When a goal is clear, our strategic networks can devise many different ways to reach it. For teachers, clear goals are the foundation for individualizing teaching. Goals specifying which aspects of instruction and assessment are central (and therefore, must be held constant) and which aspects are not central (and therefore, can be varied). Goals help students understand the true purpose of their efforts and what they need to do to make progress.
A common problem with current standards is that they are often stated too explicitly or confounded with the medium of presentation or expression-most often printed text. Broader, richer goals, such as helping students learn to think like historians or scientists, leave avenues open for the use of flexible tools and media capable of accommodating diverse learners.
The UDL framework provides a structure for reviewing and reinterpreting standards' fundamental purpose and deriving appropriate goals for individual students. Considering the three brain networks can help determine whether a goal is focused on information (recognition networks), on process (strategic networks), or on significance for students (affective networks). Of course, all learning requires the whole brain, and goals do cross boundaries, but thinking broadly in this way helps us understand and refine our priorities, making learning goals clearer for teachers and students.
With the goal stated clearly and separated from the methods, teachers can use flexible media to individualize means, scaffolds, and performance criteria to suit individual students' recognition, strategic, and affective networks. This variability helps teachers to focus the challenge at the right level and on the right content or skill targeted by the goal, freeing students from the confines of inappropriate media and materials.
The next step in paving all students' path to high proficiency is to provide them with instruction that helps them achieve the goals. In the next chapter, we show how to use digital tools and materials-the heart of the UDL classroom-to individualize materials and methods.