Year 4 Report Released for the New Hampshire UDL Innovation Network
Date:
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
CAST and the New Hampshire Department of Education today issued the Year 4 Report for the New Hampshire UDL Innovation Network. The groundbreaking partnership with CAST trains local educators in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which helps them recognize student variability in the classroom, and design education solutions so that all students can learn.
In its fourth year, the NH UDL Innovation Network grew to more than 650 participants from 78 New Hampshire schools. In addition to statewide network meetings, participants can participate in two school-based learning opportunities: UDL Instructional Rounds, in which they observe classroom teaching and analyze the work for areas of improvement; and Lesson Design Studios, in which educators collaboratively learn to design and teach UDL-based lessons. More than two thirds of teachers surveyed said that UDL was “quite useful” or “extremely useful” in helping them teach during the pandemic.
To build statewide UDL capacity and foster growth in skills and capacities among frontline educators, the Network added two elements this year: a UDL Leadership Academy and a UDL Coaching Academy.
“To the educators who have worked tirelessly to not only meet the needs of every learner, but to anticipate and design for those needs proactively, thank you,” writes Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. “You have created communities of authentic learning that no mask or Zoom lag could diminish.”
The report concludes: “We at CAST are grateful to have the honor of working with such a dedicated group of educators and are inspired by the ways in which they used Universal Design for Learning to ensure that each and every one of their students continued learning and growing this year.”