Pros and Cons of Universal Design

As a Middle School ELA teacher with a variety of learners in my classroom, I try to differntiate material as much as possible to help all students be successful. I have often used audiobooks, video, and images to help supplement readings for students who struggle with comprehension at grade level and have often designed projects with multiple forms of output to demonstrate what a student knows. While I believe in using universal design to help all students to be successful learners and play to students' strengths as much as possible, I still struggle with the pressure to prepare students for success and standardized tests.

Sure, it would be wonderful if the standardized ELA test allowed students who were reading below grade level to use audio recordings of the test, or those who struggle with spelling and the physical act of writing to use computers to type their responses, or perhaps even record their responses to essay and short answer questions as an audio file. But the fact of the matter is, these tests are NOT differentiated. For all the push to differentiate in the classroom, at the end of the day, students (and their teachers) are evaluated based on how well students are able to read random passages, make sense of them, and write their responses all within a given time limit. The content itself is often not engaging, the format is even less engaging, and the stakes associated with these tests are enough to turn the stomachs of even the most well-prepared students.

Thus, I wonder if, given the reality that all our students must be prepared to take these tests, that in the end we have to ensure that they are successful with material in this specific format if they are to be deemed eligible to attend their top choice high schools, or in some cases, even move on to the next grade level in school, we are doing our students a disservice by using universal design in the classroom. It seems like the strategies we are teaching our students by allowing so much differentiation woudl certainly spark their interest and excitement for learning in our classes, but I doubt they would be successful when faced with a traditional paper and pencil test in May.

I am not knocking universal design, differentiation, or student engagement. I try hard to make sure all my students are excited about my class and able to express themselves in a way that allows them to be successful. However, the pressure to prepare my students for this state test forces me to balance differentiated, student-centered, technology-rich instruction with more traditional reading and writing curriculum so that my students are able to be successful in that format when the time comes.

Perhaps someday they will create an "un-standardized" standardized test that will allow students multiple forms of expression so that they can truly demonstrate their abilities and be judged based on their strengths, rather than on what some board of "experts" somewhere decides their strengths SHOULD be. But until that day, we are stuck preparing our students for a test that quite frankly goes against some of the very pedagogy the DOE itself stresses in the classroom.