Breaking Down Curriculum Barriers!

As I have discussed throughout the previous posts, Universal Design for Learning focuses on making learning accessible for all students. Every student brings their own unique interests, strengths, and challenges into the classroom. As educators, it is our responsibility to identify the curriculum barriers for each student and determine what to do to break down these barriers. 

The Curriculum Barriers Finder provided on the CAST website is a great resource for
educators to gain experience using the UDL framework to pinpoint hidden barriers in the
curriculum or missed opportunities depending on the student's strengths, needs, and
interests. 


Using the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial found here, I identified the curriculum barriers for Charlie, a student in a 5th grade US History class. The tutorial provided background information on the student, Charlie, and the expectations of the 5th grade class. I used the Curriculum Barriers Model and the provided background information to come up with three possible curriculum barriers for Charlie. 


Here is what I came up with: 

Curriculum:	Fifth Grade US History
Student:	Charlie
Curriculum Element	Student Characteristic	Barrier in learning environment for this student
Seat work, short projects, homework	Charlie quickly abandons both long-term and short-term tasks, regardless of whether or not the task is complete	Without direct help, Charlie has a difficult time completing tasks and assignments
Materials	Forgets homework and textbook almost every day	Charlie is rarely prepared for class activities.
Lecture/ Verbal directions	high energy, gets out of seat often, constantly seeking new things to do	Charlie may only be understanding portions of what the teacher is saying due to not being focused

As an educator, it is extremely important to be able to identify the curriculum barriers for your students, even for those who do not have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). If Charlie was in my class, I would make the following accommodations to address these barriers:

•               Provide extra time and one-on-one instruction for projects and homework

•               Have Charlie write homework and other things he needs to remember in an assignment book each day. I would check and initial the book each afternoon, and if possible, I would have his parents and/or caregiver do the same to ensure that he is going back to check his assignment book

•               Provide guided notes, study guides, task-analysis, visual or written directions

I found the Curriculum Barriers Finder to be an excellent resource. The website provides a tutorial to practice identifying curriculum barriers, a tool to help analyze the barriers, and a downloadable template that can be used in the classroom to identify the curriculum barriers of students and what can be done to remediate. I can definitely see myself using this website to support my future teaching!