Meeting the Needs of Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities
Every student brings to the classroom strengths and abilities, varied experiences and backgrounds, and their individual interests and preferences. As educators, we can engage students by using strategies that leverage on students’ assets and interests, while also providing supports they need. Universally Designed presents design principles and strategies that can be used by K-12 teachers, teacher educators, and postsecondary educators to create equitable and inclusive learning environments.
Foundations & Frameworks
These four Foundations and Frameworks can guide inclusive and equitable design. They provide context and background on ways to proactively design flexible, supportive, and engaging learning environments for Multilingual Learners (including English learners, world language learners, and emergent bilingual learners) and students with disabilities.
Understanding the processes and challenges related to language development can help us strategically apply supports that help students draw on their strengths, their multiple languages, and their knowledge to be successful learners.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for designing inclusive learning experiences. UDL has three principles: Engagement, Representation, and Action/Expression and a set of guidelines under each principle to help make learning experiences more flexible and supportive for learners.
Students with disabilities are diverse, and even students with the same disabilities may have very different strengths, preferences, and challenges. These are far from all of the important considerations, but on this page, we share some general considerations to help support a diverse variety of learners.
Asset-based pedagogies center the students as “…subjects in the instructional process, not mere objects” (Gloria Ladson-Billings). Asset-Funds of Knowledge, Culturally Relevant and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies are examples of asset-based pedagogy.
Strategies & Supports
These 12 Strategies and Supports illustrate how the Foundations and Frameworks can be applied in classroom lessons and activities. They highlight ways to engage students across a range of content areas and support various essential learning skills. These Strategies and Supports can be customized and modified for use in K-12 classrooms and post-secondary settings.
Strategies for Reading & Writing
Providing Opportunities for Practice
