Page 222 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

Part 2: UDL and You

What’s the “gorilla moment” in your professional life? It’s when what you
expect to see and pay attention to causes you to miss or misinterpret some-
thing important. It might be observing your class engaged in a task and
missing the student quietly struggling. It might be watching a student not
know what to do next and assuming they weren’t listening to your instruc-
tions. It could be assigning leveled text based on learners’ decoding skills,
rather than their excellent comprehension skills when using a screen reader.
For Kendra, the gorilla moment was assuming disability was internal to
the student and not dependent on a variety of factors within her control to
change. She saw learners struggling with reading and writing tasks and
provided technology to accommodate the disability. Although this recog-
nized the underlying ability of the learners, she didn’t challenge (until
later) the system belief that students who didn’t fit the “norm” required a
diagnosis and label to get extra support and remediation, or the conven-
tional belief that text-based instruction and assessment were the best
ways to teach and for students to learn.

Tweet: What we measure and count is our focus. Our focus then becomes
our filter, reinforcing what we “know” about our students. With this laser
focus we often miss the gorilla in the room. What’s your gorilla? bit.ly/
DiveIntoUDLCh4a #DiveIntoUDL

Examining your assumptions and beliefs on a regular basis can help you
clear your filter. Taking a step back from your teaching to look for the
gorilla in your instruction and assessment, the learning environment, or
your expectations of students, however, can cause disequilibrium. It can
be shocking to suddenly see the gorilla. This is why it is helpful to share
and reflect with others. Do they see the gorilla too?

Exploring your assumptions and beliefs about teaching, learning, and
learners before you begin exploring more about UDL will give you a bench-
mark to help you see your professional growth over time. Remember, there
are no right or wrong answers to the “Pause and Reflect” questions. This
information is for you and your professional growth, so consider recording
it in some way to reference later.

26 Dive into UDL

Dive into UDL: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners 222