Blog #4 - Summary of the Principles of Universal Design for Learning: the Khan Academy

A Summary of K-12 online lesson alignment to the principles of Universal Design for Learning: the Khan Academy."

This week I will be summarizing "K-12 online lesson alignment to the principles of Universal Design for Learning: the Khan Academy" by Sean J. Smith and Evelyn E. Harvey. This paper reports on the use of the tool with lessons from the Khan Academy (khanacademy.org), a developer of free online lessons for students of all ages, although focused on the middle and high school student.  

Khan Academy is quickly becoming a primary curriculum for blended and fully online courses. Developed initially for just-in-time support in Math, the Khan Academy now boasts hundreds of lessons in the area of Math, Science, History, Test Preparation, Economics and other content areas. 

The landscape of K-12 education is changing. With several million students enrolled in either blended or fully online learning in the United States, and estimates indicating a rise to nearly 6 million by 2016, students, educators and parents face opportunities for where, when and how instruction will occur (Picciano & Seaman, 2009;Watson, Murin, Vashaw, Gemin, & Rapp, 2013). Watson and his colleagues (2013) report that 23 states have fully blended school options for K-12 students; while 20 have fully online schools; and another 9 have fully online schools with some restrictions. While not all 50 states are engaged in blended or fully online instruction, states where K-12 online learning is available are witnessing tremendous growth. For example, in the past five years (2008–2013), the state of Florida realized a 1197% growth in online instruction, Oklahoma reported a 473% increase and Wyoming reported 1277% (Watson et al., 2013). Such incredible numbers indicate that blended and fully online K-12 instruction is not only an option of choice, but will continue to grow in the K-12 school delivery system. Reports and related literature suggest that online instruction has the potential to transform student learning and outcomes through flexible content and instructional delivery (Barbour & Reeves, 2009; Lips, 2010; Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia & Jones, 2010). 

A prominent feature of blended and fully online environments is the ability to present content and instruction in multiple ways, personalizing instruction for each student’s unique learning needs. For example, the combination of audio, video and text has the potential to provide students, especially those with disabilities, with greater access to curricula. Likewise, in the real-time nature of synchronous learning, teachers have the increased ability to monitor student progress with immediate access to performance data. In theory, such access allows teachers to customize the pace and focus of instruction to each student’s unique learning needs. 

 For the struggling learner and those with disabilities, perception of flexibility often does not translate to reality. Now, for our purposes, we define individuals with disabilities to include students with identified disabilities that require specialized and unique interventions under the direction of an individualized education plan (Smith,Polloway, Patton, & Dowdy, 2012.)  Our reference to struggling learners includes students who are often seen as resisting academics or are deemed at-risk to school failure by their circumstances (Margolis & McCabe, 2003). Together, this group of students often presents similar instructional, learning and social behavioral challenges to the teacher, the adult at home and of course, the learner. While it is critical to identify how to measure blended and fully online learning, it is equally important to identify what to measure. Take the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom. Here, we observe direct instruction, note teacher-and-student interaction, collect data on student engagement and consider the environment structured by the teacher for instruction. In the blended or fully online experience, direct instruction, or what is often referred to as synchronous instruction, is rare. Instead, students come to a brick-and-mortar classroom (or for fully online learners begin at home), sign into the web-based lesson and then complete various readings, lessons, activities and assessments that are part of the online experience. Follow-up with a face-to-face teacher will vary depending upon type of online model, content of lesson, student grade and similar factors. However, primary instruction is delivered through the online lesson. This allows students to move at their own speed, engage in content at their own level and exhibit competency based on their personal goals. Since the online lesson is the primary component of the blended and fully online instructional experience, then determining its alignment to the principles of UDL guidelines would appear to be logical.

The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

With this in mind, researchers at the Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities (see http://centerononlinelearning.org/) constructed a UDL Scan Tool to be used to measure content lessons (e.g. web-based, print materials) to determine their alignment to the three principles to UDL, the nine guidelines and the various checkpoints. Schools engaged in blended and fully online learning need to recognize that students, and the professionals engaged in instructing these students, need options to address learner variability. With a significant portion of online curriculum being developed by an outside vendor, schools and professionals need tools to make determinations about the most effective curriculum/content for their specific students. A UDL Scan Tool as one potential tool for school and home consideration. Although there may be additional instruments, this tool expands beyond traditional accessibility measures often limited to physical and sensory accessibility for students with disabilities (Smith & Basham, 2014). The lack of UDL alignment indicates that students with disabilities often challenged by deficits in language processing, including the inability to identify critical features, big ideas and intended relationships from content reading, will have difficulty with online content that is void of these learning options or, at the very least, offers limited embedded supports. Likewise, for the learner with a disability and their struggling peer, Khan Academy’s options that would support their planning, guide individual goal setting, facilitate the management of resources and further strategy development within and across content are not available. 

I am currently developing a lesson titled "Vocalizing Emotions." This lesson offers UDL Checkpoint 9.3 which uses activities that include a means by which learners get feedback and have access to alternative scaffolds peer feedback and discussion which which develops self assessment and reflection in the learner. 

The lesson also offers Checkpoint 4: Mastery Oriented Feedback, which provides feedback that encourages perseverance, focuses on development of efficacy and self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies in the face of challenge