Designing 21st Century Universal Classrooms

What is a Universal Classroom?

A Universal Classroom promotes equity and learning for all students. In a Universal Classroom, each and every student must have access to what is being taught; learning goals are clearly identified in a mapped curriculum; all educators, both individually and collaboratively, work to ensure that students are actively, cognitively engaged and making progress towards the learning goals; and the design of instructional materials and activities allows articulated learning goals to be attained by students who display a range of differences in their abilities. This is achieved through high-quality, best-practice instruction in the general classroom, with an emphasis on differentiation and formative assessment strategies that bring academic success to all students.

Five Components of Universal Classrooms

1. Professional Learning Communities

Educators organize in collaborative groups to learn and refine the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively implement and sustain student-centered, research-based practices in their classrooms and throughout the school to improve learning and achievement for every student.

2. Guaranteed, Viable Curriculum and Curriculum Mapping

Learning intentions reflect and clearly articulate what is essential to know and be able to do. There is shared evidence of backwards design and collaborative planning is clearly connected to articulated learning intentions; maps are modified and adjusted based on evidence of student understanding rather than teacher coverage.

3. Differentiated Instruction

Constructivist learning opportunities are designed based on knowledge of students’ readiness, interest, and learning style to personally frame both access to and evidence of learning in multiple ways that build meaning and critical thinking.

4. Formative Assessment

Checking for understanding is the hallmark of assessment for learning. Teachers emphasize the use of feedback (both student self-assessment as well as peer and teacher feedback) to monitor progress toward established learning goals for continuous improvement in both learning and teaching. Progress monitoring systems are designed to improve communication about student performance within and beyond the professional learning community. Information from common interim, benchmark, and summative assessments is used formatively to the greatest extent possible.

5. Supported Learning Environments

Supported Learning Environments promote learning and equity for all students by addressing barriers to learning so that all students can attain learning goals. A Supported Learning Environment is more than a supportive climate; Supported Learning Environments offer specific selected and targeted interventions that allow students to be successful in attaining learning goals. Interventions for struggling students support learning in the general classroom rather than supplanting it. Supported approaches are identified in personalized learning plans for students developed by the teachers, students, department heads, and/or grade level teams. In Supported Learning Environments, all adults are seen as potential resources for learning, understand their roles in “best first teaching,” and utilize multiple collaborative teaching models to meet the needs of diverse learners. Classroom teachers are supported by teams in using a variety of intervention approaches to support struggling students. Teams regularly communicate to determine the need for supplemental supports within the Universal Classroom. Specialists play a variety of roles in classrooms through consultation, modeling differentiated teaching strategies and instructional interventions, and collaborative modification of learning plans.

Last updated: Aug 25 at 3:11 pm