Deep Dive into the Expansion of the Research Base for UDL Guidelines 3.0

- Hello, everyone. Welcome. Okay, great. Welcome, welcome, we're so excited that you are here. Welcome to our Deep Dive into the Expansion of the Research Base for the UDL Guidelines. My name is Lindsay Jones, I'm the CEO of CAST, and I'm delighted to be here with you today. We have such an important topic to discuss. This is our second webinar focused on our most recent update to the UDL Guidelines, version 3.0. CAST issued our UDL Guidelines in 2008, that was the first year they were available. We are so excited to have so many people joining

us from all over the world today to talk about the research basis for this second update, not second, for this version 3.0 update, which is actually the fourth update of these Guidelines. So we're really excited to get into this with you today. I wanna set the stage a little bit and thank the many people who've helped us. So I wanna start by saying, why do we update our Guidelines? We update our Guidelines as a tool and we always will, but we do it because research and knowledge continually evolve. CAST is committed to ensuring that our

Guidelines remain current. Our Guidelines are a living, breathing tool that help people design more inclusive learning experiences in the real world. We last updated the research base for our Guidelines, what we're talking about today, in 2011. And a lot has changed since 2011, a lot's been published since 2011, but as we learn more, we are committed to getting better and we'll continue to update them going forward. So as I mentioned, this is the fourth update and this is the culmination of four years of work and a significant investment from CAST. This kicked off in 2020

At our UDL Professional Learning Symposium. It's been led by CAST Research Scientist, Dr. Jenna Gravel, CAST collaborator, Nicole Tucker-Smith, and our co-founder David Rose. It involved our entire CAST team, and it will influence every part of our work. I wanna thank the many people who have worked on these Guidelines and I also wanna acknowledge so much work that's been done. In our first Guidelines webinar, which I hope you've seen, I think we'll drop the link in the chat So you can if you haven't seen it, you can see the recording, it was hosted by Jenna

and Nicole and they talked about how they conducted over 40 focus groups and worked with basically three different advisory boards to identify changes and key themes. Well, in addition to that, in 2023, we hired a researcher from outside of CAST who could really focus on thinking about the research literature underlying these Guidelines. Our team evaluated several people and we contracted with someone you'll hear from directly today, Dr. Mary Margaret Hughes. Dr. Hughes will discuss her yearlong review and analysis of close to 1,200 articles. She'll talk about the evidence-based framework she used to evaluate them, and

then she'll discuss her approach to gathering and expanding this research base even further. She did over 420 individual searches. So I hope you'll leave here with more of an understanding Of what we've included in this update and what a rigorous process this has been. Two final points before we get to the main show. First, I mentioned this update would influence every part of our organization, and it will. We have a lot to do here at CAST and to be ready for this release. I am proud to say we will be releasing this update, the graphic

organizer of the update translated into six languages recognized by the United Nations, English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and French. Our goal is to have all of the explanatory and supporting materials available for view on our website at launch. Our goal is also to get them translated later. We're close to getting that done. We're working really, really hard and it will be there. So I hope you can join us at our official launch on July 30th. I hope our team drops in some information into the chat So you can join us then, and you can check

our website for details. Finally, the last point. Over these last four years, UDL has exploded around the United States, outside of the United States, globally. The global expansion of UDL has been so exciting. This update, version 3.0, was never intended to address all learning environments and contexts around the world, but it is a great bridge to many of the issues that our fellow UDL travelers And education experience creators face in their own context. We have much to learn from our global partners and there is so much more work to do. At CAST, we're motivated by

a commitment to foundational research and forward-thinking exploration. I'm excited to work with all of you as we implement version 3.0 and continue to learn. So to the main event, Dr. Jenna Gravel. Jenna, please take it away. - Great, thank you so much, Lindsay. And hi, everyone. Thank you all for joining us. It is great to see all of you saying hello in the chat, and it's just amazing that we have people joining us from across the US and around the world. So thank you for being here. Again, my name is Jenna Gravel and I'm a

senior research scientist at CAST. I've been involved in the development of the UDL Guidelines since the very first iteration that was launched back in 2008, and I am just so thrilled to co-chair this updating process with my colleague Nicole Tucker-Smith. Nicole is not presenting today, but we wanna acknowledge all of the work that she has contributed to this process in her role as co-chair over the last four years. And I'm also thrilled for the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Mary Margaret Hughes on our process to update and expand the research base. So Mary Margaret, I'll

hand it over to you to introduce yourself. - Thank you, Jenna, and thank you, Lindsay. Thank you to the UDL community. My name is Mary Margaret Hughes and I came aboard last year to specifically help with getting a read on the 2.2 research, as well as develop the 3.0 research. And I am tickled to be here and can't wait to share what we've got for you. - Awesome. So our goals for today's webinar are to learn about the update and expansion of the research base for UDL Guidelines 3.0, to explore findings from our examination Of

the current research base to understand the balance of different research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological perspectives, and author positionalities, to explore our process for conducting literature reviews to update and expand the research base, and finally, to create space for all of you to share your feedback and to ask any questions that you might have about our process. And to offer a little background, This work of expanding the research base is part of our overall process to update the UDL Guidelines. We have been working on this update for almost four years to the date. We began an

August of 2020. And we are just so thrilled that we're going to be launching UDL Guidelines 3.0. It's actually just two weeks from today at CAST's UDL-Con: International. And our updating process for developing the UDL Guidelines 3.0 has been driven by three specific goals From the very start of our process back in 2020. First, to create an inclusive community-driven and research-based process to update the UDL Guidelines. Second, to update the UDL Guidelines to address systemic barriers to learning opportunities and outcomes. And third, to address barriers, including gaps and biases, within the Guidelines themselves and to

support individuals and teams in designing learning experiences where every learner is welcomed and honored. And this update is part of the continued evolution Of the UDL Guidelines. As Lindsay mentioned in her opening remarks, we came out with the first version of the UDL Guidelines in 2008, and we intentionally called this first version, version 1.0, as we knew that this was just the beginning of an iterative process. Even at that time, we really envisioned the Guidelines to be a living dynamic tool that we would develop over time based on new research And based on feedback from

practitioners. And the image on this slide shows the evolution of the UDL Guidelines and how that iterative process has really come to life over the years. The image shows a series of five connected circles to represent different versions, beginning with version 1.0 in 2008. And since that original version, we've developed three other versions, reflecting different structural and content changes. And that last circle, the fifth circle, Represents version 3.0. And again, this update, we are focusing specifically on expanding the Guidelines to more fully address critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of oppression. And we know

that we will continue to add circles to this slide. We know that this evolution of the Guidelines will continue as we learn from feedback from practitioners and as we stay up to date with the most current research. But today we want to focus specifically on our process to update and expand the research base For the UDL Guidelines. And this process has been guided by the following two questions. What gaps and biases exist in the research base used to develop the current UDL Guidelines? And how can we expand the research base to address those gaps and

biases? So across the four years that we have been working on this process, we've thought of the work in kind of two different phases. In phase one, we focused on examining the current research base For UDL Guidelines 2.2 to understand the balance of different dimensions such as research fields, methodological approaches, epistemological perspectives, and author positionalities. And in the Homebase document, and maybe we can put this link in the chat too, we have a link to the current research base for the UDL Guidelines on the UDL Guidelines website. And then in phase two, we conducted systematic

literature reviews To inform the UDL Guidelines 3.0 updating process. So that gives you kind of the big picture of the two phases of this process. And now I'm going to hand it off to Mary Margaret to go into detail about that first phase, examining the current research base. - Wonderful, thank you so much, Jenna. Like I said, I'm very honored to be part of this project. Examining this research base meant taking all of that work that you were just talking about and everything that CAST values and the UDL Guidelines 3.0 team And seeing where the

2.2 research is in relation to those values. Okay, so like Lindsay was saying, I reviewed quite a few research titles. I reviewed 1,156 unique titles in the UDL Guidelines 2.2 research, but roughly 300 of those were used multiple times in multiple places across the framework. These duplicates, just so you keep in mind, and I'll mention this a couple other times, these duplicates were counted as many times and in as many places as they came up, A handful of them were used as many as five times. So I used Qualtrics and the skip and display logic

features to create a review tool that captured the relevant dimensions of the 2.2 research. So these dimensions were chosen to offer concrete metrics to be able to talk about this body of research, like we're going to do here today, and be able to compare it to the 3.0 research. So the review tool extrapolated the 10 dimensions listed here. We don't have time to report on all of those dimensions. And those 10 dimensions are listed in the Homebase document. They are the principle where they fell in the Guidelines, the title, the authors, the dates, the research

field, the research design, epistemological approaches, author identities, the setting and the target population, whether or not English language learners were a focus of the research, any supporting theories, and how this work aligns with CAST's current approach. So yes, okay, great. Thank you. So for the purpose of this webinar, we've chosen to report out six of these dimensions of the 10 that I was just mentioning. These six will most sharply highlight the need to update the UDL Guidelines research. So in order to enhance accessibility and transparency, we've created an Excel spreadsheet of the six full databases

with the raw data used to create these graphs. So what we're aiming to show you in the following graphs in the UDL Guidelines 2.2 research that it is imbalanced In regards to publication date, methodology, target population, research field, asset-based pedagogies, alignment to CAST's current mission of addressing barriers related to identity. So for the purpose of this webinar, we've chosen to report out these six dimensions of the 10 that were measured. Excuse me. So this bar graph represents the temporal distribution of the 2.2 research. So most of the research you can see Is from the early

aughts, which makes most of it 20 or so years old. So this data alone points to the need to update the research. Coding for, so here we're looking at methodology research design, so coding for research design and methodology, including mining for the details that researchers report outright, which most did, but not always. This graph illustrates the imbalance of methodology heavily leaning on qualitative, Quantitative, excuse me, quantitative research, followed by position papers, which may report on something like a non-systematic review to support a theory or a framework. And that's followed by qualitative research, and then literature

reviews, meta-analysis. Literature reviews and meta-analyses were coded together. So that's followed by practitioner pieces, case studies, and mixed methodology being reported the least often. An important note here about how this was coded. So articles that used both quantitative And qualitative methods, but didn't specifically reference mixed methods data integration, 'cause that's really the key to mixed methods, they were double-coded as quantitative and qualitative, but not mixed methods. So something like single subject is another example, would not be double-coded as qualitative, quantitative, because that's part and parcel to the research design. And in the case of single

subject, that social validity piece is another feature that wouldn't be coded as qualitative Unless there was explicit reporting in the research article. So as will be the case in all six of these dimensions that we are reporting on here today, the data which we've extrapolated, we wanna balance out this graph, right, we don't want it to be quite so heavy with one methodology. So my understanding over the years is that there's been a substantial amount of feedback, anecdotal feedback, from higher education folks in particular, that the 2.2 research is heavily K-12-focused. And as you can

see by this graph, You were right. So on a note on how I coded this dimension, how I defined grade inclusion is relevant, especially when we're talking about international research and international educational settings. Elementary was defined as kindergarten through fifth grade, and that was most frequently represented, followed by middle school, which was defined as six to eight, then that's followed by broad K-12, which targeted K-12 specifically, but within that no one, no age group specifically. High school was coded as 9th through 12th grade. Post-secondary, that's followed by the non-specified adult population category, followed by early

childhood. And then in-service teachers and pre-service teachers, those were coded together. And then the least frequently reported was incarcerated youth. So we're going through a lot of data, so I hope you're able to access the document, the additional document, Because it might take some additional time to process, and that's okay. So the graph on this slide illustrates the research fields reported as demonstrated by the largest purple section. General and special education were represented the most, followed by that large pink section, which represented cognitive or educational psychology-based research. So it could be argued, I think, here

that PBIS or PBS, positive behavior intervention support And school-wide positive behavior intervention support, could be captured under the umbrella of general and special education, and that's how it initially started, but it came up with enough frequency to become its own field. So similar in that vein, when we're looking at teacher preparation or teacher professional development and inclusive education, those two categories, those were almost always consistently double-coded because it came up with relative frequency, And was generally secondary to a more central intervention. So coding decisions were made on a number of factors here. So which field

it fell into was based on the journal, the audience, keywords that came up, frameworks that they used, theories that they used, citations that were used, research questions that were asked, and the way that participants and settings were reported in the research. All right, so here, Here we're looking at asset-based pedagogy. And I wanna take a quick moment to operationalize that because I think that it's important when we're talking about these things to make sure we're talking about the same thing. So asset-based pedagogy is an umbrella term for theories and framework that center privilege and resource,

the cultural community and individual assets that students bring into the classroom. So examples would include culturally responsive teaching, culturally relevant teaching, Culturally sustaining teaching, culturally inclusive, or culturally based education. So that in itself is a days-long webinar, so we're not able to offer too much detail here, and honestly, I'm down for that conversation pretty much any other day of the week. But as you can see, most of the 2.2 research was not aligned with any asset-based pedagogy, but a very small handful was. So one of those that in that very small handful, One couched their

work in culturally responsive pedagogy, one couched their working culturally relevant pedagogy and one used cultural congruence as an asset-based framework. Then there were three that in every way were asset-based pedagogy without anchoring to any specific work. Okay, so this one is, I really like this one, and I'm gonna drop a little teaser for the UDL-Con session. So one of the metrics that can really indicate how a researcher is framing their study is by their theoretical foundation. So out of the 1,200 or so coded studies, 364 employed theories to explain the research questions, the methods, and/or

the findings. So in those 364, 139 different theories were used, so not all 139 can be represented here and illustrated on this one graph. This funnel graph represents the 13 theories that were cited 10 or more times in the 2.2 research. So I'll be facilitating a session at UDL-Con in two weeks on those 364 studies, those theories that were used And the way that the rest of those studies were coded. And so we'll discuss about what those findings mean for research now and how to interpret research now and what this means for future. Okay, so

it became necessary to have a way to describe and talk about these ideas and this research that is redressing educational inequity and addressing barriers related to identity within that classroom context. So while we certainly didn't coin the term equity forward, it kind of encapsulate our intention and what we're doing. So equity-forward research is research That uses a theoretical framework that is asset-based in name or nature centers populations that have been historically marginalized or omitted from the research altogether. And it really is research that prioritizes being equity-driven. This is a part of why they're doing what

they're doing. So one of the primary goals of this review endeavor was to examine the presence or absence of this intentionally equity-driven research. So what research in the UDL 2.2 Guidelines is prioritizing and centering these experiences of historically And sociocultural marginalized students. So a degree of alignment to this equity-forward intentionality requires operationalizing alignment, and I used three primary sources for guidance on this. I used CAST's current approach, which we've talked about quite a bit. I used APA, which created in 2019 and then edited again in 2023. APA has a really wonderful and helpful bias-free language

guidelines. I think we have that link in the Homebase document. I also used CEC, the flagship organization Council for Exceptional Children. In 2023, they issued a series of guidelines for all methodologies and all of them include this equity piece. So these were the three sources that I used. But it became very quickly apparent that alignment or not alignment was not all or nothing. This was very, there's a lot of gray area here. So there were three codes possible here. They were coded as aligned, not aligned, Or aligned with reservation, in which case the reasons were

indicated. All right, so this slide features a graph that illustrates the 2.2 research alignment with this notion of equity-forward research. So the smallest percentage were studies that were not aligned. So research that was coded as not aligned included, for example, there were just too many instances of deficit perspective or omitted or outdated language. So in another one there was a treatment condition where criticism was delivered to six year olds, so these were considered not aligned. So research that was coded as aligned anchored all of these points or adhered to all of these points on the

previous slide. They were equity-forward, they used bias-free language, they were asset-based in quality, if not by name. However, most of the research, as you can see from this graph, was aligned with reservation because these data alone really didn't offer Usable information, right? This graph alone doesn't really tell us much. So let's look next at some of the reasons why articles were flagged as aligned with reservation. Okay. So reasons that research was coded as aligned with reservation run the gamut from omitting identity, cultural, sociopolitical, and contextual factors, as influencing the research, using outdated language to describe

racial and disability information, Deficit perspectives that reify stereotypes, or omitting participants such as English language learners. So I know I went through 'em kind of fast, but these findings from the 2.2 research, both that we shared with you here, as well as what was reflected in all 10 dimensions, indicate that the research base is narrow in terms of representation of each of these 10 dimensions, including the six that we presented today, methodology, date distribution, target population, and the theoretical and research field distribution. So what we've shared here with you today is the proverbial tip of

the iceberg that demonstrates these multitude of compelling reasons why it's time to expand the UDL Guidelines research. - And given over, ooh. - No, go ahead. - Take over, awesome. And given this overall finding that the research base, the current research base was so narrow in terms of representation of those different dimensions that we explored, we knew we needed to work to expand And update the research base to address some of those gaps and biases and to more fully develop the UDL Guidelines as a tool to design learning environments where every learner is welcomed and

honored. So that brings us to phase two, updating and expanding the current research base. And we do wanna note that we are being really intentional with the word expanding. The original research that was used to develop previous iterations of the Guidelines is really foundational to the development of the Guidelines. So phase two was all about building upon and expanding that existing research. In terms of our rationale, again, phase one illustrated that gaps in biases exist in the current research base in terms of publication date, author positionality, methodological approach, target population, research field, theoretical distribution, equity-forward

alignment, all of those charts and graphs that Mary Margaret just shared with us. Therefore, the objective of phase two was to conduct systematic literature reviews to update and expand the research base to address these gaps and to include a greater diversity of voices, perspectives, and research that's asset-based in nature and centers populations that have been historically marginalized. So it was from that objective that we developed our eligibility criteria for the literature reviews. And overall this process was guided by PRISMA, and PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items For Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. And we have a

link to PRISMA guidelines and the checklist in our Homebase document. But in general, PRISMA is a set of reporting guidelines to support researchers in conducting a systematic review in a transparent manner. And that transparency and inclusivity has just been so important to this process from the very beginning of our launch in 2020, so adhering to these PRISMA reporting guidelines really felt important to us. Then in terms of information sources, From the time we launched our process to update the Guidelines back in 2020, we just began reading and rereading as much as we could to really

get a strong foundation for this work. Our information sources included current and seminal literature in the areas of sociocultural perspectives on learning, disability studies, asset-based pedagogies, and student-centered environments and instruction. And we're happy to kind of dig more into that, those information sources That really kind of rooted the beginning of this process in the Q&A time at the end. And then in terms of our systematic search strategy, we developed search terms from an array of sources. So we have been so fortunate to collaborate with an incredible advisory board made up of external scholars and practitioners.

We also had a UDL Guidelines collaborative made up of representatives from the different branches of our CAST organization, as well as the broader UDL community. And then we had an incredible Young Adult Advisory Board Made up of young people ages 18 to 22, who are just so incredibly eager to share their ideas with us. So our collaborations with these groups surface lots of themes that we use to identify search terms. We also drew from broad reviews of the information sources that included current and seminal literature. And finally we drew from collaborative input from our colleagues,

we have an incredible Guidelines 3.0 team at CAST, and from our amazing CAST colleagues. So we really were able to draw from an array of sources to kind of unearth these search terms. - Okay, so here, if you are not someone who conducts literature reviews, this may look like something they found at Roswell, but it is actually how I am conducting these literature searches. So from all of these information sources, I created the search term list for each topic. Not just one literature review, not just one search term, but 400-plus, right? So on the left

here, you'll see each of the bends of the research that aligns with those UDL principles, as well as some overarching topics related to learner agency and executive function and shifting from that sage on the stage teacher centeredness to a more student-centered, student-led and student-centered classroom. So to right is just one example of the three search terms aimed to mine research on identity specifically. So I used an asterisk to capture other forms of the word identity, identities, identify, so identification, so et cetera. So while the rest of those search terms ensure that equity-forward research that we

were talking about earlier, so to make sure that the algorithm digests all that, is most relevant to these searches. So, where did I get these rich veins of research? So my search strategy included the typical education databases. I used Boolean search terms limited by research That is peer-reviewed and available by full text. And I used the date of the youngest research in 2.2, 2011, as my date limiters. But it was not just these PRISMA reviews that contributed to the final includes list, like Jenna was saying, there was lots of input at this point, so we

had to have a place to put those things that people were sending us through these outside the systematic review method. And so we also had, we've also been maintaining a folder Of those incoming things from all of this review process and from the UDL community, that's been shared along the way. So following the PRISMA guidelines, I filtered the incoming research through a very broad inclusion and exclusion criteria. During this initial part of the phase, I wasn't filtering per principal guideline or consideration because that felt somewhat limiting as to where something might come up that could

be relevant somewhere else. The goal at this point was to be comprehensive And to cast the widest net I could for the available research that was relevant to what we were doing. So once I had this comprehensive list of articles that made it past article and abstract screening, the selection process shifted to a highly purposive article screening based on these Guidelines 3.0 and the graphic organizer, right? So we went from this very comprehensive search to now being very, very purposive in what we're looking for to go into the 3.0 research. So this phase for 3.0

has wrapped up, but the work continues, right? Those overlapping five bubbles, the call here is to contribute to this research field in a way that makes the next review of this literature just oozing with barrier busting equity, right? So here's that, here is the search example from slide 29. So the goal with this one, as with all of 'em, was to redress who is not represented in the 2.2 research base. So the return here is huge. So we're able to find just the right research that addresses the barriers. - And before we move into the

Q&A portion of this webinar, and we're so excited to learn from your questions and comments, we wanted to conclude this section by offering two specific examples of how this research-based process informed the development of Guidelines 3.0. So I will be honest and say it was very challenging to select these examples because each and every update That we're including in Guidelines 3.0 was informed by this research-based process. But we were able to select just two for you today, and we can talk about more if you have any questions later. And our process for selecting these two

examples is we thought that focusing on an update at the guidelines level and then focusing on kind of an overarching update would offer you all helpful illustrations of our process. So with our first example, we'll explore how our research-based process informed the update of UDL Guideline 7: Welcoming Interests and Identities. And this is an updated guideline, and the original version in version 2.2 is Provide Options for Recruiting Interest. So again, this is updated Guideline 7: Design Options for Welcoming Interests and Identities. And Mary Margaret, I'll hand it over to you to describe the search strategy,

and then I can come back and kind of say how the research that emerge worked to update and inform that update. - Yes, great. I think I may have leaked a couple of the phrases from this slide earlier. But yeah, what we're looking at here is just one of the search terms. So in engagement alone, there were 161, there were three related to identity. And so I use the asterisks to make sure that I capture all the forms of the word and then the rest of them to make sure that these are what is presented

as most relevant. And as you can see, the return here is huge. So we were really able to find just the right research that is most relevant. - So some examples of areas of research that surfaced during this process and were extremely useful to us in developing the guideline, Welcoming Interests and Identities, were some of the following. We wanted to give you a little window into this process. First, Gonzalez and Moll's research on funds of knowledge was incredibly helpful. So the idea of funds of knowledge Refers to the cultural practices and bodies of knowledge that

are embedded in the daily practices of families. And this research explores how these abundant funds of knowledge can support student learning. We also drew heavily from Ladson-Billings' work on culturally relevant pedagogy. So culturally relevant pedagogy, for a little background, is a theoretical model that not only addresses student achievement, but also affirms students' cultural identity and support students to develop critical perspectives That challenge inequities. And finally, another source of research that really bubbled up for us during this process is Paris and Alim's research on culturally sustaining pedagogies. So culturally sustaining pedagogies builds upon culturally relevant pedagogy

to emphasize the importance of sustaining and perpetuating learners' cultural and linguistic repertoires. And then we kind of added on to that really thinking about Waitoller and King Thorius's work That explored the promise of cross-pollinating, kind of putting together culturally sustaining pedagogies and Universal Design for Learning. So all of these areas of the research were just incredibly helpful to us in kind of guiding that process of updating Guideline 7, but we will have to say it also informed the update of other guidelines and considerations across Guidelines 3.0 as well. So elements from our learning from this

research kind of most prominently aligned with Guideline 7, but we really feel like the learning from this research Is really woven throughout Guidelines 3.0. And now with our second example, we'll explore how the research process informed the update of emphasizing learner agency as the goal of Universal Design for Learning. So with Guidelines 3.0, we're clarifying that the goal of UDL is learner agency. So again, I'll hand it off to you Mary Margaret to kind of set the stage for our search and then I'll come back and talk about some of the themes that bubbled up

for us. - Okay, so this is what the search terms looked like For learner agency. This is the second search example, so intended to pull that equity-forward research as it relates specifically to student and learner agency. The second set of search terms relating to those asset-based pedagogies, again, created that secondary search terms to create those relevant research results that we were looking for that were most related to the guidelines and principles. This one didn't yield as many research search results, so this one wasn't quite as difficult to wade through, But still a substantial amount of

research. - Yeah, still with more than 600 articles, so. (laughs) It was incredible the work that you did. And then some examples of areas of research that, again, kind of surfaced during this process and that were really helpful in expanding the idea of learner agency for us. First was Barnes' idea of learner agency as encompassing kind of multiple elements. So Barnes argues that learner agency encompasses goal setting, intentional action, Reflection and self-direction, and internalizing self-efficacy. So as we were reviewing that work and lots of other research like it, it was really interesting to us to

see how different elements that were surfacing in the descriptions of learner agency in the research were aligning so nicely to some of the practices of expert learners that we had described in version 2.2 and in previous iterations. So it was really interesting to kind of see that alignment In the ways that learner agency was described in the research. And then Restani's emphasis on the environment, again, really resonated with UDL. Restani emphasizes the idea of creating environments where students had opportunities to employ agency over their own learning processes. So again, kind of thinking about one of

those really central tenets of UDL of thinking about, what are the barriers in the design of the learning environment, that just connected so nicely to this piece of research, But lots of other research that we've been reviewing, in terms of expanding and more clearly defining this idea of learner agency. So for us in all of our conversations, it was kind of fun to see that there was kind of all of this resonance between this broader shift to learner agency and the previous idea of expert learning as the goal of UDL. And now, we've been talking

for a really long time and we are just so eager to learn from your feedback, from your questions, from your ideas. So we will open up the Q&A, and please feel free to share any questions that you have. And I can start us off with one that I already saw come through, a question about the term, as discussed in the previous webinar and the Guidelines updates, the term expert learner indicates some bias. So you will be replacing with a new term, are you considering learner agency instead? And yes, with that slide that we are just

discussing, we are now shifting to the idea of learner agency As the goal of UDL. And as we've described in previous, like this participant said, in previous webinars and some of the other communication that we've been doing, there was some real concern around the notion of expert learning. In the literature and especially in the focus groups and our advisory boards, there was a concern that the idea of expert learning could kind of unintentionally signal that there was kind of a linear approach to learning And a finite end to learning. There was also some concern that

there was some exclusivity attached to the idea of being an expert in expert learning. We also had some wonderful pushback saying that learners don't need UDL to become expert learners, right? Little babies are expert learners as they come to explore their surroundings and their environments and start to make meaning. And so there was some concern, Was there almost like a deficit perspective kind of attached to the notion of expert learning. So this has just been such a wonderful learning process for us as we've been learning from our advisory boards, learning from the 43 focus groups

that we conducted to kind of make the shift into learner agency, and then to see so much resonance in the literature too really made us feel really excited about the shift. All right, we've got lots of other questions coming through. Let's see. We have one question. How were the search strategies validated? And how was sensitivity and specificity measured and balanced? So I will hand that one off to you Mary Margaret, 'cause I know you were engaged so much more in the systematic literature review pieces of this. If you wanna get us started and then I

can jump in too. - Sure, do you mind repeating the question? I'm sorry, I was reading another one. - Oh, yeah. So we had one come in. How were the search strategies validated? And how was sensitivity and specificity measured and balanced? - Those are really good questions that I would probably need to go back and check some of my notes to be able to answer thoroughly. But these were search terms that were brought to the Guidelines 3.0 team, so that is how we validated the search terms. Do you have something to add, Jenna? - I

would just say too, with the search terms, it felt really reassuring to know that the search terms, how we were kind of bringing up the search terms Came from such a diversity of kind of groups, right? We had our three groups that have been guiding this work. Again, we had our advisory board that was made up of external scholars and practitioners, we had our guidelines collaborative, which is kind of the UDL community members and representatives from our CAST organization, and then we had our Young Adult Advisory Board. So just so many ideas for the search

terms were kind of bubbling up from there, along with all the focus groups. And then I would say that kind of foundational part Of the process at the very beginning when we launched, and Nicole and I were just reading as much as we could, going back to pieces that felt really meaningful to us, we had colleagues email us articles, it just was like this part of the process where we really just immersed ourself in the literature and had ideas for search terms bubble up that way too. So I would say they were definitely coming from

a multitude of different sources for us. - Yeah, another source was key terms in the 2.2 research, so some of the search terms came from those as well. - Awesome. Okay, let's see. There's lots of questions coming in, so I'm gonna keep going and I will just keep reading them out loud. And Mary Margaret, we can answer these. We have another one. How can we access the current Guidelines? So with this, we have the current Guidelines version 2.2 are still on our website. And when we transition to Guidelines 3.0, we will archive everything on the

current website so that we will have an artifact of version 2.2. Everything will be downloaded in a PDF so that we have a way to refer back to version 2.2 for kind of our historical knowledge. And then on July 30th, when we launch Guidelines 3.0, we'll be launching at a live session that you can join us via social media, a live session at 8:00 AM pacific time at our UDL-Con, and that morning is when we will start sharing. We have the graphic organizer to share. As Lindsay mentioned, we have the graphic organizer translated into six

different languages, And we will be updating our UDL Guidelines website. So July 30th will be a big day that we're really looking forward to in terms of accessing this next iteration of the Guidelines. Oh, this is a fun question that came in. Through the search for research, what was your favorite or most fun article that you read? So Mary Margaret, I'll let you answer that one first and then I can jump in too. - Oh, I might need to think on that one. See, I need to think on things like that 'cause I came across

a whole bunch of research On indigenous understanding and indigenous ways of knowing, and so picking one amongst those might be tricky, but that was really just kind of mind-expanding, really interesting, and as far as I know, not included in anybody else's research packet that was a rabbit hole I fell into deeply. - Yeah. And I can add to that too. I was gonna say something different, so maybe I'll say that next. But just to jump on the learning In terms of indigenous communities' perspectives on teaching and learning, we did a lot of exploring of that

topic within our advisory board, and we had this board, was with us for three years during this process. And one of our members has done incredible work around UDL and the notion of two-eyed seeing, Bruce McKay as our advisory board. And this idea of two-eyed seeing is kind of the guiding principle within indigenous communities Of seeing the strengths of multiple perspectives kind of as interconnected and in a respectful way, rather than focusing on kind of binaries or opposites. And this was just incredible to dig into with him and with our other advisory board members, and

it really helped us to kind of think about the ways that we were updating the current guideline, Provide Options for Comprehension. And we knew that we really wanted to expand that guideline to emphasize valuing multiple ways of knowing, including and extending beyond western approaches to knowledge. So that conversation, I can remember our initial conversation, it was kind of just this thread that really ran across an entire year of one of our advisory board, one of the years. And just as such a, I think it's a great way to kind of emphasize this collaborative approach. This

idea was brought up in our advisory board. Then we were able to do some reading. There's an article by Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall, I think that one came out in 2012 around two-eyed seeing, And just kind of dug into the research from there. So I think that's kind of a nice story of something that bubbled up from the community and then we were able to kind of dive into the research as well. One other one that I have to say, 'cause I would say this is probably my most favorite as a doctoral student, the article

by Federico Waitoller and Kathleen King Thorius, Cross-pollinating Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and UDL, which I mentioned when we were talking about asset-based pedagogies earlier. That article was published during my doc program, and it was just this incredible moment for me as a doc student as I was fully embedded in UDL. And at the time I was collecting data, I had an opportunity to be partnering with teachers and working to apply UDL to their practice. And that piece came out and just totally prompted me to rethink the ways that UDL might work in concert with other asset-based

approaches and just supported me to really think in new ways. And again, I first encountered that article during my doctoral program. So then to revisit that piece now with Nicole as co-chairs of this process, and Federico Waitoller, Kathleen King Thorius, became wonderful supporters of this process over the four years too, was just really neat for me to have a piece that was so foundational to my learning as a doctoral student and then became so foundational really to kind of the impetus of this process in the beginning. All right, let's see. There are so many questions

to choose from. And luckily we do have a record of all of these amazing questions coming in, so we'll find ways to kind of follow up at future events. Let's see, - While you're looking for one, Jenna, I went back and looked at a couple of the ways that I adjusted for sensitivity on the searches, and it was with additional limiters. So a good example is expression. So when we're talking about expression, and in terms of the UDL Guidelines, We were talking about it in one way, but there are a lot of ways that that

comes up in research. So additional limiters was a way that I would exclude those to get better sensitivity and more relevancy in the return. - That's awesome, great. Thanks for following up on that. Another question. Does the search identify differences between K-12 learners and post-secondary learners? So I think that's probably a search, a question maybe connected to the examination of the research base, But also connected to this expansion of the research base. And maybe I can just start us off and then I'll hand it over to you Mary Margaret, but I did just wanna emphasize

that in our expansion we really are working to include more research articles that are focused in the post-secondary higher education kind of sphere. And as Mary Margaret said, we've had lots of anecdotal data coming in, lots of feedback sharing that the research base for the current version 2.2 felt very centered within K-12 education, And that's absolutely true. And so a big piece of this is really working to expand that focus. We're working really hard to make sure we've got lots of articles that will be focused in post-secondary and higher education, but this process won't end

when we launch on July 30th. So if you have ideas for articles centering higher education, we would love to see them, so please feel free to reach out and share them as well. But I just wanted to start off the response to that question Really emphasizing that that's a goal for us, expanding into higher ed. And Mary Margaret, I'll hand it over to you to maybe talk about any differences that you've been exploring. - Looking for that better balance, and it is all about balance, right? So just trying to work ahead and hoping that those

graphs look differently after we analyze all of it. Yeah, I think that that's absolutely true. And there was a distinction between K-12 and post-secondary And really trying to strike that balance better than the 2.2 with the 3.0. - Yeah. And maybe for our last question, I think this is gonna be, as researchers, Mary Margaret, this is gonna be really hard for us to answer in just two minutes. But there's a question. Could you suggest areas for future research based on your search? So maybe I'll start us off, That I have just been kind of fascinated

during this process kind of thinking about UDL in concert with other asset-based pedagogies. And I think that was really a goal from the beginning, is let's put UDL in conversation with these other approaches that are really centering learners, centering the funds of knowledge that they're bringing to the classroom and to learning environments. And so I think designing studies where we're kind of working with educators in different contexts Who are kind of actively interested in working at that intersection of UDL and other asset-based pedagogies, in exploring what happens in terms of student learning in their classroom,

in terms of the ways that students are feeling a sense of belonging in their classroom. And I think with previous iterations, linking up UDL to other asset-based pedagogies was kind of hard. I think there certainly was resonance, But it was kind of, it could have been a challenge, it wasn't as explicit to find those areas of resonance. And I feel like with Guidelines 3.0, those areas of resonance between UDL and other asset-based pedagogies now we hope are much more explicit. And I just feel like there's such generative space to explore now in terms of lines

of research. So I'm feeling super excited and kind of motivated as a researcher as we launch Guidelines 3.0. And I didn't leave you any time, Mary Margaret, for you to jump in, so. - That's okay, you said everything. - Okay. - If I had to point to one, I would say building knowledge and representation, that that's the one that's been a little bit harder to find. And you're exactly right, though, that this is the way that we should be moving, and according to CDC and APA, we should be moving. So I think continuing to conduct

the research, but making sure that we're adding all of these elements, That we're including everyone and reporting on everyone in a respectful way and we're reporting on ourselves, and how the selves that we bring influence the questions that we're asking and the way that we're asking them. - Yeah. And we know our time is up, so we are just gonna conclude with some very brief reminders. I'm sorry we're going one minute over. But as we mentioned, We are just so excited to celebrate the launch of Guidelines 3.0 in just two weeks at UDL-Con. We will

be doing a live launch on social media at 8:00 AM PT on the 30th of July. So we have information here on the slide and in the Homebase for how you can register to join that live session and celebrate with us on the 30th. And then just, we've been kind of sharing these reminders, but a reminder that we would love to stay connected with all of you. Once we launch Guidelines 3.0, we'll transition to include any Guidelines information or updates in the CAST monthly newsletter. So we encourage you to update your newsletter preferences to include

the CAST newsletter, and you'll find that link in the Homebase document. So we're so grateful to you all for joining us. We are excited to continue this conversation. This has been a community-driven process from the very beginning, a research-based process, and we are so excited to continue to engage with all of you As we work to now launch and implement Guidelines 3.0 at the end of July. This is a slide reminding you of UDL-Con, our conference, and that will be held in Sacramento. And just a huge thank you to all of you for your engagement

in this process today, all of your wonderful questions, but really your engagement in this process across the four years. Thank you. - Thank you.