Universally Designed Leadership: Applying UDL to Systems and Schools

by Katie Novak, Kristan Rodriguez

The new Every Student Succeeds Act governing K-12 education in the United States defines and endorses Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework to help achieve greater opportunity and academic achievement for all learners, including those with disabilities, English learners, and “gifted and talented” students. In this book, Novak and Rodriguez, veteran school administrators, provide school leaders and educators with a guidebook for putting the UDL framework into practice. They show how to guide district and school staff in discussions around student data and use the UDL guidelines to shape curriculum decisions. This is a must-read for any education leader who wants to create more equitable, inclusive, and effective learning environments.

136 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2016

About the author

Katie Novak, Ed.D., is an internationally renowned education consultant, author, graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a former Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Massachusetts. With 20 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching, and ten published books, Katie designs and presents workshops both nationally and internationally focusing on the implementation of inclusive practices, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), multi-tiered systems of support, and universally designed leadership. Novak’s work has impacted educators worldwide as her contributions and collaborations have built upon the foundation for an educational framework that is critical for student success.

Dr. Novak is the author of the best-selling books, UDL Now! A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms, Innovate Inside the Box, with George Couros, Equity by Design, with Mirko Chardin, and UDL and Blended Learning with Catlin Tucker.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a slim volume to begin with, and when you subtract the repetition and redundancies it gets even slimmer. I thought this book was going to be about how to apply UDL practice to leadership. And in places it does touch on those ideas. But the authors slowly become focused on how to lead your district in adopting UDL practices. That is a much narrower focus and less interesting - particularly as the authors stress that states are requiring, mandating, or recommending alignment with UDL practice in their learning frameworks under ESSA. There are also a couple of glaring science errors in the book (physics...it's a thing). And the "triune brain" theory that some of UDL and CAST is based on is largely obsolete in neuroscience. The idea of UDL, which is essentially that people learn differently based on their strengths or learning styles, is a strong one and should inform instruction. Giving learners a chance to receive instruction and express understanding in multiple ways (presentations, podcasts, written work, images, videos, or three-dimensional work) and adapting that to stakeholder engagement and participation in school planning is a solid idea. This book has enough information to help you to do that, but it might have been an article and contained the same amount of content.