Adopted November 2022 – Education Commission
California State PTA believes all students should have an equal opportunity to learn and succeed. As every student learns differently, schools must create flexible, barrier-free learning environments if all students are to become successful, lifelong learners.
California State PTA supports Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework that enables equitable access and participation in education for all students, including those with disabilities, by offering flexibility and eliminating unnecessary hurdles in the learning process. UDL benefits all learners by using a variety of teaching methods to remove barriers to learning. Teaching is flexible in order to adjust for every person’s needs. Giving everyone options can reduce the potential stigma for those who receive formal accommodations for a disability. UDL is driven not only by the findings from neuroscience and educational research but by a vision for equity.
The three main principles of UDL are:
- Engagement – Looking for ways to motivate students.
- Representation – Providing information in more than one format.
- Action and Expression – Giving learners more than one way to interact with the material.
California State PTA supports UDL guidelines as a set of concrete suggestions that educators can apply in the classroom that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
California State PTA further believes that classroom environments and learning should:
- Provide multiple means of engagement by optimizing individual choice and autonomy. Minimize distractions.
- Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence by heightening the importance of goals and objectives.
- Provide options for self-regulation through facilitating personal coping skills and strategies, and helping students develop self-assessment and reflection skills.
- Provide options for perception by offering ways to customize the display of information and offering alternatives for auditory and visual information.
- Provide options for language and symbols by clarifying vocabulary, clarifying syntax and by supporting decoding of text and mathematical notation.
- Provide options for comprehension by supplying background knowledge, highlighting patterns or guiding information processing and visualization.
- Provide options for physical actions by varying the methods for response and optimizing access to tools and assistive technology.
- Provide options for expression and communication through use of multiple media tools for construction and composition.
- Provide options for executive functions by guiding appropriate goal setting and facilitating management of information and resources.
