Curriculum material: Novel
Barrier: Student with a learning disability cannot read independently
UDL solution: Provide digital text of novel so that student can use a text reader
Simple - right?
Well, not so fast.
When I ask teachers to reflect on a lesson they recently taught and identify the barriers that were present for students, they sometimes give answers like:
- "This student is just not motivated. He refuses to work."
- "Some groups did not manage their time wisely, therefore not completing the task."
Those sound like barriers that YOU, the teacher, experience when teaching a lesson. If your analysis goes something like that, then you need to turn the concept of barriers around.
Barriers - in the UDL sense - are barriers that students experience from YOUR lesson or materials. Someone in a wheel chair would find stairs to be a barrier (and, when he doesn't make it to class on time, you wouldn't say, "well, he just isn't interested in Chemistry class.")
Think of barriers as the hurdles that you place along a race track. The height and frequency of those hurdles will affect the time it takes your students to reach the finish line. Oh, and yes, maybe even the motivation your students have to get there. If the finish line is the curriculum objective, then your job is to carefully consider the individual needs of your students and your class as a whole to determine what hurdles you have placed in front of them. For some students, a hurdle will be insurmountable and the student will never approach the finish line. For others, the frequency of hurdles will be discouraging. For some, the very same thing will not present a hurdle at all.
Another way to understand if your analysis of barriers is appropriate, is to look at the locus of control. A barrier like, "His parents don't support him in doing homework" leaves you with no action to take. You can't control a students' parents - even if you'd like to think that a phone call from you will make all the difference. What you can control is your lesson and the materials that you use to teach it. Look there for the barriers, and when you find them, do something about it.
