Learners differ widely in their capacity to navigate their physical environment.  To reduce barriers to learning that would be introduced by the motor demands of a task, provide alternative means for response, selection, and composition. In addition, learners differ widely in their optimal means for navigating through information and activities. To provide equal opportunity for interaction with learning experiences, an instructor must ensure that there are multiple means for navigation and control is accessible

Providing a child with a tool is often not enough. We need to provide the support to use the tool effectively. Many learners need help navigating through their environment (both in terms of physical space and the curriculum), and all learners should be given the opportunity to use tools that might help them meet the goal of full participation in the classroom. However, significant numbers of learners with disabilities have to use Assistive Technologies for navigation, interaction, and composition on a regular basis. It is critical that instructional technologies and curricula do not impose inadvertent barriers to the use of these assistive technologies.  An important design consideration, for example, is to ensure that there are keyboard commands for any mouse action so that learners can use common assistive technologies that depend upon those commands.  It is also important, however, to ensure that making a lesson physically accessible does not inadvertently remove its challenge to learning.

Unless specific media and materials are critical to the goal (e.g., learning to paint specifically with oils, learning to handwrite with calligraphy) it is important to provide alternative media for expression. Such alternatives reduce media-specific barriers to expression among learners with a variety of special needs, but also increases the opportunities for all learners to develop a wider range of expression in a media-rich world.  For example, it is important for all learners to learn composition, not just writing, and to learn the optimal medium for any particular content of expression and audience.

There is a tendency in schooling to focus on traditional tools rather than contemporary ones.  This tendency has several liabilities: 1) it does not prepare learners for their future; 2) it limits the range of content and teaching methods that can be implemented; 3) it restricts learners ability to express knowledge about content (assessment); and, most importantly, 4) it constricts the kinds of learners who can be successful. Current media tools provide a more flexible and accessible toolkit with which learners can more successfully take part in their learning and articulate what they know. Unless a lesson is focused on learning to use a specific tool (e.g., learning to draw with a compass), curricula should allow many alternatives.  Like any craftsman, learners should learn to use tools that are an optimal match between their abilities and the demands of the task.

Learners must develop a variety of fluencies (e.g., visual, audio, mathematical, reading, etc.). This means that they often need multiple scaffolds to assist them as they practice and develop independence. Curricula should offer alternatives in the degrees of freedom available, with highly scaffolded and supported opportunities provided for some and wide degrees of freedom for others who are ready for independence. Fluency is also built through many opportunities for performance, be it in the form of an essay or a dramatic production. Performance helps learners because it allows them to synthesize their learning in personally relevant ways. Overall, it is important to provide options that build learners’ fluencies.

It cannot be assumed that learners will set appropriate goals to guide their work, but the answer should not be to provide goals for students. Such a short-term remedy does little to develop new skills or strategies in any learner. It is therefore important that learners develop the skill of effective goal setting. The UDL framework embeds graduated scaffolds for learning to set personal goals that are both challenging and realistic.

Once a goal is set, effective learners and problem-solvers plan a strategy, including the tools they will use, for reaching that goal. For young children in any domain, older learners in a new domain, or any learner with one of the disabilities that compromise executive functions (e.g., intellectual disabilities), the strategic planning step is often omitted, and trial and error attempts take its place. To help learners become more plan-full and strategic a variety of options are needed, such as cognitive “speed bumps” that prompt them to “stop and think;” graduated scaffolds that help them actually implement strategies; or engagement in decision-making with competent mentors.

One of the limits of executive function is that imposed by the limitations of so-called working memory. This “scratch pad” for maintaining chunks of information where they can be accessed as part of comprehension and problem-solving is very limited for any learner and even more severely limited for many learners with learning and cognitive disabilities.  As a result, many such learners seem disorganized, forgetful, and unprepared. Wherever working memory capacity is not construct-relevant in a lesson, it is important to provide a variety of internal scaffolds and external organizational aids – exactly those kinds that executives use - to keep information organized and “in mind.”

Learning cannot happen without feedback, and that means learners need a clear picture of the progress that are (or are not) making. When assessments and feedback do not inform instruction or when they are not given to the students in a timely manner, learning cannot change because students do not know what to do differently. This lack of knowledge about what to improve can make some learners seem “perseverative,” careless, or unmotivated. For these learners all of the time, and for most learners some of the time, it is important to ensure that options can be customized to provide feedback that is more explicit, timely, informative, and accessible. Especially important is providing “formative” feedback that allows learners to monitor their own progress effectively and to use that information to guide their own effort and practice.