Universal Design in Early Education

Project Summary:

Early education centers and classrooms have become increasingly diverse in terms of the children and families receiving care and education. While diversity brings additional richness to early education programs, and better reflects the society in which we live, effectively meeting the individual learning needs of all children presents unique challenges to all early educators. A major focus of the Early Childhood Center is the universal design of early education programs that enable all children to access, engage in, and learn from all activities and lessons. Universal design of early education means "designing the early education environment settings so all children, as equal and valued members of the program, may access and engage in all learning opportunities, learn from a common curriculum according to their individual strengths and abilities, and demonstrate their learning in multiple ways" (Conn-Powers, Cross, Traub, & Hutter-Pishgahi, 2006). The purpose of this project is to work with early educators or preschool-aged children to develop educational tools and practices that reflect these five principles:

1. Equitable curriculum: All children learn together from a common program and a common curriculum.
2. Accessible environments: All children fully access and participate in the physical, social, and instructional life of the classroom
3. Multiple means of representation: All children receive the information they need, regardless of sensory ability, level of understanding, or attention.
4. Multiple means of engagement: All children full engage (interested, motivated, challenged) in all activities.
5. Multiple means of expression: All children successfully demonstrate what they know and what they can do.
6. Success-oriented curriculum: All children successfully learn from a common curriculum that is responsive to their individual

Major activities and timelines

1. In 2011, we are currently working on identifying universally designed intervention strategies early educators can carry out to bridge the programmatic differences that exist between their classrooms and kindergarten classrooms.
2. In 2010, we made presentations to different early education audiences on the application of universal design principles to early education (Early education in a diverse world: Applying universal design)
   
3. In June 2006, we wrote an article for NAEYC’s Beyond the Journal: Conn-Powers, Cross, Traub, & Hutter-Pishgahi, 2006
4. In October 2006, we wrote a series of briefs on school readiness in which we strived to integrate universal design principles into the recommended teaching practices.
5. We have been working on a publication to better define and illustrate universal design principles in early education.

Resources

Presentation on Universal Design and Prekindergarten (Dallas, TX, 2010)
The universal design of early education: Moving forward for all children

Designing effective early education programs that meet the learning needs of all children: Application of multi-tiered and universal design teaching strategies: Draft Paper

Universal Design Presentation