Appreciating students' differences boosts classroom success, says school leader

Universal design for learning (UDL) starts with understanding all students are different and how that’s normal, as detailed in an eSchoolNews Q&A with Katie Novak, assistant superintendent of schools at the Groton-Dunstable (MA) Regional School District.However, UDL is not the same as differentiated instruction, which asks teachers to create lessons for specific needs within small groups of students — it instead tries to address all students’ needs with a program that covers as many pupils as possible at once, and that difference is something teachers need to know before implementing UDL.To work successfully within a UDL framework, however, Novak points out that educators need training and in-depth professional development so they can learn to amend how they teach as classes and students progress.The idea of creating lessons based on UDL is easily confused with differentiated instruction. Both take into account the idea that students learn in different ways, with different styles and different needs.