2019 UDL-IRN International Summit

This breakout session would illustrate the challenges and opportunities faced by the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) in its work to provide training and technical assistance to 80 school districts and 350+ charter schools, all serving over 1.5 million school children. Dr. James McKenna, founder of LACOE’s Inclusive Design unit, will explore the challenges of workplace learning, the variability of adult learners, and the design constraints imposed by cost, geography, and capacity. These challenges are being met with universally designed solutions which will be reviewed both as quick-start strategies for participants to apply as well as LACOE’s current models which can serve as worked examples. We at LACOE are still, in the words of Novak and Rodriguez, progressing towards expert practice, and we invite others to see what we’ve done, provide feedback and insight, and even join us as learning partners.

Learn from a school team who is going through the initial phases of UDL implementation. Understand the initial planning for implementation, the process followed, and how on-going data collection with a focus on continual improvement is supporting their journey. The panel will discuss how this public elementary school partnered with a team from the University of Kansas to engage in UDL implementation. Resources and lessons learned will be shared.

Chardon School District, in Northeast Ohio, began their UDL implementation journey with a conversation in Fall of 2017. That seed has germinated into a multi-year plan to implement UDL district wide. Beginning with the identification of a core team of teachers, led by a passionate building level administrator, and supported by central office as well as a regional consultant, the district has mapped out two years of professional learning, practice and supports for staff as they begin their personal and professional journey of understanding and implementing Universal Design for Learning in the classroom.

Is Universal Design for Learning in your future? The principal and teachers of A. I. Du Pont Middle School in Wilmington, Delaware, along with the ACCESS Project of the University of Delaware, are on their second year of UDL implementation. In this breakout session, teachers, principal, and ACCESS Project team members will share the process of implementing UDL school-wide by sharing accomplishments and barriers along the way, and how their vision for the middle school has transformed the school. Participants will participate in question and answer break-out sessions with the teachers, principal and ACCESS Project team, as well as have time to plan for a future filled with UDL.

https://padlet.com/accessproject/cum7qr35ervv