EduChange has been fueled by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) since 2008 when the first guidelines were released. In early August we felt the power–#UDLPower, that is! The poster sesson, Using a Sustinable Open Education Resources (SOER) Model to Build Recognition Networks, highlighted UDL’s Perception, Language & Symbols, and Comprehension to cognitive and educational research. It’s time to expand our implementation to open education resources (OER). OER only gets its power when used as part of a sound learning model, is a powerful a vehicle for student personalization, on-the-job professional development, and the development of multiple literacies now dominating our Information Age.

And the interactive session, No More One-and-Done: Re-engineering Secondary Assessment to Cue Lifelong Learning, pushed participants to leave behind a world of curriculum design with serial units or projects that exist individually and without real curricular connection. Either intentionally or inadvertently, students experience a one-and-done approach to content learning, with a single project providing a too-short timeframe for mastery (no matter how many redos are offered!). Further, the single-year-single-course system creates undue anxiety. By decoupling mastery assessment from single units/projects and opening up curriculum to multi-year mastery timeframes through contextualized, authentic content, the tenets of UDL shine through! EduChange tapped #UDLPower to re-engineer secondary curricular & assessment systems.