Of course, we know it's not possible to import a model wholesale from one context to another. The specific approaches used in Concord will not be appropriate in every school system. For one thing, the Concord Model took shape in the 1990s, and due to considerable technological advances since that time, some of the techniques used may no longer apply. In particular, greater availability of digital content and the ubiquitous presence of the Internet shift the nature of some specific UDL activities. Nevertheless, we have identified seven key components of Concord's UDL implementation (listed in Figure 8.1 and addressed in the subsections that follow) that, with adaptations, can help any school district begin the change process.
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- Figure 8.1 -
The Concord Model: Key Components of UDL Implementation |
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Donna Palley admits that she is fortunate to have a close collaborative relationship with the technology specialists in Concord. As she puts it, the two departments speak the same language: "UDL-ese!" Both view technology as essential for making curricula flexible. Both agree that consistent tools need to be widely available throughout the system and that computers need to function well. Further, they share a vision of a central library of digital curriculum materials; a collection of varied, flexible software tools for working with these materials; and ongoing, readily available teacher support.
Special education and technology personnel also recognize that without technology to support it, UDL is just an impracticable theory. As Palley notes, "I think that people can have great ideas but they won't succeed if they don't have a feeling that they can get access to the machines, to the software." It is an obvious point, but an essential one, worth stressing: Before teachers can transform UDL theory into practice, they need access to digital materials.
The simple act of digitizing materials builds a growing resource for overcoming many of the barriers inherent in printed curricula. This is a valuable first step toward UDL, and one that is increasingly available to educators. In the United States, the 1996 copyright additions (Section 121 of Title 17 of the United States Code) stipulate that educational institutions may transform otherwise proprietary materials into an accessible format for use by individuals with disabilities. This gives teachers new freedom to scan existing print materials into digital format to be used with supportive technologies.
Concord's scanning center, run jointly by volunteers and a part-time staff, is a vital resource in the district's technology infrastructure. As digital materials accumulate in Concord's digital library, and as teachers continue to access these materials on floppy disk and compact disc (and soon, via the district's Web site), the wealth of resources available to the district's students grows richer and richer.
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Example: Use of electronic tools and learning materials requires technological infrastructure, including support for teachers. Concord staff discuss these supports. |
The warm welcome increased technology has received in Concord classrooms is typical of the positive attitude toward technology we are seeing everywhere. In a CAST survey focusing on teachers' current and potential use of adaptive strategies in the classroom, a large percentage of respondents said they would use technological tools to individualize instruction if the tools were available.
Support from the school and district administration has been a critical factor in Concord's success. When a school's principal and the school board buy in to the concept of UDL, it sends a message to faculty and staff that this exploration is worthwhile. It is partly this support that makes UDL satisfying, makes teachers feel they're making a difference, and reassures them that both the time they invest and the risks they take by doing so have the backing of the "higher powers." We believe administrative buy-in is especially important at the middle and high school levels, where teachers have the additional pressure of ensuring students accumulate credits for graduation and pass the necessary high-stakes tests.
In Concord, Donna Palley maintains administrative support by offering UDL training and presentations for the school board, the curriculum steering committee, and the administration. One of the most beneficial outcomes of this administrative support has been the "release time model." As Palley explains it, "For a scheduled number of days each year, the district releases teachers from instructional duties to work on UDL and increase their experience with it. This way, teachers don't feel that they have to stay after school or cut into their personal time to work on UDL. Release time says to teachers that UDL is important." There are really two benefits to this policy. First, it gives teachers time, an important resource for actualizing UDL. Second, it signals to them that they should indeed make UDL a priority. In Concord, this dual support has made a huge difference.
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Example: A Concord administrator describes systemic implementation of UDL. |
Although support at the upper levels of the school system is vital to UDL's success, Palley uses it to sustain rather than initiate UDL. She avoids systemic ultimatums and instead relies on a grassroots approach. When it comes down to it, teachers and their students generate the impetus and energy for UDL.
How does this work? Palley starts with the teachers and curriculum planners. But she doesn't get them all together and present a philosophical argument for UDL; instead, she builds enthusiasm from within the classroom by approaching teachers in small groups, sharing her excitement about UDL, and showing them exactly how it can help them. And Palley's close work with teachers over the years has taught her never to present UDL as (another) "great new thing." Her approach is to work with teachers to understand their goals, offer support by identifying potential barriers to reaching those goals, and then collaborate with teachers to develop ways to overcome the barriers. The idea, she says, is not to drastically restructure the way teachers operate but simply to help them continue doing what they normally do while expanding their resources, options, and supports. Palley helps teachers see that UDL serves them, and more importantly, serves their students.
At the curriculum planning meetings Palley attends, she lets participants know that she would like to hear their plan, try to identify potential barriers for students, and devise ways to overcome these barriers using flexible technologies. She focuses on listening well, brainstorming solutions to identified barriers, and ultimately institutionalizing solutions that will really work. This last step, implementation, takes Palley back into classrooms to help teachers meld UDL into their own curricula. Teachers also have the option of attending ongoing mini-courses and workshops, which are planned at the beginning of each school year. With creative allocation of budget funds, Concord's teachers have release time for planning, collaborations, and curriculum development and so can drop in on numerous training opportunities that address real issues as they arise.
Teacher training in UDL does not have to be a large-scale undertaking. The Concord school system has found that a very effective approach has been to train a small group of teachers (typically special educators) to become UDL mentors. The mentors receive intensive training in UDL concepts and practical skills including digitizing text, images, and sound, and using digital cameras, Internet resources, and a variety of software tools. Once fully trained, each mentor takes on two untrained teachers for collaboration throughout the year. Palley finds that this approach is even more successful when she selects as mentors people who aren't known for their technological skill. Technology novices who develop expertise turn out to be very influential-better at convincing other teachers that they, too, can manage this new technology and new approach.
Part of the beauty of UDL, and a reason that teachers warm to it so quickly, is that it doesn't have to be a separate initiative. Rather, it can be applied to the other things teachers are working on. "My goal," Palley says, "is to get people to have UDL in their minds so that they will apply it regardless of the role they're in—in their teaching lives and in their paraprofessional lives."
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Example: Learn about Concord's approach to teacher training. |
Within traditional models of special education, which usually pull students from regular classrooms for remedial work, special education teachers can feel frustrated at their limited role and isolated from the school's larger educational purposes. Special educators might connect with the general education curriculum only to assist one or two students; this gives them little opportunity to support or affect that curriculum. Yet special educators are nevertheless expected to help students make progress in general education classes—even to help them complete specific assignments. This is particularly true for special educators working in high schools, where students and teachers face immense pressure to keep up with subject area content.
The new and expanded role for special education teachers is one of the most powerful changes UDL has brought to the Concord school system. UDL has formed the basis for a new collaborative effort between special and regular educators and technology specialists. Thanks to the excellent rapport Donna Palley has built between these once-insular groups (in part through the mentor-training program), they are now working together on a common agenda. A number of Concord's special education teachers and specialists (such as speech and language pathologists) have joined technology-planning committees and have become part-time technology specialists. Others are officially involved in curriculum design and curriculum planning, working both at the individual-unit level and at the whole-school level. "Our special educators now feel like they have a bigger toolbox," Palley says. "They can sit down one-to-one with a classroom teacher and have something to offer in the conversation about the content. Now they can be influential in the planning. The special educators have a new sense of involvement, and regular teachers are seeing the fruits of collaboration in a much more global way."
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Example: Teaching every student calls for changing teacher roles. Teachers who welcome these new opportunities discuss their new roles: Collaborating to Achieve UDL |
Although the idea of developing curriculum sounds potentially overwhelming and time-consuming, several aspects of the Concord Model make it feasible. First, the districtwide commitment to UDL has over time yielded an increasing array of resources to support innovative curriculum ideas. These include
The success of Concord's curriculum development efforts is also due in large part to the district's simple, pragmatic approach. Teachers start with a manageable unit, such as a single project or one segment of a textbook, and then ask the following critical questions:
Once these questions are answered, teachers work collaboratively with curriculum consultants to reconsider the goals, bring in new tools and supports (including digital materials), and individualize that unit for each learner in the class. And once teachers become familiar with the approach and the tools, it becomes easy to apply them to other content.
Concord has found that as more teachers experiment with UDL tools and ideas, the enthusiasm grows and others join in. Gradually, the community has built up a wealth of collective knowledge. Some departments are now planning the whole year by bringing together regular educators, special educators, and technology specialists to review the goals of the entire curriculum. Rather than work from individual students to the curriculum, they work from the curriculum to all students, using their accumulated experience to identify all potential barriers that might occur given the normal diversity of a given class or grade. In Concord, as elsewhere, ideas that make sense are a welcome addition to the curriculum.
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Example: Educators talk about incorporating UDL into curriculum planning. |
All educators know that if you want to make an initiative happen, it's a good idea to get parents involved. In Concord, the parents' role is at least twofold. First, as volunteers, they extend the district's capacity to implement UDL. Many parents in the Concord school district contribute by volunteering in various ways. Second, parents continue to promote the progress of UDL simply by becoming informed and encouraging the district to take action.
Palley speaks of parents' power to add the "constructive tension" that helps bring about change. In Concord, parents of students with disabilities are very knowledgeable about UDL and act as catalysts to get teachers and schools involved. The key, Palley says, is to have "parents who expect UDL and require it—parents who will see their children's experiences through the UDL lens. If their children come home with homework they can't do, these parents will go directly to the teacher and say, 'This isn't acceptable. My child can't do that homework.'"
Informed parents can bring about change, not just for their own children, but for all children in their local schools. When parents raise issues about one student, they raise fundamental issues about every student by compelling teachers to consider carefully the barriers an assignment may pose. Further, involved parents initiate other parents and teachers into the program, creating a powerful impetus for change.
In Concord, Donna Palley constantly seeks new ways to ensure that parents continue to serve as agents for change. For example, one of the district's current grants supports increased parent involvement by providing parents with computers and computer training, allowing students to access online assignments from home. She also recommends making parent and community education about UDL a priority. This might entail building a Web site publicizing the new ideas, illustrating what students have accomplished through UDL at open house night, speaking to the PTO or IEP teams, or making newspaper and public service announcements. As the Concord school system will confirm, these modest efforts can pay off in a huge way.
Concord has been successful at obtaining a number of grants to pursue UDL work—most in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, but some larger. Grant proposals can originate at the district level, or come from individual schools, departments (such as technology or special education), or groups of teachers. Teachers are both encouraged to take the initiative in finding funding opportunities and invited to respond to UDL-focused requests for proposals within the district. Teachers also have various funded professional development opportunities, including sabbaticals.
Recently, the district was awarded a federal grant to participate in pre-service teacher technology training. Concord will collaborate with 15 institutions of higher education to provide training through digital videos illustrating UDL in action, available on the district's Web site (http://www.concord.k12.nh.us/comm/dropdownindex.html). Some of the newer, smaller projects include an exploration of UDL at home that involves students working on UDL social studies materials via the Web and a project reframing the social studies curriculum.
Through a self-initiated collaboration with CAST, Donna Palley successfully spearheaded a ground-up revamping of the Concord school system.
UDL Classroom Template 4 available in the Appendix (p. 195)and online, is a tool that will help you apply the relevant parts of the Concord Model to your school or district and take the first steps toward building new instructional approaches for teaching every student. We invite you to visit the CAST Web site and contribute your ideas, reflections, and suggestions—tell us how we can help you. We also encourage you to use us as a sounding board as you construct a plan of action.
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Classroom Template: Use the Creating Systemic Change Template to apply the Concord Model to your district. |