Phase 3: Scaling Up
(Progress Monitoring & Revising)

Start by watching the brief introductory video below or reading its transcript, then explore helpful resources on this page. To download a customizable work plan, please click here.

Watch the video or read the transcript

Examine the driving questions and suggested steps

Explore the resources on this page

Download a customizable work plan

INTRODUCTORY VIDEO

Read the transcript (PDF) 

District Leadership through the Domains of the UDL-SICC

Support Recommendations for Phase 3

DOMAIN 1: SCHOOL CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT

In phase 3 of implementation districts carefully monitor all constituencies for inclusion and impact and ensure data related to stakeholder’s experiences informs planning. Cultural norms and values coupled with district data should be mentioned both formally and informally as a justification behind district decisions.

DOMAIN 2: TEACHING AND LEARNING

In phase 3 of implementation district and school leaders ensure that all educators are designing learning experiences and environments using the UDL framework. They monitor changes in teaching practices and student outcomes in partnership with teachers and students. These data are shared across the district and schools as a means for celebrating growth and being transparent about areas of need.

DOMAIN 3: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

In phase 3 of implementation districts model, support with resources, and monitor the implementation of UDL in pilot schools and identify opportunities for scaling to other schools. Leaders in UDL across various roles within the system have been identified and their voice is being elevated across their spheres of influence and the district as a whole.

DOMAIN 4: PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

In phase 3 of implementation district and school leaders adjust professional learning plans in response to changes in teaching practices and student outcomes. They continue to offer UDL aligned, flexible learning opportunities to support educators at levels of UDL knowledge.

Driving Questions and Suggested Steps

  • Scale and monitor your ongoing efforts for fidelity, efficacy, and opportunities for growth. Specific areas to observe include:
    • Integrate the new/revised inclusive vision, mission, and values and establish a process for periodic review/revision
    • Implementation of your district rollout plan - to what extent is what was planned being put into effective action? What is going well and where do you need to improve? 
    • Student and staff perceptions of belonging - who feels connected? Who doesn’t? And what are the reasons either group gives for their answer?
    • Effectiveness of the communication plan - are staff, students, and the community receiving the message and being provided options for input? Who are you not hearing from?
    • Changes in policy and procedures as a result of taking a more UDL approach to the way things are done. Examples might include:
      1. School and district communication strategies
      2. Discipline policies
      3. District data systems
      4. Schedule changes to support greater inclusion of all students
      5. Processes to actively create opportunities for belonging for all students
      6. District fiscal practices and policies
      7. Human resource policies
      8. Family partnership practices
      9. Teacher evaluation and coaching policies 
    • Changes in instruction and assessment practices, including:
      1. Use of standards-based goals that allow for multiple paths to developing and demonstrating proficiency
      2. Use of multiple means of engagement to foster and sustain student motivation
      3. Use of multiple means of representation to support knowledge acquisition and understanding
      4. Use of multiple means of action and expression to best measure student learning
      5. Including increase student use of universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations on statewide assessments
      6. Changes in how curriculum and technology tools are being selected and used
    • Professional development and instructional resources
      1. Universally designed professional learning
      2. Applying UDL to peer to peer planning time
      3. Coherence and understanding in how UDL intersects with other district initiatives
    • Change in leadership practices 
      1. Modeling UDL in staff meetings and presentations
      2. Using multiple means to communicate with, and receive feedback from, students, staff, and the community
      3. Job-embedded coaching on the integration of UDL in authentic ways
    • Evolution of your schools. Are schools making progress on their implementation plans? Are any of these schools scoring at 2s and 3s on the UDL-SICC Self-Assessment? 
    • UDL’s scale across your system:
      1. At this point all schools should mention UDL as part of their school improvement plans. The question isn’t whether UDL is happening, it is how much have instructional methods changed and what’s working and not working for each school site?
        1. Use information gathered from answering the question above to continue to refine UDL implementation across your district - Remember the UDL-SICC is a helpful guide whether school sites decide to get certified or not
      2. Look for school leadership teams interested in UDL-SICC certification - Gather commitments from these teams and weave them into your efforts? 
      3. Pay attention to how communities within your district are experiencing the changes UDL is bringing to your schools and school system. 
        1. Make a point to gather questions and concerns about UDL’s impact on your system? 
        2. Formalize staff roles/duties charged with meeting with students, families, and community members.  
          1. Learn what is working and not working for these stakeholders within your district’s UDL implementation journey
          2. Find ways to elevate their voice within your district 
  • Continuously observe who is involved in discussions and decisions, and who is not, so that you can identify barriers to authentic inclusion, belonging, and ownership of the work.
  • Collaboratively examine data collected from monitoring efforts. Share results with all interested parties and solicit feedback though a variety of means. Find out what’s working and what could work better.
  • Revise rollout plans and supports based on the collaborative analysis of the data - are your rollout plans gathering dust? Do they never change? Are you capturing these revisions and celebrating the learning they represent? 
    • How are you communicating back to your stakeholders how UDL implementation strategies were revised based on their feedback? 
  • Develop/revise data dashboards to represent trends in UDL and its impact on student performance - remember this is not about blaming or shaming, it is about continuous improvement and system ownership of its outcomes.
  1. Provide ongoing professional learning opportunities to staff aligned to the indicators listed in Phase 2. These efforts should be job-embedded to the maximum extent feasible. Examples of job-embedded PL include:
    1. Opportunities for sharing and collaboration during established meetings (staff, department, level, etc.)
    2. Coaching and mastery-oriented feedback
    3. Locally-facilitated professional learning communities
    4. Tools and templates to facilitate transfer of learning into practice
    5. Mentoring/shadowing opportunities for pilot teachers to model for peers new to UDL and for pilot school leadership teams to partner with the next wave of school leadership teams. 
  2. Promote, observe, and highlight changes in practice, including (but not limited to):
    1. Use of formative assessments that allow for multiple means of action and expression
    2. Use of multiple media to allow students options and support for acquiring new knowledge and skills
    3. Delivery of mastery-oriented feedback to guide student performance and support motivation
    4. Opportunities for students to reflect on their own learning and their role in their own improvement
  3. Continue to develop clear strategies for crosswalking UDL with other district initiatives. As UDL becomes more and more ingrained into your system, find ways to weave it with new and different initiatives needed within your community. 

Collaboration and Community:

As you scale and further develop and contextualize your efforts to best support your students, staff, and community, fewer “off-the-shelf” supports exist. However, there are options for individuals and teams looking to connect and collaborate with others across the state who are also implementing UDL. Reach out to Udl@ccee-ca.org to find a network near you or look below to find county offices leading this work within California!

The CA UDL Coalition

The California UDL Coalition, a grassroots consortia of state programs, county offices of education, and nonprofit organizations. The Coalition runs the CA UDL Network, a community of practitioners and organizations across the state that are either implementing UDL or supporting the implementation efforts of others. They meet virtually several times a year.

To learn more about the CA UDL Coalition and how they individually and collectively support UDL, you can email CAUDLCoalition@gmail.com.

Markers Showing You’re Ready for Phase 4:

You have several iterations of your district vision, mission, and a timeline for when your district leadership team will revisit its role within your district

Your district UDL rollout plan has undergone several iterations and you have clear data showing what you have done and yet to do within your theory of action

      You have strategies to formally assess the degree UDL practices are taking root in your system

      You have several rounds of data showing progress in UDL integration at the instructional level across your district

           Data has quantitative measures reporting instructional connections to UDL principles, guidelines, and checkpoints
           Data has qualitative measures reporting student, staff, and community perceptions of UDL informed changes to instructional design

You have data dashboard that houses important data regarding the experience of students and staff within your schools

Your communication plan shows proactive communication strategies and a history of changes to your overall rollout plans based on feedback from stakeholders

Policies and procedures have started to change to be more supportive of universally designed values

           Have a documented history of specific policies and procedures that have changed as a result of your district’s value of UDL

You have a wealth of strategies for providing professional development to school and district staff

           School and district staff have choice in how they are trained in UDL
           All options are universally designed – they engage staff in a myriad of ways, core concepts are represented so staff can understand them, and staff have options in how they express their learning
           There are options that cross into job embedded supports

School and district leaders are seen as key drivers behind UDL implementation

           They apply UDL to their work with the communities within their spheres of influence

           They can coach teachers and paraprofessionals in UDL across content areas

Your district leadership team knows which site leadership teams are working toward UDL-SICC certification

           Supports are in place for these schools to get what they need to be successful

           These schools are celebrated within the district community

You have a plan for how UDL integrates with new and existing district initiatives and have a strategy for measuring the degree this plan is successful

RESOURCES

Resources to Help You:

We’ve gathered resources from a variety of sources, both here in California as well as nationally. Our intent is to provide you with options that you can choose from to best suit your needs and context. 

Many of these resources are also included in the previous stage – that’s because the work of professional learning, progress monitoring, and engagement and communication continue throughout the cycle. Even when you’ve scaled across your organization, you will always need to support new staff to best acclimate to the culture of UDL that you’ve established. That culture, likewise, will need continuous monitoring, support, and revision to best support students by reducing barriers to learning and building capacity for expert learning.

Professional Learning and Capacity-Building

UDL for Educator Empoweremnt

This learning path’s goal is to empower California educators with the needed knowledge and skills to apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL) holistically to their practices as professionals. Designed in partnership with teachers, for teachers, this path contains 6 modules of multimedia content, opportunities for reflection and community, and links to resources to deepen your learning and practice.
Learn About the Training
Orange County Department of Education Logo

UDL 101: Learn the Basics of Universal Design for Learning

OCDE provides in-person, virtual, and asynchronous options to help you:
  • Understand the connection between UDL, differentiation and the California Multi-Tiered System of Support (CA MTSS)
  • Learn about the three principles of UDL (Representation, Action/Expression, Engagement)
  • Explore strategies and resources for utilizing UDL to support all students across content areas
Learn About the Learning Opportunity
Los Angeles County Office of Education Logo

UDL in Under 60 Minutes

Interested in UDL but pressed for time? Well, the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) has you covered! This introductory course has been designed to succinctly and effectively communicate why UDL is so important to 21st-century education, the core tenets of what UDL is and is not, and how to begin your UDL journey.
This course is hosted on LearningDesigned.org and is provided at no cost.
Learning Opportunity
Los Angeles County Office of Education Logo

UDL Boot Camp Online

Based on the Los Angeles County Office of Education's 2-day in-person workshop, this course will support participants to learn everything they need to begin their UDL journey. The course contains content in a variety of formats, review exercises to reinforce learning, and quizzes to ensure you have the foundational knowledge to move through the sections.
This course has been created with assistance from members of the CA UDL Coalition, including the Santa Clara County Office of Education and the Supporting Inclusive Practices program. The videos derived from the live UDL Boot Camp were funded by the California Department of Education, Special Education Division. Finally, this course has benefited from insights and feedback from the wonderful people at CAST
Learning Opportunity

Inclusive Literacy by Design

LACOE's Inclusive Literacy by Design unit builds capacity among educators to universally design learning experiences to be inclusive and promote student agency, while maintaining rigor and grade-level expectations. They offer a variety of professional learning resources and experiences for implementing UDL.
Learning Opportunity
San Joaquin County Office of Education Logo

UDL Basics

From SJCOE: Our UDL Basics Modules provide a complete overview of the Universal Design for Learning Framework. Learn how this framework can transform learning opportunities for all students.
Learn About the Course
San Joaquin County Office of Education Logo

UDL for Admins

From SJCOE: The Site Administrators’ Network connects site administrators with current topics and helpful resources in an atmosphere of co-learning, support, and collaboration
Learn About the Course
Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Logo

UDL Implementation

From FCOE: Once schools understand the concept of “designing to the edges” and the foundational principles of UDL, then it is time to make a plan for implementation. Where should a district begin in this journey? Where does a school site or teacher start on this mission? These are the questions that will be answered during this 1-day professional learning opportunity surrounding the implementation of UDL at multiple levels.
Learn About the Learning Opportunity
Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Logo

Design to the Edges: UDL 101

From FCOE: This session will cover foundational knowledge of UDL, lesson planning with a UDL lens, and what UDL looks like and feels like in the classroom.
Learn About the Learning Opportunity
Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Logo

Design to the Edges: UDL for English Learners

From FCOE: This session focuses on the needs of English Learners and Long Term English Learners and will cover foundational knowledge of UDL, lesson planning with a UDL lens, and what UDL looks like and feels like in the classroom.
Learn About the Learning Opportunity

UDL Now! A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms

In this revised and expanded edition of UDL Now!, Katie Novak provides practical insights and savvy strategies for helping all learners meet high standards using the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is a framework for inclusive education that aims to lower barriers to learning and optimize each individual’s opportunity to learn.
Learning About the Book
Cast Logo

The Assessment Playbook: A UDL Approach

This Playbook supports K–12 educators in planning and implementing assessments in order to inform the design of instruction. Effective design and implementation of assessments help ensure that all students are able to grow and develop as learners—so they are empowered to build on their strengths and improve on areas of challenge.
Learn About the Book

UDL-SICC Guide

This guide outlines the purpose and use of the UDL-SICC to support effective school-wide UDL implementation.
Learn About the Program

UDL-SICC Goal Setting and Planning Tool

This tools supports school teams to set goals and create an implementation plan.
Learn About the Program

UDL Initiative Alignment Tool

This tool helps site and district leaders create more coherent systems by aligning the UDL Framework with other initiatives happening within the district.
Learn About the Program

 Progress Monitoring

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UDL Look-Fors

This resource was developed by the Open Access, an initiative led by Placer County SELPA and funded by the California Department of Education and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence.
Learn About the Assessment
Swift Logo

Fidelity Integrity Assessment

The SWIFT-Fidelity Integrity Assessment (SWIFT-FIA) is a self-assessment tool schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) can utilize to monitor their progress in relationship to the SWIFT domains and features.
This tool may be familiar to you if you’ve already been implementing MTSS as part of the CA MTSS Initiative.
Learn About the Assessment

The UDL-SICC Criteria

The UDL-SICC is a robust tool for guiding decisions and supporting ongoing schoolwide growth, whether your team is just getting started or has experienced many years of successful UDL implementation.
Learn About the Planning Tool

WORK PLAN

Download a Customizable Work Plan

Enter your information below to download a work plan you can customize to your needs. 

Download the Phase 3 Work Plan

UDL School Implementation & Certification Criteria (UDL-SICC) by CAST, Inc. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

UDL-SICC Goal Setting and Planning Tool by CAST, Inc. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

UDL-SICC Guide by CAST, Inc. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

UDL Initiative Alignment Tool by CAST, Inc. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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