CAST: About UDL

In my last blog post, I introduced you to the concept and principles of UDL. In this blog post, I am going to explain to you why it is necessary to include UDL in your daily lesson plans. As many educators have been in the field for numerous years, they may not find it in their best interest to change their lesson plans to meet the UDL format. However, in this blog post, I hope to convince all the veteran educators and pre-educators that it is extremely necessary and beneficial to make all of your lesson plan fit the UDL format.

From reading the CAST website, I learned that Neuroscience comes into play when we think about the various needs, skills and interests of the learners in our classroom. 

There are three primary brain networks that come into play:

• Recognition Networks: "How we gather facts and categorize what we see, hear, and read"(CAST).
• Strategic Networks: "How we organize and express our ideas"(CAST).
• Affective Network: "How learners get engaged and stay motivated" (CAST).



Recognition Networks



Strategic Networks

Affective Networks

I think it's great that the UDL principles are connected to the primary brain networks, since that's what students use to think! 

The CAST website even provides educators with additional things they can do in their classroom to benefit each network! Some of the suggestions I liked were:

• Recognition Networks: For auditory learners a teacher could "Provide written transcripts for videos or auditory clips" (CAST).
• Strategic Networks: Teachers can have the students "Use physical manipulatives (e.g., blocks, 3D models, base-ten blocks)"(CAST).
• Affective Networks: Teachers can provide the students with multiple tools for composition, like providing the student's with "sentence starters or sentence strips"(CAST).
   

For more ideas visit the CAST website! 

CAST: About UDL. (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.cast.org/udl/index.html