary practices and inclusionary placements and share the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and deeper learning as core frameworks in inclusive classrooms.