By Jana Nicol

Building a library of teacher resources is a great way to simplify the implementation of Universal Design for Learning on a school-wide basis. In my school, we have created an electronic library, and a book library.

Although both took time to set up initially, it was time well spent as it has made it easier to plan lessons and units that target varying reading levels for a given subject area. For example, if I am planning a grade three science unit on plants, I can use both the electronic and book libraries to find books, worksheets, and other resources that are at a third grade reading level, or at a first or second grade level for struggling readers, or at higher grade levels for students who may need more of a challenge.

As I have already mentioned, finding resources that target diverse reading levels takes time. Setting up a bank of resources in a central location in a school that can be easily accessed by all teachers, and organizing materials by grade and unit also takes a lot of time and effort. But once it has been set up, adding new resources to it (as you find them) is really easy. And the best part? Next time you are planning a lesson or unit, having a well-organized and accessible library is such a time saver, and it empowers teachers to offer materials that are readable by most, if not all students!

Here is how I created each type of library:

Electronic library

I began by choosing a unit (e.g. rocks and minerals for grade four science). Then I scoured the internet for worksheets, activities, and digital texts about that unit. Reading a-z, Science a-z, and Superteacherworksheets.com are a few paid/member sites that our school has access to, and they have a lot of quality materials for a variety of grade levels. Teachers Pay Teachers also has quality free materials, and some you can purchase. There are also some free websites that provide useful materials. I saved all of the materials I found in an electronic library, which has a folder for each grade, each of which has subfolders for each unit in that grade.

Book library (for students and teachers)

We used part of the funding from our action research grant to purchase books for each unit (e.g. grade five social studies, ancient civilizations). We were able to find leveled books in a variety of reading levels for each unit. So in a grade five classroom, if students are learning about Egypt, they have access to books ranging from levels C-Z. This way emergent readers, advanced readers, and those in between are able to read books about ancient Egypt. These books are kept in a large UDL resource bucket in our teacher resource room. They are sorted by grade/unit, and each unit is in a large, labeled resealable plastic bag.

​In addition to books for students, teachers can also find and borrow books about UDL for professsional reading.

By Jana Nicol

​UDL is a process, not a checklist. This was such an a-ha moment for me. It seems so simple, but it has taken me a very long time to come to this conclusion.

When I participated in the UDL action research project in 2013-14, our research team sought to find or create tools to facilitate the implementation of UDL in classrooms. At that time, for us, that meant finding or creating the 'perfect template', something that we could use and share with teachers to make it easier to plan with the UDL principles in mind. We scoured the internet in search of the almighty template, but nothing felt right. We even created a couple of them, and made many revisions along the way. They were usually some variation of a checklist. They usually included checklists for technologies we would use in our lessons, multiple intelligences that were targeted, and of course CAST's UDL guiding principles.

I even spent an entire school year committed to using a checklist. I put it in a plastic sheet protector, and kept it in my lesson plan book. I diligently completed my checklist with a dry erase marker daily. Each day I would erase it, and repeat the process. It took some time, but I convinced myself that it was time well spent. Maybe it was. In any case, I was hooked. Completely addicted to checklists.

This year I returned to work after a year-long maternity leave. I considered using my checklist again, but I asked myself why I felt the need to use this checklist? Who was it for? No one looked at it other than me, and I resolved that by abandoning this tool that I was not abandoning UDL. After all, when I am writing my lesson plans or creating unit plans, UDL is always a part of my thought process. Why the need to document it in such detail? 

Then I had an epiphany. I realized that the time I spent filling out a checklist each day, not to mention the countless hours I spent in search of, and in the creation of 'the perfect checklist', perhaps was not time well spent after all. What really mattered was that I was constantly trying to implement UDL practices in my classroom. That lessons were planned from the outset to target the needs of all of my students. That learning activities were designed to be engaging for students. That students were given choice and autonomy. That the physical environment and learning materials were accessible. That my classroom was managed in a way to minimize distractions and foster collaboration and community. And most importantly, that I did not need a checklist to accomplish any of that. So ended my addiction to checklists.

I'm proud to say that I've been checklist-free for the last three months. It's been wonderful! I'm no longer faced by the task of erasing and re-doing a checklist each day before I leave work. It might not seem like much, but removing just one daily task from a seemingly endless pile of daily tasks has been liberating. And, as I suspected, removing the checklist from my lesson plan book did not mean that I'm no longer 'doing UDL'. I am still highly engaged with implementing UDL in my classroom, and I don't need a checklist to prove that!

I'm really happy with this decision. Maybe even as happy the teacher in this stock photo. I mean, who wouldn't be happy with a class of five students?