First day of classes! And tonight’s CAST UDL Symposium Session was “Stepping Out from the Podium: UDL beyond Learner Choices” with Thomas J. Tobin. The link to the slides was shared, and Tobin described the title slide. I loved how Tobin described the how, what, and why progression that we work on in UDL. Tobin focused on the Action and Expression part of the UDL guidelines and had a slide with an arrow from action and expression to choice, voice, and agency. Participants played “The Price is Right,” and Tobin showed a product and had participants guess. Participants raised their virtual hands or volunteered in the chat. The first item for the three selected contestants was the UDL University book. Tobin helped the participants and audience prepare by saying: “in the next 20 seconds, I will ask contestants to guess…” Tobin is such a great presenter and facilitator! Tobin asked: why does this work? This is UDL Checkpoint 4.1: “Vary the methods for response and navigation.” Participants (“contestants”) had choice. The next game was Jeopardy. Tobin pays careful attention to how names are pronounced and asks for clarification. The categories were UDL Basics and CAST History. The question was, what did CAST originally stand for? This stomped everyone! Tobin also shared that the checkpoints are not in numerical order because the neuroscientists and researchers at CAST learned that engagement comes first. After four questions, Tobin asked: “why does this work?” Voice= UDL Checkpoint 6.2 “Support planning and strategy development.” The next game Tobin played with. the audience was “America’s got talent!” Tobin gave participants two minutes to prepare a UDL-based creation, and then they had 30 seconds to share their work via any Zoom tool. The two contestants sang! Why it works was shared: agency = UDL Checkpoint 5.3, “Graduated levels of support for practice & performance.” Tobin debriefed and encouraged ways to ways to engage without competition. Tobin ended with a pause to share big takeaways. Then, he described the ideas shared in the chat. One comment was: “giving learners voice doesn’t mean they have. to use it.” That is an important point that I am still learning. Another suggestion Tobin shared was to play music during reflections and tell participants it is ok to mute the audio and that you will let them know in the chat when to come back to the session.
