Dean Durrance teaches you how to make a pizza through the lens of Universal Design for Learning. Concepts covered include Multiple Means of Engagement, Multiple Means of Representation, and Multiple Means of Action & Expression.
Wanna see how a pizza is really made? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8
Ready to make a pizza but need a little help making your kitchen work with your disability? Check out https://www.nchpad.org/resources/adapted-kitchen-tools-utensils-and-accessibility/ for some great resources, tips, and videos!
References
CAST. (2024). The UDL guidelines. udlguidelines.cast.org. https://udlguidelines.cast.org
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at OU. (2017, July 24). Universal Design for Learning (Part 2): UDL Guidelines [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNaafVoi2Ic&t=100s
Díaz-Merced, W. (2016, July 13). How a blind astronomer found a way to hear the stars [Video]. Ted Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/wanda_diaz_merced_how_a_blind_astronomer_found_a_way_to_hear_the_stars?event-date=1385&event-date=1385&event-date=1385
Nelson, L. K. (2021). Design and deliver: Planning and teaching using Universal Design for Learning (2nd ed.). Brookes Publishing. https://northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=2891043&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_Cover
Novak, K. (2022). UDL now! (3rd ed.) [Audiobook]. CAST Professional Publishing.
Oliver, J. (2014, February 20). How to Make Perfect Pizza | Gennaro Contaldo [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SJGQ2HLp8
SIPDC. (2020, October 13). UDL - Multiple Means of Representation [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hUxFAqS1pE
SIPDC. (2020, October 13). UDL - Multiple Means of Action and Expression [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eojgY0bChmU
SIPDC. (2020, October 13). Understanding Universal Design for Learning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuLtw1Vwo-A&t=5s
SIPDC. (2020, October 13). UDL - Multiple Means of Engagement [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N05k3G3OMas
Host 0:01
Do you like pizza?
Host 0:04
I'm just about willing to bet that you like pizza. And I'm willing to bet that you like pizza because, like many of us, pizza is just part of eating in America, whether you're at school or at home, or it's the middle of the week and you're tired, or it's the end of the week and you're celebrating or you're at a meeting, pizza is usually going to be a part of the puzzle. Now, why is it that pizza is often part of the puzzle? It's easy. You can do a lot of different things with pizza, and you can make pizza appeal to a lot of different people, whether you get different types of toppings or different crusts, different sauces, even then gluten free and special dietary options are available to us. We love pizza for the same reason that I talked about in the last episode of loving coffee. The sky's the limit. So if we like pizza so much, why don't I spend a little time and teach you about how to think about pizza a little bit differently. Let's think about pizza not as just a dish that we might order as we're feeling tired on a Friday night. Let's think about pizza as an opportunity, an opportunity for us to think about how to think about things differently for us and for our students.
Host 1:21
Now I'm talking about pizza a lot, and that probably only means one thing. I
Host 1:27
think I'm ready for some bite sized
Host 1:30
Are you ready? Let's dive in.
Host 1:34
Welcome to bite size, an education podcast that feels like having lunch with your best friend. I'm Chase. I'm a community college dean of students with 10 years of education experience, and I'm here to make the big topics feel just a bit more digestible.
Host 1:52
So are you feeling hungry? Go ahead and grab your lunch box. Pull up a chair and get ready for some bite size.
Host 2:02
You okay, you are listening to a podcast called bite sized it really should be no big surprise to you that we're going to spend some time talking about food here, and we talked about coffee last week, and we applied that to Universal Design for Learning. And I want to give a big shout out to Katie Novak, who's done some really incredible scholarship here. Her book is one of the resources that I'll link below that's been so inspirational to me as I piece this together. And her coffee metaphor from last week and even her pizza metaphor from this week are both great examples for us to take a pretty quick bite out of how universal design works as a concept,
Host 2:44
but now that we're thinking about it and we understand what it means as a concept, I want us to continue to think about this pizza, but I want us to think about the pizza a little bit differently.
Host 2:55
Let's don't think about this pizza in terms of it being something that is customizable, right? We're not thinking about it as something just because it has different toppings. I want us to think about making the pizza itself
Host 3:10
as an educator, or someone who works even in a supportive role like I do at a college setting. What we have to do is figure out what we are relaying to students, and we have to get that message to them.
Host 3:23
I'm a big believer in the idea that we meet students where they are. And I had a professor in college who would say to us, you know, you don't even have to come the whole way. Meet me halfway. If you meet me halfway, I'll cover the gap. And I think that in today's setting, the more helpful thought for a practitioner is if you can demonstrate that you can move toward me, I'm going to cover the difference. I'll bridge that gap. And even though I shouldn't necessarily have to, I'm going to because I have a different set of skills and tools and resources than you have at this time in your life, and so I'm going to share those with you.
Host 4:08
So with universal design for learning, we're thinking about how we can relay these messages to students in ways that are meaningful to them.
Host 4:16
The goal here is to make expert learners, and to make expert learners. We have to connect material to them, and we have to show information and material in ways that means something to them, and we have to give them the chance to express that they know it in a way that's meaningful to them.
Host 4:35
So as we think about the pizza, let's go through some of the major components of Universal Design for Learning, multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation and multiple means of action and expression. Now my promise to you all is always here on bite size, that we're going to take the big ideas and we're going to make them a bit more digestible. Now I have thrown.
Host 5:00
Some heavy terms here for us to think about multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation and multiple means of action and expression. And this jargon sounds complicated, but I want to strip it down to its most simple elements. And let's think about these as the what, the how and the why of learning, and if we can put these three things together for our students, we really have a shot at communicating information to them in a way that they may collect and actually apply this to their lives. So it's a worthwhile endeavor for us to think about this, and we're going to think about all three of these elements through the lens of teaching someone how to make a pizza. So the one that I want to start with is actually the why. Because, to me, starting with the why is always the most important
Host 5:52
multiple means of engagement within Universal Design for Learning is about communicating the why.
Host 5:59
We need to build value for our students. And one of the things I think about often, and I often sit in meetings and we think about, how can we communicate messages to students that incentivize them to open that that email or to open that text message and actually engage with it? Part of that has to be communicating value, in my opinion, and I think that one of the ways that we can communicate value in our day to day is starting with the why.
Host 6:29
So let's think about this. If I'm communicating to a student that I want to teach them how to make a pizza, maybe I start with all of the different reasons why they may need to learn to have a few recipes in their repertoire. So eventually you're going to leave the house and you're going to get a house or an apartment, and you're going to have to feed yourself, and you will have probably all ordered takeout or DoorDash or pizza from a delivery company, and it costs quite a bit of money if you're working a full time gig at minimum wage, and you've gotten your first apartment, and you're trying to figure things out, you're going to have to save money somewhere, and cooking at home is a great way to do that.
Host 7:11
Why pizza specifically? Well, there could be a few different reasons. Number one, we've had pizza parties in the classroom, and you all all seem to like it, and even though you have different toppings that you like, I think pizza is a really good option for us to create some flexibility, and you can please several different people in your household. So if it's you and a roommate or a couple of roommates, maybe half has one topping and half has another topping, you're still combining resources. You're still making one pizza, and if you're able to do this, you can feed yourself and maybe even a roommate a time or two.
Host 7:48
That simple explanation, that explanation that took a couple of minutes, ties into students, and it ties into their milieus, their actual worlds that they're thinking about living in, and it gives them permission to care about this thing.
Host 8:07
So what do I mean by that? I mean that what we want to do is invite students in and say, I understand that some of these things you may not be wholly interested in, but this is the thing that I think matters, and this is why I think it matters.
Host 8:24
Katie Novak mentions this in the book that I was referencing earlier, and she speaks about the fact that with students, how many times have you heard different types of complaints of, why do I need to learn this? And when am I ever going to use this? And I think a lot about when I got to calculus in high school and that kind of experience.
Host 8:44
But ultimately, if we can create real world connections, I think that students can bite into it a little bit more. And that's really the goal, to have them connect and to become expert through connecting to the material
Host 8:59
as part of engaging, part of setting our why? I also think that we need to set goals and expectations, and Universal Design for Learning encourages us to do this. Just because students may have different ability levels does not mean we cannot still have high expectations for those students, but what we do is scaffold those expectations with supports, we give them different avenues and different ways to meet the goals that we're seeking to achieve.
Host 9:29
So here, for example, the goal is for students to learn how to make a pizza. That's a goal. So a couple of goals that we can think about is that during the lesson, people will be actively engaged. What does that mean? That means our phones are in our pocket. That means we are listening, we're asking questions, we are paying attention, maybe even taking a couple of notes along the way.
Host 9:53
Now here's where universal design for learning gives students the opportunity for flexibility.
Host 10:00
Because we can even say now how you take those notes is up to you. Maybe you want to record a voice memo, or maybe it's that you want to actually write pen and paper notes, or maybe it's that you like to doodle or draw pictures that represent the things that we're talking about. All of those are totally fine. It's about making it work for the student, individually,
Host 10:23
so multiple means of engagement. It's about making expert learning by connecting to the why of learning. We're motivating and we're sustaining their interest. And it's taking their personal goals, the goals they have for themselves and for their lives, and it is connecting it to the goals of the lesson. And if we can create that kind of connection, again, we're going to capture their attention in a different type of way.
Host 10:49
I've spent time professionally in academic advising in the collegiate setting, and that's one of those fields where it's so easy for people to think about that as creating a schedule. Yeah, my advisor, I meet with them a time or two a year. They help me pick out my schedule,
Host 11:06
but to communicate to students why that hour appointment is important and why they should carve that out, we have to communicate the value of that service, that it is more than just setting a schedule. There's a real expertise that we're offering you. It's a chance to look at your life as a whole and to find where education fits into that. So by communicating that value the why, we are inviting students in and inviting them to make connection. And I think that starting with the why is a great place to start, even if it's just teaching someone how to make a pizza.
Host 11:39
So as we continue our cooking class, we know that we're anchoring our students in their why? Why are we doing this thing? Why are we making this pizza? But in order to teach someone how to make a pizza, I have to teach the thing, right? I have to tell someone what a pizza is.
Host 11:58
That's the what of learning. This is multiple means of representation. This is, how do we show the thing? How do we demonstrate it for our students? And this is where I think UDL creates some of the easiest opportunity for us to incorporate these principles and this flexibility with without a ton of extra work.
Host 12:19
Traditionally, education has focused on the written word, pen and paper books, and then reciting that through essay or through exam as the way that we represent information.
Host 12:31
Textbooks, even in the virtual landscape, are based on text and decoding text with some supportive images,
Host 12:39
but we need to think about representing things differently. So let's think about a pizza.
Host 12:45
Conjure in your head for a moment the image of a pizza. So what does that look like to you?
Host 12:54
I can describe for you what the image looks like for me.
Host 12:59
It's round. It has a pillowy crust. There are some seasonings, there are a few toppings. So there is cheese and pepperoni on the pizza, and it's cooled just slightly, and I can give you some really rich description of what this pizza looks like
Host 13:19
now in a podcast. That makes a lot of sense. But what else can I do to teach you what a pizza is or what it could be?
Host 13:28
Well, I can provide you things like images. I can show you what a pizza looks like. I can show you some samples. I can show you some of the different things that we can do with pizza, different toppings, different crust.
Host 13:43
I can also provide you some videos, right? I can show you someone actually making this pizza themself. I can show you someone assembling it. I can show you someone eating different types of pizza. I can do all of these different things. I could probably even find a song somewhere about pizza. There's a lot of different ways that we can represent what pizza is to people, and this is just a great way for us to bring in diverse perspectives in learning.
Host 14:11
Not everybody does best reading descriptions. They just don't. And one of the things that, again, I feel like I owe this, this particular episode to Katie Novak, but one of the things she talks about is that capacity is a changing metric within us. So even a student who has no barriers or no learning disability, for example, they could be having a challenge on that particular day or that week. Say their parents have revealed to them that, to the student and their siblings that they're divorcing.
Host 14:46
Well, suddenly, the student who could sit down and read paragraphs for 30 minutes at a time may not be able to their capacity has changed. And so when we think about Universal Design for Learning and representing things.
Host 15:00
In different ways. I think the magic of it is pulling it out of it just being a function of Disability Services that, oh, because a student has ADHD or dyslexia, I should think about representing this information differently. What if we could think about doing that? Because just for many of our students, that's going to be more helpful.
Host 15:21
Yes, we'll have text, but what if we also support it with a visual or with an audio cue or an image or a piece of art that then sparks a discussion about pizza and what pizza is and what pizza isn't? There are a lot of different ways that we can do it, and it's about being creative, and when we are the people teaching things, oftentimes, making the presentations, recording the podcast, creating the PowerPoint. We're in control of that. We decide how much text goes on that slide or doesn't go on that slide. We decide if a PowerPoint is even part of the mix at all. That's our call. So this is an easy way that is very much within our control, for us to make some changes in our own context. Now, I'm not a teacher. I love the idea of teaching, and I teach students different things every single day, but I do not spend time in the classroom as a regular practice. So that said, as I think about this advice and things that pertain to my own world. This is where I see my opportunity to make a lot of different change, and
Host 16:29
perhaps a bit more seriously than pizza with our online orientation at the college I work for, that's where I'm thinking about doing a lot of this conscious work about representing ideas differently, more audio, more video, more images that are dynamic and get people to think about the thing and not just read about the thing, but to really challenge themselves. And so I think that representation is one of the coolest elements of Universal Design for for learning, both in terms of its ability to diversify content, but also its ability to bring in the lived experience of students.
Host 17:09
We can use different pieces of their experiences. We can use language that is centered in their own lives, things that they say, and we can do it in a funny way, right? You can use terms from their life. You can talk about Riz and all these different things that they're using, and how something is or isn't sigma. And if you do it in a way that surprises them, it catches their attention, or could pull them right back if they weren't paying attention in that particular moment. I
Host 17:39
think this is a great chance, too, to talk about the value of lived experience for our students, and reminding our students that even though they are not experts in the content that we or the faculty we work with are trying to teach them, they are always going to be experts in their own experiences, and no one knows more about their experiences than they do. And if we can create representation in our materials, images of students who look like them and videos of students who sound like them,
Host 18:13
that's a great chance for us to show that we value them, that they can again, have another point of connection with this material, because the student, the person making the pizza, is maybe a tiktoker who looks like them, who's about their age, who wears clothing that looks like theirs. These are the kinds of things that really show people and pull them in. It invites them into the conversation. And as someone recently pointed out to me, education, especially at the collegiate setting, has historically meant to exclude people. So as we bring more access into the picture, let's think about representation, the what, how we show information, how we give clear definitions. These are the types of things that can make a big difference that again, these are the things we're in control of, and these are some of the easier pieces that we can implement to bring universal design for learning into our own context.
Host 19:13
So once we have given our students a why, why is making a pizza an important thing for you to learn. And once we've told them the what, what is a pizza? What are the ingredients, what's the recipe? How long do you bake it for, and at what temperature?
Host 19:33
These are all of the pieces that are the what, the representation pieces, the content, the thing we're trying to teach itself.
Host 19:43
But let's talk about how we then give our students the opportunity to demonstrate that they have learned this concept, and that's multiple means of action and expression.
Host 19:54
This is how we plan and organize and initiate. This is how we help.
Host 20:00
Students build executive function things like goal setting and managing and planning and monitoring their progress,
Host 20:08
but we do this through one really, really powerful word, and that word is choice.
Host 20:17
Remember, I said a moment ago that typically, college historically, has meant to exclude people. There are admissions criteria for a reason, right that some people will be admitted and some people won't, less open access institutions like many of our community colleges.
Host 20:41
But as we think about that, and we think about lowering the drawbridge and creating more access, we need to think about moving away from the traditional means in which we expressed knowledge or valued knowledge being demonstrated, and that was often through traditional exams and through reading and writing, through essays and writing assignments.
Host 21:05
When we think about the different ways that people show that they know things, think about the student who I know you went to school with. I know they went to high school with you. I know you're thinking of this student. They were a great student, probably not a 4.0 I'm going to say this is your 375 student who has worked hard but has done well and probably gets mostly A's and worries about their grades, but it genuinely works for it, but then they go to take that standardized test and they just cannot get over the bare minimum. And you think, I know you know this stuff right, and often, things like test anxiety or being a bad test taker, those are the kinds of things that emerge in these conversations.
Host 21:51
Those issues arise because we are expecting all students who have who are each individually, a whole person with a whole life and a whole set of experiences that they are expert in to demonstrate that they have learned something the exact same way how, by giving out 30 of the same test, by giving out 30 of the same essay or same series of essay questions. And I don't want to begrudge folks for doing so, because that is what we have been taught to do, and that's what we, through our own experiences, have done. That's what we've been trained to do in writing and developing a podcast. It is so much more work than is writing the response, I mean, we're talking hours more work. It also necessitates that you engage with the material differently. You can't have a surface level understanding and talk for 30 minutes about a thing, and if you're going to stay too relevant to the topic. So in that way, by giving students the choice of how they demonstrate, by leaning into their creativity, their strengths. We're giving them the chance to actually demonstrate their learning at a deeper level.
Host 23:06
So let's think about our pizza again.
Host 23:09
We've told you why, why it matters to make a pizza. Remember, you're going to get a first apartment, you're going to live with a roommate, you're going to be broke, you need a little bit of help. Saving money on food is a great way to offset expenses. Now
Host 23:22
we're going to talk about pizza, maybe even. What's the history of pizza? Where did it come from? What are our options? What's the optimal temperature? How long do we bake it for? What's the recipe? That's the what the representation
Host 23:35
now, the action and expression, the how is when I, as your educator, or someone working with you, give you the choice to say, I want you to help me co create a plan. I want you to help me decide how we're going to show that you know this thing.
Host 23:52
Maybe you make an episode of a podcast where you talk about pizza and the history of pizza and all these different things.
Host 23:59
Maybe you create a Tiktok series that's all the different components of making pizza, and it's 30 seconds at a time, and it's, dare I say, bite sized chunks of information that make it all more digestible. I don't know.
Host 24:12
Maybe you are a great reader or writer, and maybe you're somebody who does want to sit down and engage with your thoughts and work that way more. That's great, too. I think what we think about is, you know, giving options. And while I love the idea of this being open ended, and we could the sky is the limit, and it is, I think realistically, in a practical world, we have to think about maybe a limited offering, or a certain, you know, here's a certain number of things from a menu you could choose from. Here's four or five assignments with some samples. Or you could submit a proposal for approval so that you have that sort of, let me make sure that they can still show what it is they need to show through this type of format.
Host 25:00
So I think there can still be safeguards, and I don't think it has to be completely open ended. A student can't say that having a weak, solid of recess time is a great way for them to demonstrate that they know how to make a pizza that that doesn't really show that you've built those competencies, but spending some time making a YouTube video certainly might indicate that. So let's be creative in the how. How do we let students demonstrate they know in a way that is unique or creative, and how do we help support their executive function? To that end, to help them set goals? If this is your project. I'm unfortunately not going to be able to give you the regular reminders you need, because it's going to look different. How you approach making a podcast may look different than how your classmate does, but what I can do is I can tell you the value of setting goals, and I'll help you set the goals, and if you tell me what those goals are, I'll help you manage the timeline. So again, it's about the support that we build around this to help them learn, not just the content, but the skills they need to work through challenges, to be thinkers and to be able to work through these, these problems that they're going to have throughout the course of their lives.
Host 26:18
So now that we have talked about pizza for a half hour.
Host 26:22
I hope that, one, you are not too hungry. But two, I hope that through a simple example, we're able to see that communicating the why, the what and the how is so important to our students along the way, we're going to give them choice. We're going to let them become expert learners by helping co create a plan working with them to help figure out the ways that they both receive and transmit information best to us.
Host 26:54
One of the lingering thoughts that I have as we move forward is that information is power, and we as educators have this amazing ability to be the gatekeepers of information, and to the extent that we can democratize that information and give people ways to access it, that means something to them.
Host 27:14
We can not only teach them how to make a pizza, we can teach them how to learn other things too. How to be lifelong learners, how to be people who figure out not just how to make a pizza, but how to make any dish they're interested in making.
Host 27:32
So thank you all so much for spending some time at the lunch table with me today. I'm so thankful to continue unpacking Universal Design for Learning. I'm so thankful again for Katie Novak and the other materials that are linked below. Those are great resources and wonderful accessible starting points if you're interested in learning more about Universal Design for Learning,
Host 27:53
and until next time you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai