Your UDL Lesson Planner

Book excerpt: In this practical, accessible guidebook, UDL expert Patti Kelly Ralabate walks teachers through the entire UDL lesson planning process, from developing learning goals to monitoring student progress. Through vignettes, exercises, video demonstrations, and other immediately useful resources, K - 12 educators will discover how to translate UDL from theory to practice and plan lessons that meet every learner's needs. An essential guide for teachers, college instructors, specialized instructional support personnel, IEP team facilitators, curriculum planners, and inclusion facilitators, this book will help educators supercharge their lesson plans with one of today's best teaching approaches, and improve outcomes for students with and without special needs. This book helps teachers: review and understand the big ideas of UDL (what it is, what it's not); create effective learning goals based on content and performance standards; make sure learning goals are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and Time-bound); Design lesson plans that address learner variability; measure what matters by applying UDL principles to assessment of student progress; infuse UDL features into traditional instructional methods; enhance UDL lessons with materials, tools, and media that add real value; and use self-reflection strategies and professional learning communities to continously strengthen everyday practice. To guide teachers through each phase of the lesson planning process, the book includes scenarios, models, charts, application exercises, reflection questions, check-ins, and 7 classroom videos (available online) that bring key UDL concepts to life. Educators will also follow the lesson planning process of three teachers as they apply UDL for the first time.