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UDL and Blended Learning: Thriving in Flexible Learning Landscapes
You can develop the skills to meet the needs of learners in any learning environment.
This approachable, in-depth guide unites the adaptability of Universal Design for Learning with the flexibility of blended learning, equipping educators with the tools they need to create relevant, authentic, and meaningful learning pathways to meet students where they're at, no matter the time and place or their pace and path. With step-by-step guidance and clear strategies, authors Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker empower teachers to implement these frameworks in the classroom, with a focus on cultivating community, building equity, and increasing accessibility for all learners.
As we face increasing uncertainty and frequent disruption to traditional ways of living and learning, UDL and Blended Learning offers bold, innovative, inclusive solutions for navigating a range of learning landscapes, from the home to the classroom and all points in between, no matter what obstacles may lie ahead.
This approachable, in-depth guide unites the adaptability of Universal Design for Learning with the flexibility of blended learning, equipping educators with the tools they need to create relevant, authentic, and meaningful learning pathways to meet students where they're at, no matter the time and place or their pace and path. With step-by-step guidance and clear strategies, authors Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker empower teachers to implement these frameworks in the classroom, with a focus on cultivating community, building equity, and increasing accessibility for all learners.
As we face increasing uncertainty and frequent disruption to traditional ways of living and learning, UDL and Blended Learning offers bold, innovative, inclusive solutions for navigating a range of learning landscapes, from the home to the classroom and all points in between, no matter what obstacles may lie ahead.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published May 30, 2021
89 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
Katie Novak
26 books38 followersKatie Novak, Ed.D., is an internationally renowned education consultant, author, graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a former Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Massachusetts. With 20 years of experience in teaching and administration, an earned doctorate in curriculum and teaching, and ten published books, Katie designs and presents workshops both nationally and internationally focusing on the implementation of inclusive practices, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), multi-tiered systems of support, and universally designed leadership. Novak’s work has impacted educators worldwide as her contributions and collaborations have built upon the foundation for an educational framework that is critical for student success.
Dr. Novak is the author of the best-selling books, UDL Now! A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms, Innovate Inside the Box, with George Couros, Equity by Design, with Mirko Chardin, and UDL and Blended Learning with Catlin Tucker.
Dr. Novak is the author of the best-selling books, UDL Now! A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms, Innovate Inside the Box, with George Couros, Equity by Design, with Mirko Chardin, and UDL and Blended Learning with Catlin Tucker.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 15, 2023
Once again, my trust has been eroded by someone using literature incorrectly. In the beginning of chapter eight, so near the end, Novak claims that the first sentence of Walden is "I went to the woods...." Tell me you haven't really read the book you're quoting without telling me you haven't read the book you're quoting. Clearly, she has, at most, read an excerpt and then not even registered that she's only read an excerpt. Because I am a nerd and also because I am an expert BS detector due to having had many opportunities to practice, I pulled out my copy of Walden and found the quote in the middle of chapter two. Fine. So that error is neither here nor there. Moving on. Then, in the conclusion she misrepresents The Alchemist, which I happened to be reading concurrently with this book. Ethos destroyed.
More relevantly, I agree with the philosophy of this book. That said, I read it as part of a committee on blended learning, and this book did not seem like a great fit for that task. It focuses much more on a mindset that could/should be in any classroom. It doesn't deal at all with the elements of allowing students to be in alternate spaces and how to deal with the logistics of that part of blended learning. Blended Learning In Action would have been a better choice.
More relevantly, I agree with the philosophy of this book. That said, I read it as part of a committee on blended learning, and this book did not seem like a great fit for that task. It focuses much more on a mindset that could/should be in any classroom. It doesn't deal at all with the elements of allowing students to be in alternate spaces and how to deal with the logistics of that part of blended learning. Blended Learning In Action would have been a better choice.
December 9, 2023
I read this book for a class I was taking and mostly enjoyed it. I thought it was a great introduction to UDL and Blended Learning. I liked the practical, reality-based ideas the educators had and I liked how they were honest about their own journeys and the mistakes they made.
Here are some of the quotes and parts that stood out to me:
*Started with some great stats that help prove the point (that most of us already know) that education needs a revamp. In 2019 only a 1/3 of 8th graders were performing at grade level in math. And that was down from 2017. In a survey of high school students 66% said they were bored in school and most of those said it was because of the material. 81% of students said that the material lacked relevance.
*You should always start with why. "If you can't find a why, then the what and the where will fall short."
*You need "firm goals and flexible means."
*School being interrupted, for whatever reason, is becoming the rule, instead of the exception, and we need to design schools and classes with that in mind.
*"Variability is the RULE not the exception."
*They compared blended learning to streaming TV. We have control over when and where we watch.
*All the new tech is only good if it's paired with a student-centered approach.
*Offer students agency in how they want to show what they know. It's more meaningful. (This reminds me of my favorite class in college. It was a geology class. Each week we could go on a field trip to somewhere local and learn about the geology. We could use whatever means we wanted to create product that showed what learned. I wrote a recipe for rocks, a folktale, a poem - it was so much fun.)
*"What is necessary for some is good for all."
*Offer a "buffet of resources" for learning.
*"Empathy is the first step to getting toward equity...It's important to meet the needs of a person without understanding them."
*"What is the point of racing through curriculum if students do not understand it?"
*Rule of thumb for length of videos - match the length to the grade level. (1 min videos for 1st graders)
*"Too often, traditional approaches to assessment result in resentment and can actually damage the student-teacher relationship."
*Students often feel like assessments are a game of "gotcha" where the teachers try to trick them. Don't do this.
*"The word 'assessment' comes from the Latin verb 'assidere' meaning 'to sit with.'"
Here are some of the quotes and parts that stood out to me:
*Started with some great stats that help prove the point (that most of us already know) that education needs a revamp. In 2019 only a 1/3 of 8th graders were performing at grade level in math. And that was down from 2017. In a survey of high school students 66% said they were bored in school and most of those said it was because of the material. 81% of students said that the material lacked relevance.
*You should always start with why. "If you can't find a why, then the what and the where will fall short."
*You need "firm goals and flexible means."
*School being interrupted, for whatever reason, is becoming the rule, instead of the exception, and we need to design schools and classes with that in mind.
*"Variability is the RULE not the exception."
*They compared blended learning to streaming TV. We have control over when and where we watch.
*All the new tech is only good if it's paired with a student-centered approach.
*Offer students agency in how they want to show what they know. It's more meaningful. (This reminds me of my favorite class in college. It was a geology class. Each week we could go on a field trip to somewhere local and learn about the geology. We could use whatever means we wanted to create product that showed what learned. I wrote a recipe for rocks, a folktale, a poem - it was so much fun.)
*"What is necessary for some is good for all."
*Offer a "buffet of resources" for learning.
*"Empathy is the first step to getting toward equity...It's important to meet the needs of a person without understanding them."
*"What is the point of racing through curriculum if students do not understand it?"
*Rule of thumb for length of videos - match the length to the grade level. (1 min videos for 1st graders)
*"Too often, traditional approaches to assessment result in resentment and can actually damage the student-teacher relationship."
*Students often feel like assessments are a game of "gotcha" where the teachers try to trick them. Don't do this.
*"The word 'assessment' comes from the Latin verb 'assidere' meaning 'to sit with.'"
February 10, 2022
I think this book is a good starting place to learn about how UDL and blended learning could work together to better support students and offer them more control over the pace and path of their learning. I think the analogy they offer early in the book comparing today's streaming content with the older approach of only offering TV shows at prescheduled times would be a great way to introduce the overall concept of UDL and blended learning. Their main point there is quite clear: who would want to go back to watching TV and movies that way? We all prefer being able to access what we need, when we need it, and where we happen to be. Why wouldn't we want to offer the same kind of flexibility and accessibility to our students?
If you are someone who leads professional development on this topic you may find this book useful as well. There are other useful analogies like the streaming content one that could help familiarize people with unfamiliar concepts. And I think it lays out some good starting points for people that you could use as a guide for developing workshops and training. But I do think your target audience would have to be people who are very new to these teaching models. I think this book functions as an introduction and will not go deep enough for people who already know about Universal Design for Learning and/or blended learning.
If you have already read books by Katie Novak or Catlin Tucker, I don't think you will find anything particularly new here. You would probably only get a lot out of this book if you truly had no sense of how these two teaching frameworks could be brought together.
If you are someone who leads professional development on this topic you may find this book useful as well. There are other useful analogies like the streaming content one that could help familiarize people with unfamiliar concepts. And I think it lays out some good starting points for people that you could use as a guide for developing workshops and training. But I do think your target audience would have to be people who are very new to these teaching models. I think this book functions as an introduction and will not go deep enough for people who already know about Universal Design for Learning and/or blended learning.
If you have already read books by Katie Novak or Catlin Tucker, I don't think you will find anything particularly new here. You would probably only get a lot out of this book if you truly had no sense of how these two teaching frameworks could be brought together.
December 27, 2024
I DNF’ed this book because the content isn’t what I need to move me forward where I am right now as a 20 year “veteran” teacher. I need other personal PD books right now that are not review of things I learned in college. The book’s content assumes the readers have only one big toe fresh out of college and just starting their careers. For anyone who has had any PD or instruction on UDL (which was a part of my content area literacy courses in the early 2000s), this book doesn’t provide any new concepts. It’s a good review - more like a resource to remind you of UDL and BL vernacular, if you need to reimmerse yourself in the vocabulary.
This doesn’t take away from Novak and Tucker; I still highly respect their contribution to education. The book has its place - something that I would have liked 15 years ago to supplement my practice of PBL, backwards design, and UDL.
What I find rather demoralizing is that my district gave this book to every teacher to read and absorb. The message sent by doing this: All teachers are interchangeable - years of experience doesn’t matter because everyone is assumed as a “year one” teacher and stubbornly do not move forward. Therefore, all need methods courses all over again, every year. 🙄
This doesn’t take away from Novak and Tucker; I still highly respect their contribution to education. The book has its place - something that I would have liked 15 years ago to supplement my practice of PBL, backwards design, and UDL.
What I find rather demoralizing is that my district gave this book to every teacher to read and absorb. The message sent by doing this: All teachers are interchangeable - years of experience doesn’t matter because everyone is assumed as a “year one” teacher and stubbornly do not move forward. Therefore, all need methods courses all over again, every year. 🙄
March 29, 2022
This took me much longer to read than it should have, which was not really because of the book itself, but yet, maybe a little! UDL and Blended Learning examines just that, how UDL and blended learning can intersect and come together for an engaging, responsive learning environment both in and out of the classroom. I'm not sure I learned anything explicitly new by reading Novak and Tucker's text, but it was reaffirming and encouraging to read nonetheless.
A few of my favourite take aways/reminders/affirmations:
-Focus on why over what and where
-The learner should have some control over the experience in order to be engaged and find it meaningful
-Reminder to examine for potential barriers
-Empathy as first step in design
-"I do, we do, groups do, you do" (I liked the addition of "groups do" to the framing)
-
A few of my favourite take aways/reminders/affirmations:
-Focus on why over what and where
-The learner should have some control over the experience in order to be engaged and find it meaningful
-Reminder to examine for potential barriers
-Empathy as first step in design
-"I do, we do, groups do, you do" (I liked the addition of "groups do" to the framing)
-
March 5, 2022
Novak and Tucker do an amazing job at highlighting the ways in which Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Blending Learning approaches can benefit students at varying needs and paces. This text serves as a reference of examples, tips, and relatable stories that encourage educators to rethink their practice and invite them to create universally designed blending learning lessons. I enjoyed that the authors incorporated personal stories that showcased their different learning needs, even as adults. The text was informative but concise, which made for an easy read. I would recommend this book to any educator looking to better serve the needs of their students.
July 5, 2021
A fantastic read! Authors, Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker did such a fantastic job explaining how educators can set up a classroom that works for any type of learners. I have so many folded over pages and stars and underline marks! I love the way they anticipated and addressed some of the questions readers would have within the content. The analogies at the start of each chapter were absolutely amazing and really helped me to understand as well as appreciate the purpose in making a few adjustments in the classroom. Definitely worth the read!
November 15, 2021
A bit of a thought provoking discussion on how to combine blended learning approaches with universal design. The central problem I kept coming back to was this seems like it requires way more time than any teacher actually has. However, there are some ideas at the edges that I think I can implement to improve what I'm doing.
August 13, 2021
It's good, especially if you're just getting started to look at UDL. It doesn't say anything different than what's come before it, and it doesn't really evolve on any of the ideas already out there. There are some good lesson plans and graphic organizers throughout.
March 6, 2023
If you're a teacher who's done ANY other engagement training, this book doesn't give you anything additional. If you're a new teacher, it's a good start, but doesn't provide a lot of stepping stones to get to their "perfect" scenario.
June 15, 2021
I so badly wanted to love this book and I liked this book.
June 28, 2021
Best edu book I’ve read in a long, long, LONG time!
June 29, 2021
A good introduction, but I wanted more depth.
May 20, 2022
I enjoyed the format. The insights from the two collaborators worked well together. I appreciated how there was a balance between theory/philosophy and practicality.
August 16, 2022
When you combine the UDL knowledge of Katie Novak with the Blended Learning knowledge of Catlin Tucker, you know this book is a winner!
April 10, 2023
Some good, practical advice and strategies for blended learning environments. Would have liked more depth in this one, but it's a good overview that has a clear, easy to grasp intro to UDL as well.
May 26, 2023
Some great and relatively easy to apply ideas in here.
December 31, 2024
I read this with an online book group and found a lot of options to implement and improve my online college teaching.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews