Examining hurdles in the strategic implementation of Universal Design for Learning in schools

1. Examining hurdles in the strategic
implementation of Universal Design for
Learning in schools
Hawaii International Conference on Education – Waikiki, January 2020
Frederic Fovet, School of Education and Technology
Royal Roads University, BC, Canada

2. Objectives
• The session encourages participants to:
• go beyond initial curiosity about UDL
• brainstorm as to how institutional ‘scaling up’ of initial projects and
efforts may be difficult and require school leaders to develop new and
challenging skills
• Examine solutions that would work in their institutional context
• Encourage scholars in the field of UDL to develop literature in relation
to strategic implementation

3. Quick personal intro
• My professional trajectory here is relevant to my presentation, and
will explain my interest in this topic/ research question.
• Research and practice in Social, Emotional and Behavioural
Difficulties (SEBD) in the K-12 field (including 7 years as principal
of a school).
• Over the period of my PhD I took on the position of Director of the
Office for Disabilities at McGill.
• Since end of 2015, returned to teaching as a faculty member in
Education.
• Also a UDL consultant in both K-12 and Higher Ed sectors

4. Context – The Why?
• In North America, we now encounter a lot of UDL initiatives and practitioner-led
projects
• BUT
• We encounter few sustainable, school-wide, strategic implementation efforts (Capp,
2017).
• WHY?
• Scaling up may be more difficult than we think
• Involves eco-systemic pressures and hurdles that are specific to each institution
• Requires teachers to reflect on and develop certain leadership skills

5. Context: What is UDL?
• Universal Design for Learning is a sustainable, environment
focused framework to manage learner diversity in the classroom,
which shifts the focus away from the deficit model by bringing to
the forefront the notion of user-friendly design (instruction and
assessment). It translates the Social Model of Disability into
classroom practices (Fovet, 2014).
• How does it do that? By offering to the instructor three
dimensions within which to reflect on how best eliminate barriers
and widen access: multiple means of representation, multiple
means of action and expression, and multiple mean of
engagement.

6. What is the Social Model of Disability
• The social model of disability argues that Disability is not an
inherent feature of a person, but instead is situated in the
interaction between a person’s embodiment and the
expectations of the environment.
• This interpretation of Disability is very powerful as it shifts the
focus away from any deficit view of the individual and instead
examines what barriers are created in the environment.
• Proactive action then becomes possible in the form of inclusive
design that erodes or eliminates these barriers.

7. Interactive interlude
• I thought it might be useful to gauge the room a little before I begin.
• By show of hands/ object raised or waved, how many of you have
encountered schools where:
(a) The institution was receptive to UDL?
(b) The institution had a strategic plan in place when it comes to UDL?
(c) The institution had thought and discussed ‘ownership’ (i.e. which units,
individuals or position will take on the responsibility of promoting UDL)?
(d) The institution had clarity when it came to UDL and the future?

8. What does the literature tell us?
• An abundance of literature on the conceptual benefits of UDL (Gargiulo & Metcalf,
2013; Al-Azawei, Serenelli & Lundqvist, 2016; Capp, 2017)
• A lot less literature that evidences on-terrain implementation (Capp, 2017)
• Some emerging evidence from communities of practice (Retna, 2016; Cook & Rao,
2018)
• Little to no literature around strategy and leadership in UDL implementation
(Anstead, 2016)
• Some emerging literature around the same topic in Higher Ed (Lombardi & Murray,
2011; Lombardi & Lalor, 2017) but not clear any of it is transferable to the K-12
sector
•

9. Methodological Approach
• Qualitative analysis of the phenomenological constructs of teachers who have
triggered UDL initiatives and are now navigating schools and districts wide
expansion of these projects.
• Semi-directive interviews with 10 teachers who have been involved in UDL
work for over a year.
• Codification of this data using categories extracted from the literature
(Leadership for Inclusion, Organizational Psychology, Management)

10. What are some of the challenges
encountered?
• Lack of sustainable planning
• Energy and momentum are high at first but quick eroded with time
• Phenomenon of professional exhaustion for the individuals in question
• There is confusion as to who leads the scaling up of UDL efforts
• There is an assumption all settings are similar and solutions are transferable without context
analysis – quick realization this is not the case
• Perception that there are many ‘false starts’; these false starts give ammunitions to staff who
may be demonstrating factors of resistance to change (philosophical and psychological
factors)
• Structural confusion
• There is territoriality that gets in the way between ‘champions’
• The UDL agenda gets associated with a person (persons) and other stakeholders allow their
perception of this (these) individual(s) to taint their views on UDL
• UDL advocates clash with differentiation advocates, or other clans form within the Inclusion
camp (many medical model professionals see their position threatened by the notion of
universal accessibility)
• Unions not consulted and opposed on principle

11. What are some of the challenges
encountered?
• Branding issues
• UDL is seen as yet another reform ‘out of the box’ – gets written off as a passing trend
• In Canada there is at times a rejection of UDL as being an American framework that does not
reflect the national landscape
• UDL is seen as a commercialized movement and creates wariness in public schools
• Decision making related to resources
• Insufficient funds available.
• Inadequate consideration is given to partial release of teachers to carry out redesign of
instruction
• Inherent contradiction in the funding model: funding for schools is still dependent on medical
model practices (diagnostic documentation)
• Poor management of change
• Few lucid attempts to make school staff comfortable with a transition in funding models
(management of change issues)
• Leadership often confused as to rationale and leaning back to medical model because of
funding

12. Why are current ‘whole school’ implementation
frameworks disappointing?
• They over-focus on ‘selling’ UDL as a model and as philosophical content
• Institutional push back often has little to do with the actual merits of UDL as
an inclusion mechanism
• Resistance emerges from the process of organizational change itself
• As long as we keep misunderstanding this, we are putting forward
interventions that will inherently remain unsuccessful.
• Not about the ‘why’ of change; it’s about the ‘how’

13. A possible solution: Using an ecological model to
examine scaling up efforts around UDL projects
• When we examine the UDL process in the classroom, we talk about ‘barrier
analysis’ within the environment
• Need to apply a similar lens when examining wide scale, systemic
implementation in complex environments.
• An ‘ecological analysis’ is essential and will be the only way to guarantee
success (Leech, Wiensczyk & Turner, 2009; Leonard, 2011)
• This is (sadly) not transferable from institution to institution as the variables
at play internally vary.
• This should happen before a blueprint for implementation is even devised
• ‘One size does not fit all’ when it comes to delivery in the classroom –
similarly ‘one size does not fit all’ when we consider UDL implementation
across an institution.

14. Introducing the notion of using ecological theory to
navigate institutional management of change

15. What an ecological pre-UDL implementation
‘mapping’ might look like.
Stakeholder
accepting
responsibility
Multiple
competing
stakeholders
Institutional
culture and
history
Size and
resources
Administrative/
strategic
planning
Relationship with natural
collaborators: students,
parents, etc.External variables
affecting all parts
of the organization
Interpersonal
relationships of key
advocates with
other professionals
Existing network
with other UDL
Communities

16. How is ecological theory helpful?
• Institutions avoid the trap of deploying resources and then experiencing a fail/ false
start
• Institutions avoid unnecessary costs (incurred while finding one’s way through errors
and false starts)
• Momentum is more quickly achieved, which in itself reassures divergent voices and
wins over people who are ambivalent
• Organizations avoid the trap of looking for the magical, preexisting blue print
• Organizations develop a blue print that is their own and addresses their specific
reality
• UDL is not then perceived as ‘another trend’ ‘just out of the box’
• Advocates do not burn out in the ‘plateau phase’

17. The pressing need for literature on strategic
institutional development in the field of UDL
• We will need to import resources and frameworks from other
fields
• Issue at this stage is not about introducing UDL or explaining its
worth.
• The challenge is management of change
• Other fields (Management, Industrial Relations, Psychology, etc.)
will provide us rich lessons and speed up the process of
developing a strategic expertise around UDL implementation.

18. Questions
• We will have time for a few questions from the audience

19. Core Take-away Message
• Scaling up initial UDL efforts to a school-wide dimension is difficult.
• It requires another form of thinking and specific leadership capacity
• Are school leaders developing this skill set?
• Do they have a body of literature from which to learn?
• What is our role as academics in remedying this lack of scholarship?

20. Resources
• Al-Azawei, A., Serenelli, F., & Lundqvist, K. (2016). Universal design for learning (UDL): A content analysis of peer-reviewed journal papers from
2012 to 2015. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(3), 39-56
• Anstead, M.E. (2016) Teachers Perceptions of Barriers to Universal Design for Learning. PhD.Thesis, College of Education, Waldern Univerity.
Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3002&context=dissertations
• Capp, M.J. (2017) The effectiveness of universal design for learning: a meta-analysis of literature between 2013 and 2016. International Journal
of Inclusive Education, 21(8), 791-807
• Comfort, A., & North, R. (2014) Full Speed Ahead: Developing a UDL Road Map for your Campus. Paper presented at The UDL Symposium,
University of New Brunswick, November.
• Cook, S. C., & Rao, K. (2018). Systematically Applying UDL to Effective Practices for Students With Learning Disabilities. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 41(3), 179–191.
• Fovet, F. (2014) Social model as catalyst for innovation in design and pedagogical change. Widening Participation through Curriculum Open
University 2014 Conference Proceedings, 135-139
• Gargiulo, R. M., & Metcalf, D. (2013) Teaching in Today’s Inclusive Classrooms: A Universal Design for Learning Approach. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning
• Leech, S., Wiensczyk, A., & Turner, J. (2009) Ecosystem management: A practitioners’ guide. BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management, 10(2),
1–12. Retrieved from: http://forrex.org/sites/default/files/publications/jem_archive/ISS51/vol10_no2_art1.pdf
• Leonard, J. (2011). Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory to understand community partnerships: A historical case study of one urban high
school. Urban Education, 46 (5), 987-1010. Retrieved from:
http://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=education_faculty_pubs
• Lombardi, A. R., & Lalor, A. R. (2017). Faculty and administrator knowledge and attitudes regarding disability. In E. Kim & K. C. Aquino (Eds.),
Disability as diversity in higher education (pp. 107–121). New York, NY: Routledge
• Lombardi, A. R., & Murray, C. (2011). Measuring university faculty attitudes toward disability: Willingness to accommodate and adopt Universal
Design principles. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 34(1), 43–56.
• Retna, K. (2016) Thinking about “design thinking”: a study of teacher experiences. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 36 (sup1), 5-19

21. Contact details
• Dr. Frederic Fovet, Associate Professor and Program Head for
MAELM
• School of Education and Technology, Royal Roads University
• Frederic.fovet@royalroads.ca
• implementudl@gmail.com
• www.implementudl.com
• @Ffovet