Universal Design for Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom

Teaching Children of all Languages, Cultures, and Abilities, Birth – 8 Years

Pamela Brillante, Karen Nemeth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000570854
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación infantil

Universal Design for Learning in the Early Childhood Classroom, Second Edition focuses on proactively designing PreK through Grade 3 classroom instruction, environments, and assessments that are flexible enough to ensure that teachers can accommodate the needs of all the students in their classrooms. Featuring updated language and examples to elevate discussions about inclusion and access along with a stronger anti-bias focus, this second edition includes new content on trauma-informed practice, strength-based approaches, social-emotional learning, family partnerships, and using remote and virtual technology. Highly practical and easy to use, this book remains THE essential guide to UDL in the early years.

1 Welcome to This Book and How to Use It

DOI: 10.4324/9781003148432-1

Schools Are Changing – What Does That Mean to a Teacher?

The field of early childhood education is changing in extraordinary ways. Expectations of teachers are expanding. Academic practices that were part of first grade are now appearing in kindergarten or even preschool. Parents are more engaged. Outcomes and accountability are top priorities for district administrators and state governments.

Student populations are becoming more diverse, and programs are becoming more inclusive. General education teachers have become responsible for the educational progress of all children in the classroom, including children who may not speak the same language as the teacher and the other students in the class, and children who have identified disabilities or may have learning disabilities that the teacher uncovers.

Learning is a complex concept, and all children learn at different paces and in different ways. This makes how we provide instruction and how we assess what students know and can do a complicated undertaking. Focusing on developmentally appropriate practice (DAP), and remaining both flexible and observant is key. According to the position statement on DAP by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 2020), the underlying element of DAP is intentionality. Teachers proactively and intentionally make decisions about environments, materials, and instruction that are flexible enough to be both challenging and achievable for every student. This strength-based approach recognizes the uniqueness of each individual child and helps to overcome institutional and personal biases in education.

Successful early childhood teachers approach their work with openness and flexibility. They realize that a “one-size-fits-all” mindset won’t help them work effectively with the diverse students they encounter. Every child needs access to a developmentally appropriate early childhood education that meets their individual needs and helps them to participate and make progress toward the standards (Brillante, 2017). This is a high expectation, and now both teachers and administrators must know more and do more to support and integrate programs from PreK to third grade and beyond. State education departments, such as Maryland and New Jersey, are reflecting this high expectation by recommending Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in their regulations.

The purpose of this book is to help readers find the most effective and most achievable path to success in early childhood education in the face of all this change. You will learn about the overarching concepts of Universal Design and how to use the framework of Universal Design for Learning within the DAP approach, towards the goal of meeting the needs of all young children in the early childhood classroom.

The advantage of the universally designed approach is that it shifts the focus away from reacting to problems by making adaptations. It focuses more on proactively designing the classroom to make sure all students will be able to get what they need right from the start. Universally designed strategies do not interfere with typical children in any way. So, for example, an older school may be built so the only way to get into the front of the building is stairs. A child who uses a wheelchair needs a ramp to be able to get into the building– but, if we stop to think about it, every child can use a ramp to get into the building! In fact, a recent review of research found that “Implementing UDL in education is a promising solution to minimize learning barriers” (Al-Azawei, Serenelli, & Lundqvist, 2016, p. 51). With UDL strategies, educators can make it possible for each child to be the best they can be.

1. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that helps all teachers in all classrooms adapt to meet the needs of each individual child. While the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) has started a great movement to use this approach for children with disabilities, we are expanding the framework to work with young children with varying needs.
2. Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is an approach that focuses on supporting the learning of each individual young child according to their interests and level of development. Materials from the NAEYC list the three key considerations of DAP as knowing about child development and learning, knowing what is individually appropriate, and knowing what is culturally appropriate. In collaboration with the Council for Exceptional Children Division for Early Childhood, NAEYC made this key recommendation regarding early childhood curriculum: “To benefit all children, including those with disabilities and developmental delays, it is important to implement an integrated, developmentally appropriate, universally designed curriculum framework that is flexible, comprehensive, and linked to assessment and program evaluation activities” (Division for Early Childhood [DEC], 2007, p. 3).
3. DECAL is a guide for preparing all teachers to meet the needs of children with different experiences, cultures, abilities, and languages to focus professional learning and preparation (Nemeth, Brillante, & Mullen, 2017):
   • Experiences (family income, home literacy practices, stress and trauma, safe environments, health and physical development supports, early care and education, etc.)
   • Cultures (family, community, home country, traditions)
   • Abilities (gifted, individual learning strengths/abilities/potentials, identified or potential disabilities, mental health issues)
   • Languages (frequently occurring or rare languages, multiple languages).

Together, these three components fit perfectly to create the most advanced approach to early childhood education for the diverse, inclusive classrooms of today. We know teachers face many challenges in this complex world, so our goal is to weave together the elements of that complexity and provide simple, practical strategies that can be used in any program, with any curriculum, to achieve success for all young children. We will be breaking down the boundaries between different specialties. Teachers don’t need to be experts in all categories of education, but they can be very effective if they know how to combine the best strategies from each category. This is what you will find in this book.

Figure 1.1 Component Crosswalk for Universal Design for Learning in Early Childhood Education

What Teachers Need to Know and Be Able to Do in Schools of the Future

The updated chapters of this book will help readers to provide the kind of flexible, responsive, and rigorous educational experience at school, online, or at home that every child needs to succeed. To create your learning goals for reading this book, check off the items that you want to learn more about. To succeed in diverse early childhood education, every teacher will need to know

• how first and second languages develop
• how the brain of a young child learns, processes information, and manages emotions and behavior
• evidence of what works to facilitate communication across potential barriers
• best practices for scaffolding early learning
• principles of developmentally, linguistically, and culturally appropriate assessments
• how culture impacts learning
• how to teach young children with varying needs, including:
  • Children with disabilities or children with individual abilities (not “special needs”)
  • Children who are dual language or multilingual learners (instead of English language learners, EALs, or ELLs)
  • Children from low-income, high-stress, or unstable housing experiences (rather than “poor children” or “high-risk children”)
  • Children with individual cultural backgrounds (rather than Asians or Hispanics).

And teachers will need to be able to

• conduct and record accurate, objective observations
• conduct and interpret appropriate screening and assessments
• adapt communication strategies
• adapt lesson plans
• adapt teaching practices to respond to each child’s needs
• design classroom space to make learning accessible to all
• build relationships with diverse families
• find, create, and modify classroom materials to meet the needs of all students
• use technology in appropriate ways to make learning accessible and relatable for students of all languages, cultures, and abilities
• facilitate a sense of community so that each child experiences the feeling of belonging.

Can one teacher do all these things? Yes! The UDL framework will help. The UDL framework has three key principles: supporting multiple means of representation, employing multiple means of action and expression to teach, and connecting children and families using multiple means of engagement. When you read a professional development article or book, your first question may be, “What does this mean to me as a teacher?” Each chapter of this book will begin with an answer to that question according to those UDL principles.

New in This Edition – Emergency Remote Learning and DECAL

The idea that schools are changing took on a new meaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools changed in ways we never imagined. Despite the newness of the concept, this second edition of this book will address some of the ways teachers can understand and prepare for educating young children during novel and emergency remote learning situations. With the UDL point of view, adaptations and methods can be developed to include all children.

The terms “virtual learning,” “online learning,” and “remote learning” may have been used interchangeably due to the ongoing quarantine requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020, but they describe different options and situations that can be used by schools. Now that educators and leaders have observed, tried, and adjusted the available options, there is more information available to guide implementation that supports each child and family.

Virtual/online learning are very similar models. This mode of instruction has been around for many years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many states offered virtual/online schools or school districts as the answer to complex issues faced by students and schools. Rural and remote schools who faced issues finding enough fully certified teachers, specifically specialty area teachers at the secondary level, had started to use virtual/online learning options to solve this problem. Schools also used virtual/online learning options to offer credit recovery courses, as well as advanced classes for small populations of students. Virtual/online learning is always intentionally pre-planned and primarily used by students who were older and more independent learners who had access to the same instructional quality and rigor in their virtual school as would have been provided in a traditional classroom setting, including, in many cases, daily live virtual interaction with the student’s teacher.

Emergency remote learning is different from virtual learning. Remote learning is not pre-planned and usually occurs when students and teachers cannot be physically present in a traditional learning environment during an emergency. With a remote learning model students receive instruction while at home through a variety or combination of activities. The classroom teacher designs the instruction and assesses the students. There may or may not be live virtual interaction with the teacher due to the nature of the emergency (hurricane, power outages, floods) and the availability of internet access. This second edition will address using the UDL/DECAL Framework in emergency remote learning situations.

Blended remote learning combines some aspects of virtual learning (daily live virtual interaction with the student’s teacher) in an emergency remote learning situation, usually weeks into the remote learning situation when it is expected to last an extended amount of time (COVID-19 pandemic).

One thing that is clear is access to technology is critical to the successful implementation of remote and virtual learning. This includes internet access, computers and other devices, and the support needed by young children to use them effectively. Supporting equity through access will be an important thread throughout this new edition.

Example

When Miss Laki was first assigned to teach a class of multilingual kindergarten children remotely, she arranged an individual chat with each child’s family to offer language and technology support. She made quick videos show...