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Introduction

This practice brief can be read as a stand -alone paper or as a companion piece to our contribution in Section 7 on UDL as a catalyst for disciplinary learning at UCC. The same pedagogical theories and practices ground both papers and serve to provide a strong foundation and culture in which UDL can thrive. The objective of this brief is to align UDL with other pedagogical theories and practices already in use at University College Cork. We have come to UDL through a variety of pathways, all of which have made the journey to better teaching and learning more multifaceted, robust and beneficial for students.

The world has changed substantially since I first gave this paper as a TED style-talk at Royal Roads University in October 2019. The Covid 19 pandemic has since taken hold and left sickness and sorrow in its wake. It continues to dominate public and mental health around the world with serious consequences for how we will live our lives and how we will work and learn. Ironically, in terms of professional development in higher education, this pandemic could act as an accelerator for the introduction of UDL across campuses globally. As face- to- face classes are curtailed until Covid 19 is under control, faculty have to come up with innovative ways to teach in the virtual space and to ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn and not have their studies interrupted nor limited, so that all can make the most of their potential. UDL principles and practice can provide a roadmap for teachers to guide their pedagogical decisions in these very challenging times. If a culture of innovative teaching and learning is already the norm, then UDL can inform and transform practice more quickly. If an institution is taking teaching and learning innovation seriously for the first time, then UDL is a great place to start. Covid 19 will have a lasting impact on professional development and on how teaching will be envisioned in the future. Above all, UDL can and will transform student learning, making it vibrant and engaging even in the toughest times. Ultimately, its success depends on how it is integrated and accepted in the community of learners as a key driver of student inclusion and success. Such integration is also dependent on the pedagogical frameworks that are already spoken about, shared and valued in the institution and how these align with UDL principles and practice.

Professional Development at UCC: Historical context

UCC is an institution where “teaching is held in high esteem,” (Hyland, 2002: 6) evident, for example, in the college motto “Where Finbarr taught let Munster learn,” and in the “open book” of learning, central to the university’s coat of arms. The embedded nature of teaching and learning in the culture of UCC is also evident in the fact that it had the first Teaching Development Unit in the Republic of Ireland, set up in 1984, to provide courses to support university teaching. Though its influence waned in the early 1990s, it was instrumental in providing innovative approaches heightening the profile of teaching and learning and creating a network of colleagues that later informed the first national colloquium of the Irish University Association on teaching and learning in higher education in the late 1990s (Hyland, 2002). By 1999, there was a new emphasis on training and development at UCC, which came with the expansion of the Department of Human Resources, where teaching was again taken seriously at the institutional level.

New funding opportunities in the late 1990s and early 2000s also contributed to the renewed interest in teaching and to its potential as a form of research. It was clear by this time that “a scheme for recognising and rewarding teaching needed to be introduced and a structured and co-ordinated approach to teaching and learning put in place” (Hyland, 2002: 9). The Higher Education Authority’s new Targeted Initiatives scheme and its Training of Trainers scheme provided an opportunity for Hyland to apply for funding to recognise and reward teaching excellence and research in 2000. It was also fortunate that Hyland became chair of the Staff Enhancement and Development Committee in 2001, which provided her with further opportunities to promote and recognise teaching within the university. The HEA funding was granted for the 2001- 2002 academic year and marked the introduction of The President’s Awards for Teaching Excellence and The President’s Awards for Innovative Forms of Teaching and Learning, which are still running at UCC and which are highly valued. The co-founding of the Teaching and Learning Centre, now known as the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) by Bettie Higgs and Marian McCarthy in 2006 also paved the way teaching and learning to be taken seriously.

MuItiple Intelligences theory and practice in Ireland and at UCC

At ground level, teaching and learning was already undergoing a quiet revolution with the appointment of Aine Hyland as professor of Education at UCC in the early 1990s. Her vision and leadership secured the Multiple Intelligences Curriculum and Assessment project for UCC, which was to influence and transform education across the spectrum from early childhood to tertiary level. The first theory that shaped our journey, therefore, was Multiple Intelligences (MI) (Gardner, 1999a; 1999b) and its various Entry Points to learning which have helped teachers unlock student potential. MI theory prepares us for the emergence of UDL, since it also claims that students learn in different ways and that, as teachers, we need to teach and assess in a variety of ways, if we are to enable and support student learning. The MI Curriculum and Assessment project gave us a prized collaboration with Harvard’s Project Zero Classroom from 1995 -2000, to chart how MI affected and impacted teaching and learning across the educational spectrum in Ireland. Our current focus on UDL has benefited greatly from this background knowledge.

An openness to UDL principles and practice today dates back to changes in demographics and government policy in Ireland and to a reappraisal of assumptions about intelligence, ability, disability and education itself. It also relates to sociological changes and the emergence of educational human rights:

In Ireland, Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences was the right theory in the right place at the right time… Multiple Intelligences theory provided an ideal framework for curriculum reform and delivery from early childhood to third level (Hyland and McCarthy, 2009: 206).

Hyland and McCarthy (2009, 206-218) begin their review of MI in Ireland with a historical overview of why MI was timely. In the 1990s, Ireland’s population changed from being largely monolithic in terms of language, culture, ethnic background and religion, to being multi-cultural and diverse – with significant implications for the Irish educational system. Until the 1990s, the population of Ireland, in comparison to other European countries and to the U.S., was relatively homogenous – not having experienced immigration, but being all too familiar with emigration. However, the scene changed dramatically in the 1990s when Ireland experienced an unprecedented economic boom which became known as the Celtic Tiger. As a result of this boom, Ireland began to attract immigrants from many countries, especially Eastern European, African and Asian countries. From being a largely monolithic society in terms of race, colour, language and religion, almost overnight, Ireland became a much more diverse country – with an eclectic mix of people of various cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic backgrounds. While this was an exciting and welcome development, it created a challenge for an education system which had little experience of catering for a diverse school population.

The Education Act of 1998 (Government of Ireland, 1998, p.5) recognised the diverse nature of the Irish population for the first time, explicitly requiring the education system “To provide for the education of every person in the state, including any person with a disability or who has other special educational needs and “to respect the diversity of values, beliefs, languages and traditions in Irish society.” Similarly, the (Irish) Universities Act of 1997 (Government of Ireland, 1997) required the universities to develop a policy on equality, highlighting access to the university and to university education by economically or socially disadvantaged people, by people who have a disability and by people from sections of society significantly under-represented in the student body. The new education legislation of the 1990s, therefore, challenged schools at all levels to provide an education which respected all children and young people equally, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, or their cultural, social, linguistic, ethnic or religious background. The theory of MI, therefore, was one which could contribute to a pedagogical framework through which schools could implement an inclusive ethos and pave the way for the introduction of UDL a decade later. MI made us aware of diversity and that students learn in different ways with compelling implications for learning and assessment. Hence, MI resonates with UDL and faculty at UCC already have a baseline on which to build. A bottom- up approach, as well as top-down support, is needed to embed UDL culturally in institutions and our familiarity as an institution, and a Teaching and Learning Centre, with MI theory and practice provides a useful springboard for UDL.

Teaching for Understanding

Whereas MI per se is a cognitive, descriptive theory of intelligence, its counterpart, Teaching for Understanding (TfU), (Wiske, 1998), provides a pedagogical framework that can make the most of intelligence and of learning in and beyond the classroom. The TfU approach was an intrinsic part of our MI Curriculum and Assessment Project (1995-2000) at UCC and is another point of resonance in building an understanding of UDL perspectives and their implementation. The framework grew out of a sustained collaborative research projected from 1989 – 1997 by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, along with groups of effective teachers working in a range of subject matters and school contexts. According to Wiske (2005: 4), the purpose of this project was to clarify the nature of understanding and then to define features of educational practices that helped students develop deep and flexible understanding. The TFU framework emerged as the researchers and teachers analysed case studies of effective teaching practices in relation to current theories of cognition and instruction.

The TFU project has given us a legacy of two valuable frameworks: pedagogical and disciplinary (Perkins, 1993, 1994, 1998). The four elements of the TfU Pedagogical Framework are: Generative Topics, Understanding Goals, Performances of Understanding and Ongoing Assessment.

The model urges teachers to teach Generative Topics that are central to the discipline and make multiple connections with it. Topics should also be accessible to students and interesting to us and to them. Already, we can see the links with Engagement and UDL checkpoints here. TfU pedagogy suggests that we make our Understanding Goals explicit for our students from the beginning of the course and that we plug these into the big picture of the discipline, as well as relating them to the immediate goals of the module in question. A key pedagogical focus of TfU is its emphasis on active learning and Performances of Understanding which provide students with the opportunity to engage with and own their own learning. This element again echoes UDL principles and checkpoints for Engagement. Finally, TfU pedagogy highlights the importance of Ongoing Assessment –rather than summative assessment – thereby maximising student opportunities for mastery – orientated feedback and for ownership of their learning as their course unfolds.

TFU offers two lenses, pedagogical and disciplinary, to develop robust curriculum design and to enable critique and advance disciplinary understanding (McCarthy, 2008). . I have already discussed the disciplinary dimensions of understanding and their relationship and alignment with UDL in Section 7 of these proceedings (see chapter by McCarthy & Butler). A summary of this lens will therefore suffice here: TfU provides us with a framework for negotiating the disciplines we teach and names four dimensions of disciplinary understanding. Hence, each discipline has its Knowledge, Methods, Purposes and Forms which are the foundation blocks for how we will support students in coming to know and understand their disciplines (Boix Mansilla & Gardner, 1998, 161-196). We tend in our accredited programme to begin with this lens, since faculty identify as researchers in a discipline in the first place. Exploring disciplinary understanding is also a way for faculty to develop a shared language about teaching and learning and helps to build communities of learning in the various online discussion groups. TfU synergies with UDL abound, since the former sets out to design for student learning, acknowledging that there are phases of such learning and many ways to support student learning, building on students’ strengths and authentic experience.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The third influential framework that has paved the way for embedding UDL practice at UCC is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) (Boyer, 1990) movement. SoTL is focused on integrating research, teaching and learning and on the compelling evidence of student learning (McCarthy, 2019), which again aligns with a UDL perspective. Our UCC Strategic Plan for Teaching and Learning (UCC, 2009: 1), for example, spells out the SoTL vision in its opening statement, on which we have built over the years. I quote it here to reiterate the point that building a culture of teaching and learning takes time and that UDL will thrive best where learning is already valued:

Our vision is of a community of scholars which includes all our staff and all our students, a university where effective and imaginative teaching and learning approaches are fostered and supported, where teaching and learning enjoy parity of esteem with research, where a student- centred approach to research-led teaching is embedded in the culture, and where students and teachers enjoy their teaching and learning experiences.

I see this Strategic Plan as a visionary context in which to continue to embed professional development at UCC, giving it direction and confirming the centrality of SoTL and of teaching as research. For that very reason, we need pedagogical approaches that are reliable and rigorous to reach the standard of all research in teaching: student learning. UDL has earned its place as one of these approaches. It aligns well with SoTL since it names the parts of teaching and learning from the perspective of neuroscience, thus making teaching and learning visible and researchable. Its principles remind us not only of how the brain learns but of how human beings can be motivated, strategic,committed and well -informed learners who can take their place in the world and make a difference.

Conclusion

Embedding UDL at UCC is about making it part of the culture of the institution, in particular making it part of staff development, so that we create a community of learning that is supportive of and responsive to change and development. This paper has made the case for embedding UDL by focusing on the family of pedagogies that serve to frame and nurture it and that can act as buffers and signposts when times are challenging and resources are scarce. UDL is here to stay since it speaks to the very nature of learning with the evidence of neuroscience and the even more compelling evidence of student understanding and achievement.

References

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Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. San Francisco, US: Jossey-Bass.

Gardner, H. (1999a). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York, US: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1999b). The disciplined mind: What all students should understand. New York, US: Basic Books.

Government of Ireland (1997) Universities Act. Dublin, Ireland. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1997/act/24/enacted/en/html

Government of Ireland (1998). The Education Act. Dublin, Ireland http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1998/act/51/enacted/en/html

Hyland, A. (2002). Recognising and rewarding teaching within a university. In N. Lyons, Hyland and N. Ryan (Eds) Advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning through a reflective portfolio process (pp.6-12). University College Cork, Ireland: The Staff Enhancement and Development Committee.

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McCarthy, M. (2008). Teaching for understanding for lecturers: Towards a scholarship of teaching and learning. In Higgs, B. & McCarthy, M. (Eds.), Emerging issues 2: The changing roles and identities of teachers and learners in higher education (pp.101-114). University College Cork, Ireland: NAIRTL/EDIN.

McCarthy, M. (2019). The scholarship of teaching and learning. In S. Marshall (Ed.), A handbook for teaching & learning in higher education: Enhancing academic practice (5th ed.). London, UK: Routledge.

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Perkins, D. & Blythe, T. (1994). Putting understanding up front. Educational Leadership, 51(5), 4—7.

Perkins, D. (1998). What is understanding? In M.S. Wiske (Ed.), Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice (pp.39-58). San Francisco, US: Jossey-Bass.

University College Cork (2009). Strategic Plan for Teaching and Learning

2009-2010.Available at http://www.ucc.ie/en/strategicplanning/strategic/Strategic-Plan-for-Teaching-and-Learning

Wiske, M.S. (Ed.), (1998). Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice. San Francisco, US: Jossey-Bass.

Wiske, M.S. (2005). Teaching for Understanding with Technology. San Francisco, US: Jossey-Bass.