Jenna Gravel conducted a study of 21 fifth grade students to examine how teachers use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to develop students' disciplinary thinking in English Language Arts (ELA). She observed two experienced teachers applying UDL strategies over 10 weeks and found that opportunities for student executive function and metacognition led them to deeper ELA understanding. The teachers designed a unit where students wrote stories and poems like expert writers. Gravel concluded UDL allows all learners to engage in rich disciplinary thinking when given responsibility and challenge at their level.
Jenna Gravel conducted a study of 21 fifth grade students to examine how teachers use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to develop students' disciplinary thinking in English Language Arts (ELA). She observed two experienced teachers applying UDL strategies over 10 weeks and found that opportunities for student executive function and metacognition led them to deeper ELA understanding. The teachers designed a unit where students wrote stories and poems like expert writers. Gravel concluded UDL allows all learners to engage in rich disciplinary thinking when given responsibility and challenge at their level.
Jenna Gravel conducted a study of 21 fifth grade students to examine how teachers use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to develop students' disciplinary thinking in English Language Arts (ELA). She observed two experienced teachers applying UDL strategies over 10 weeks and found that opportunities for student executive function and metacognition led them to deeper ELA understanding. The teachers designed a unit where students wrote stories and poems like expert writers. Gravel concluded UDL allows all learners to engage in rich disciplinary thinking when given responsibility and challenge at their level.
Jenna Gravel conducted a study of 21 fifth grade students to examine how teachers use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to develop students' disciplinary thinking in English Language Arts (ELA). She observed two experienced teachers applying UDL strategies over 10 weeks and found that opportunities for student executive function and metacognition led them to deeper ELA understanding. The teachers designed a unit where students wrote stories and poems like expert writers. Gravel concluded UDL allows all learners to engage in rich disciplinary thinking when given responsibility and challenge at their level.
Jenna Gravel, author of Going Deep: Leveraging Universal Design for Learning to
Engage All Learners in Rich Disciplinary Thinking in ELA c onducted a study of 21 students in a
fifth grade classroom answering the question, “How, if at all, do teachers working within a
school that explicitly promotes the UDL framework use UDL to prompt students’ disciplinary
thinking in English Language Arts (ELA)?” The subject of the article is to review data from a
qualitative case study, specifically to begin “conceptualizing what it means to actually do ELA
beyond the basic competencies of reading and writing as well as begin characterizing
disciplinary thinking in ELA in ways that can be applied to the classroom” (Gravel 7). Gravel’s
review focuses on examining how students engage in the discipline of ELA in four areas
including identifying as writers, reading for meaning, reading like a writer, and writing like a
writer. Gravel’s study was influenced by the lack of opportunities students have to develop deep
discipline-specific knowledge in the classroom due to an emphasis on high-stakes assessments.
Gravel appropriately chose to select her research environment based on teachers who
draw from the UDL framework and engage students in challenging ways of thinking in ELA.
Her methods were purposeful and well-developed to accomplish her research goals. Gravel
carefully chose 2 teachers for the study based on their expertise in applying UDL to practice in
addition administration and colleague recommendation. 5th grade teachers at The Cambridge School, Ms. Nichols and Ms. Reynolds, have a combined teaching experience of 40 years, and
both focus on UDL. Gravel’s strategic approach towards choosing her study participants is
methodological and thorough. Gravel gathered data everyday during a 33 day unit plan over a
10-week period from April to June of 2013. Given the standard length and amount of data
collected in one unit, this time frame seemed appropriate and fitting for the purpose of her study.
The unit included Readers’ and Writers’ Workshops where students participated in all steps of
the writing process to create their own fables and poems about the Massai community in Kenya
using Shutterfly. Gravel conducted 59 hours of observations and interviewed the teachers before,
during, and after the unit. The concept of conducting semi-structured interviews is a meaningful
way to get an insight into their use of UDL. Not only did Gravel observe, collect materials, and
meet with teachers, she also met with students and questioned their thinking through informal
conversations. Being that students are the primary purpose behind the study, it’s a smart choice
to include direct conversation with students during the investigative process. Prior to analyzing
the data, Gravel organized her data using a strategically designed coding system to connect UDL
Guidelines to the four themes of ELA thinking, in addition to an “other” column that captured
productive teacher strategies not included in the UDL guidelines. Keeping herself organized in
this way allowed Gravel to identify teaching strategies aligned with the UDL framework in
connection to disciplinary thinking.
Gravel found that the co-teachers created opportunities for students to develop deeper
metacognitive thinking, requiring students to read their work and the work of others like writers.
The data revealed that providing students the opportunity for executive function by monitoring
their own progress can be a powerful way to help students engage in deeper thinking in ELA. Gravel found that “moving beyond information processing and putting the responsibility on the
student is eliciting disciplinary thinking among diverse learners” (29). Gravel’s study found that
when the co-teachers created a space for students to “write like writers,” they started developing
“expert learners.” At the end of her study, Gravel concluded that “convening experts from a
range of content areas to articulate the discipline-specific ways in which the UDL Guidelines are
most effectively applied, as well as discipline-specific strategies that are currently missing,
would offer tremendous support to the field” (31). Gravel found that her study helps to clarify
what it means to engage in the discipline in addition to ways that teachers can use it in the
classroom. Gravel’s data pinpointed types of thinking and action that can be used in the
classroom. In addition, her studies find that all learners despite any intellectual disabilities they
may have, can and should be challenged in practices in the classroom in ways they find most
meaningful.
Gravel’s study is important in understanding UDL in that she found strategies that
embrace student ownership and getting students to challenge themselves in disciplinary thinking.
Gravel’s study focused on how two teachers designed strategies that allowed students with and
without disabilities to engage in deep thinking in an ELA classroom. As an ELA teacher,
Gravel’s study is valuable in reaffirming the concept of UDL. According to Universal Design for
Learning: Theory and Practice by Meyer, Rose, and Gordon, “Engagement is achieved by
employing a curriculum with options built in such that each learner will appraise the
environment positively in part because each student can find the right level of challenge and
support. UDL informs the design of the environment so that it is flexible enough to address
variability; with this flexibility, meeting specific needs is more feasible. UDL ‘happens’ both in the design, and in the use of the design to facilitate the appropriate, dynamic interaction between
learner and context (9). The study that Gravel conducted helps educators see how important the
environment is in making learning accessible for all students. The design of the unit by the
co-teachers shows educators how the UDL framework can be embedded into curriculum so that
learning opportunities can be expanded to all students.
References
Gravel, J. (2018). Going Deep: Leveraging Universal Design for Learning to Engage All Learners in Rich Disciplinary Thinking in ELA. Teachers College Record, Vol 120, 03030303, 1-40.
Meyer, Anne, et al. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory & Practice. CAST.
