SST 11 Podcast

Eric Neal:
Welcome to the State Support Team 11 podcast. I'm your host, Eric Neal. Today we are joined by Aaron Lanou. Aaron is an inclusive education coach, presenter, and a previous guest on the podcast. Welcome back, Aaron. How are you today?

Aaron Lanou:
Thanks so much, Eric. I'm doing well. I'm extra excited to talk to you because I just got my tickets to Columbus actually.

Eric Neal:
Yeah, really looking forward to that. It's great to have you on again. The last time you were on, we talked about changing mindsets to create better learning environments for students, and especially those who are neuro divergent. Today you're here to discuss universal design for learning. Something near and dear to my heart. What is UDL for those that may not have heard of it?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, UDL has really changed the way I think about teaching and education. And I like to think about it as really just a completely different approach to planning and teaching, and how we do school, and one that can really transform the way we think about education and the way that we teach students and the way that students can learn. And because it's a sort of a different approach, it represents a big shift. I sometimes think it's helpful to start by thinking about the current approach, like what we're used to, how we are familiar with current planning and teaching.
And though this is really reductionist, this is really oversimplifying things, you might think of a typical process of, okay, well I got this thing to teach, this skill, this concept, how am I going to show it to kids? What are they going to do to practice it? And then how am I going to assess for it, right?
And if you want to, like an example, let's talk specifics. Let's say it's a high school earth science class and you're talking about plate tectonics, the way that the earth's plates move and interact, and cause earthquakes and all those kinds of things. A typical way might be to show a picture of the different ways that these plates interact and define these three different terms of convergent and divergent and transform, which is different ways they sort of bump into each other. And then students practice some problems and practice some examples and make some connections and write some things about it. And then there's a quiz, and it has vocabulary and a couple short answer questions, maybe an essay.
And the analogy I like to share when you think about that, again, oversimplified, but basic way of thinking about teaching is we're basically in this dark forest with our students and we've got this very powerful flashlight and we shine the beam of the flashlight straight ahead to show this path that students can take to reach some goal, to show them the way through. And the hope is often that students can do that, they can find their way along this path, and we've shown them the way. And many students can do that, that path works for them.
But the problem is that that path has, let's just say if we're going with this analogy, there's roots that some students might trip on, or this big rock. And many students can scale it, but some students can't. And there's a wooden plank to get over a marsh that they have to balance on, and some people can't do that. And all these are barriers that affect some kids differently than others. And so that path, that one path isn't going to work for everyone. And so we have to get another little flashlight and be like, "Oh, well you can go this way. And so I'm going to hold the main flashlight, but I got this other little flashlight for you. And you can go that way. There's no roots on that path to trip on."
And then you got another kid, the roots weren't a problem, but that plank was too narrow and they don't have good bounce. So you'd get another flashlight and you put it in your teeth and you show the flashlight another way, "Oh, there's a wider plank there to walk on." And basically that's what we end up having to do in teaching is we teach one way, some kids aren't able to do what we expect them to do, and we had to change it and give them modification and adapt things and create new materials after the fact when we realized that that isn't working for everyone.
And instead, what I like to think about UDL as being is sort of like at the beginning when we have that flashlight and we're shining it down this one path in the forest is... You know on a flashlight, sometimes you can take the top of it and kind of rotate a little bit and the beam gets a little broader instead of just being super narrow and focused. That broad beam illuminates all the paths. So now we can see that main path ahead that we were expecting all students to go on. But you can also see that one over there without the roots, and you can see that one over to the left that doesn't have the big rock, and the one with the wider plank. And students can now have a choice of which path to take all to get to the same place, all to get to the same goal, but that they can decide what works for them, and they have options that don't have barriers that are just going to get in the way of them being able to learn and connect.
So if we go back to that plate tectonics example, a UDL approach is going to encourage us to teach it differently. So we might not just show that visual, but do something with a gesture and our hands to show how these plates are interacting with each other. And we might come up with some linguistic or verbal catchy way to talk about convergent, divergent, make that kind of connection for kids. So again, students have different ways to access the content.
And we also assess students differently. So instead of just that quiz with the essay, maybe some students would be more comfortable sharing their knowledge through a Google slide deck or acting out a demonstration with some of their peers, not just because it's fun, but because it's going to be a better way for them to actually demonstrate what they've learned. And all the while we also engage students differently in the process. So we have really intentional ways of getting kids to connect to the content. So if you're in a really rural area and it's springtime, you might be talking about that frozen lake that's starting to melt and how these sheets of ice are bumping into each other. Maybe that's an image that really resonates, if there's a pond in the center of town.
But that's not going to cut it in New York City. So kids often don't have that sort of visual context and that experience. And so we might want to be using an analogy that's more like, "You know when you get on the six train at rush hour and you're brushing by people, you bump into them and that's like converging, and you move away from that smelly guy, that's diverging." Right? So you find some way to connect and engage students that's relevant to them, that is connected to their experience and their prior knowledge. And that is a UDL approach, that broad flashlight that shows all the different paths and all the different sort of multiple ways that students can learn and engage and be assessed, that they have an option to sort of think through and choose what would work best for them.

Eric Neal:
Yeah, I love that analogy. And I love that you kind of highlighted that a lot of people in education, they want a thing like, "Tell me what to do. And I'm going to do this thing, and it's going to then solve all my problems." And I've always thought of UDL... One thing I talk to my colleagues about all the time is I say, "It's not so much a strategy..." Or I mean, it is sort of a framework in a way, but really it's more of a lifestyle. It's more of a way of thinking in a way that you approach things more than it is this thing to do.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, I love that idea as a lifestyle. I mean, teachers are used to approach, framework. But lifestyle really does kind of challenge you to like, "Oh, I've got to readjust how I see the world." Right? Which it sort of is. Without it being daunting, without it being super overwhelming and like, "Wait, I've been teaching for so long, I've got to rethink everything I do?" No, people have a lot of foundational knowledge that still applies, but it does signify a real shift in how you think of your role as a teacher and think of what a student's job in the classroom is.

Eric Neal:
Absolutely. So what are some of the key concepts of UDL?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, there's a lot of ways that I hear people talk about it and a lot of ways to sort of slice and dice it. And it is a really thorough and thoughtful framework, and you definitely have to talk about the three main principles. But before you talk about the principles, I think there's one main sort of analogy or sort of story I like to talk about that doesn't apply just to UDL, but applies to teaching in general, and in my work in inclusive ed, specifically, that I call it the kid in context.
And the idea is when we see a student struggling for whatever reason, it could be an academic thing or something that's "behavioral", though that's a loaded term itself. But if a kid is struggling, we often jump to assumptions that the challenge is sort of within the child, within the kid, within the student, like it's their not fault per se, but it's something that they need to change. And so, "This kid can't sit still, he can't pay attention for five minutes, he needs a different setting, he needs a paraprofessional with him."
What that ignores is all the elements of the context that are at play with that student that sort are intersecting with why that child might be struggling. So if a child can't sit still, is there something in the physical environment that is making it hard for them to maybe not be able to have their body be regulated in a particular way? Is there something in the content or the language demands that's overwhelming that is causing a child to have a hard time? Is there something in the, let's say, cultural norms of that classroom or of that school that are a mismatch for that student that are maybe not at the sole root of, but are playing a role in why that child's having a hard time?
And so what I like to say is that any challenge that happens in school arises in the intersection of the kid and the context. Yes, a kid might have sort of a different skill level or ability to regulate potentially, but that's always going to be an interplay with what's going on around them, the context, the language, the demands, the environment. And UDL really does encourage us to problematize the context, like look at the design of our spaces and the design of our learning experiences so that a kid who's struggling, it's not that kid's fault, there's probably something that we missed in the design of our lesson that could have been the thing that allowed that kid to be successful.

Eric Neal:
Yeah, I love that thought. And we kind of touched on this in the previous time you came on the podcast too, where there's this thought that there's a one right way of doing things, and that the way we approach things, just you sit in the rows and I stand up here and talk, and then you write the stuff down, and then now everyone's learning is the right way. And then anything different than that is something that you're doing that is different or not as good. And UDL really hits me as this optimistic asset-based approach that is saying there's nothing standard or there's nothing right about one way of doing things, that it's more of these multiple approaches to give everyone the best opportunity to learn in the way that makes sense to them. And it really is a shift in mindset.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate that, that it is a strengths-based or asset-based sort of approach. It doesn't look at challenges students face as a flaw or an impairment, right, that's individual to the child as we were talking about. And it is, though we've talked about it being this lifestyle change and this big shift, and that can be overwhelming to folks, it is really empowering to teachers, I think. If you learn about it and sort of really grapple with it, to see how much influence you have as an educator to change things so that it can reach kids in a different way.
And of course it's anytime you change something, it's hard. Anytime you try something new, it's hard. Anytime you're trying to, let's say, plan a lesson that has more elements to it than you would've done otherwise, that's a little hard. And there's always that sort of mountain to get over. There's that hump to get over. But I think in my experience, it's really worth that effort. And I think a lot of it comes from you asked about the concepts that underlie UDL, and there's a couple other really key thoughts that I really, really like that I think help make UDL something you almost can't argue with, so to speak. One of the core things in UDL is the idea of learner variability. And so a million great examples, there's a great Todd Rose book and video about, right? Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

Eric Neal:
Jagged learning profile.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, exactly. All learners just are different. They just are. And this isn't like everyone needs their own individual lesson plan style of talking about difference. It just is a recognition that we learn differently, we take in information differently, we process differently. And so even two students with the same measured IQ, if we're going to use that as a metric, can have these, as you said, jagged learning profiles, right, with very different strengths and support needs.
And that links very much to another concept of the idea of barriers, which is really central in UDL, and the recognition that school is designed a certain way and it's been designed that way by certain people for certain people. And that's something we could get into too about who those people are and who is excluded in the design of school. But the way that school is designed this, sit down in rows and listen and then write the thing, and that's how you show you're successful, that design creates barriers for students who don't naturally sort of operate, learn, process that way.
And the assumption that kids can sit for X amount of time and listen and just process verbal information and regurgitate information either verbally or in written form, that's what knowledge is and that's what learning is, is one view of learning, and it's a very narrow view of learning and it excludes a lot of people. And so UDL challenges us to remove those barriers that we put up ourselves by expecting this very rigid way of doing school.

Eric Neal:
Yeah. And something else that, while you're talking that popped into my head, I was thinking that the old way of doing things is not even what people are asking for anymore. You hear a lot of talk about soft skills or these 21st century skills or things that the modern employers are looking for from all people. And it really is about self-directing and collaboration and being able to communicate and do all these things, which UDL offers so many more opportunities to practice and develop and become an expert learner, which is the real end goal of all of this. And so it's not even just, "Well, this is a different way you could look at it, or this is good for students with disabilities." This is really good for everyone.

Aaron Lanou:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And it is true that though this gets into some deep stuff about what our conception of the ultimate goal of education is to and whether it is to produce worker bees, and the market is demanding that the worker bees now act this way. That's a whole thing to grapple with too.

Eric Neal:
Sure is.

Aaron Lanou:
But if we do recognize that to be able to be, whatever that means in this, let's just narrow it to American society. Most places people will find themselves after being in K-12 do require collaboration and negotiation and brainstorming and problem solving and things like that, that you're right, that aren't part of the sit down, listen, take it all in, study, and regurgitate sort of model. But again, I recognize it's over simplistic, that's not how most teachers teach. That's sort of just this black and white, sort of image.

Eric Neal:
The stereotypical.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, exactly. But what I like about, again, that idea of UDL being an empowering framework is that obviously design is in the title of Universal Design for Learning, and it really shows educators that teachers are designers and that we can design our environments and design our instruction differently. And we can do that in a way that has more people in mind. And the design choices we make are either going to create opportunities for students, and again, not just students with disabilities, all kinds of students, they're either going to create opportunities or they're going to potentially put up barriers that make that learning experience more challenging. And so it is a sort of call to action, but it is empowering to know that you as a teacher have that ability to guide how successful students are able to be.

Eric Neal:
Absolutely. And it makes me think about, I've run across some confusion or people who think about, well, UDL, that's something for special education or something like that, or they get confused about the difference and similarities between UDL and differentiation. What do you really see as the similarities and differences when you're talking about those two things?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a really common question, and I think some of that comes from the fact that there's a little initiation fatigue that happens in education land like, oh, last year it was this, and this year it's this, and what letters are we going to be studying this year? And that's a little unfortunate, because I think people burn out from learning something that could be new. It's also unfortunate in how it's rolled out sometimes, very top down. So I think some of that comes from that confusion, like, "Oh, we already learned this thing. This sounds just like this other thing we had to do 10 years ago."
But I think some of that sort of conflation comes from the fact that there are a lot of similarities with UDL and differentiated instruction. Both are ways to reach more learners than might be met by a traditional way of teaching, they offer supports to students who might not be able to access instruction in a particular way. But as I see it, there's probably three main things that set them apart. And those come down to, when is this thing used and who is it for? And also, who decides when this thing gets used?
So differentiated instruction, again, this is an oversimplification, but differentiated instruction can often be sort of reactive or responsive and very individual. So after a teacher sees an individual kid or a couple kids struggling, we put some supports in place or some scaffolds in place for a future lesson, and the teacher decides like, "Oh, I think they need a different graphic organizer or some sentence starters." And if you go back to that flashlight story that's like the, "Oh, I've got to shine the beam over here and I've got to do another one over here, and now I have this kid over there I've got to show a new path."
And it's not, right? It's sometimes the individual students, sometimes it's small groups of students, but it's very, yeah, reactive to a student struggling. UDL is, by contrast, I think really proactive. And again, it's in the name, universal. So this decision to shine this broad beam that has multiple options for all kids that I thought about from the get go, that happens before the lesson, it happens in the design of the lesson. And it's not just for an individual student who you're like, "Oh, this kid struggled in this assessment or in this last activity, and so we'll make a change for them." It's really like, "Oh, okay, how might someone not be able to access this learning? Let's plan in a way that provides all different kinds of kids with all different kinds of needs and ways of processing and learning to be able to access it."
So the other big thing you said that about this self-regulation piece and helping students become expert learners, that's the other big thing is who decides. So instead of the teacher saying, "I'll make another version of this worksheet." It's, "Hey, y'all, class, here are all these different ways that you can engage, learn, access, show what you know. I'm going to support you in making a decision that's right for you about which tool to use, which assessment makes the most sense for you." Not so it's a free for all and just the kids just decide what they're going to do all the time, but in a really meaningful, supportive way so that students can really, right, be empowered to understand who they are as learners and make informed decisions for themselves.

Eric Neal:
Right. And the other thing is it doesn't have to be one or the other. It's both, right? We should be universally designing these things for everyone, and we should also be operating differentiated instruction when appropriate to meet the needs of people who still, even though things have been universally designed, still may have some extra supports that are needed to be put in place.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. And I don't mean to bash differentiated instruction in naming the differences or put it down. And certainly individual students might have individual needs, and we want to be responsive to those. And students have IEP goals and we are obligated to and have a responsibility to support those as well. Not saying not to differentiate.

Eric Neal:
Oh, of course.

Aaron Lanou:
It's just if we can start with a UDL approach, it helps the differentiation be easier and more manageable.

Eric Neal:
Yeah. I love that you called out those differences, especially in the way you said it was so clear to me. It was like, who it's for, what it's for, and who's deciding.

Aaron Lanou:
Exactly. Yeah.

Eric Neal:
That really is your progression through being able to understand which is, which. And I think that'll really help clear it up.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, some of that comes from, it's not my work. Eric Moore is an author who's written about UDL, presenter, and he has this great article called, I think it's just called, Wait, But Isn't UDL Just... And he talks about it contrasting UDL to other frameworks, and he really frames it through an accessibility lens. And his questions he asks are, for whom? To do what? And who decides? And so this is my own version of that, but I borrowed that from Dr. Moore's work.

Eric Neal:
I love that. So the UDL guidelines, you mentioned those before, are foundational for people when they start to learn about UDL, what it is. What are the guidelines and how do you personally use them?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, yeah, the UDL guidelines are a tool to use to help guide the implementation of UDL. UDL is, like I said, really thorough, and there's a lot of pieces to it. It's very well thought through. But if you're just learning about UDL and you go right to that sort of three color graphic organizer table, there's a lot of information there. And you look at that and say, "Oh, that is UDL." And I think the folks at CAST who developed UDL are very clear in sharing that, "This is a tool that we've developed that can help you do the thinking work and the practice work to implement this approach meaningfully." It's not that that is UDL.
But it's a very, as I said, thorough framework. The UDL guidelines show the three main principles that make up UDL, but they also get down to the nitty-gritty of checkpoints that are related to different levels of sort of, right, access and internalization. So there's a lot there. If people are just beginning to sort of review what UDL is and what the guidelines are and what the principles are, CAST is actually great, on their website they have multiple different versions of that document. So if you want the tiny little seven point font that has the particular checkpoints, you can look at that version, but you can also look at the version that sort of has more general themes.
And so if we're going the route of the general themes, the three principles are, people might've heard before, multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression. And typically when I'm sharing these in a very, attempt at a very UDL fashion, I have a little visual illustration for each of the three, we all in a workshop, we'll do a little gesture together that represents each one of those three.
So on this sort of audio only format, I'm sort of limited in how I typically kind of offer these, but if we do do a little rundown of each one, multiple means of representation, again, thinking about how students have variability across them, right? It recognizes that students vary in how they perceive information that teachers present. So they're going to connect with and process instruction differently. And so the charge for teachers is to offer multiple different options to receive and process that information.
So I gave an example earlier, right, the plate tectonics one. Visuals are great, have a visual up there of the three different kinds of interactions that plate tectonics go through or have. But why not also do a gesture? Why not also have sort of a linguistic way of trying to remember the difference between the three? Have students sort of move themselves and act it out so they can use their bodies to lock in that learning as well. And that's all about representation, multiple means of representation.
Multiple means of action and expression takes our knowledge of how students vary and how they best express what they know and what they've learned. That charges teachers with offering different options to allow students to communicate and share their learning in different ways. And so earlier we talked about, sure, write a report, or take this quiz, or maybe it's a slide deck, or maybe it's a performance that demonstrates these concepts. All of those are right under the careful design so that students aren't just getting up and doing an interpretive dance and saying, "What? That's plate tectonics." Right? That's not what you need.
And sometimes I think UDL gets a bad rap, because it's like, "Oh, you just want kids to do modern dance, and that counts as their final exam." Exactly. But no, there are ways to have students express what they know as long as it aligns with your rubric of how a student can demonstrate that they've learned the content, right? So there are creative ways to do it that still fall within clear ways that teachers feel like they can accurately assess what students have learned.

Eric Neal:
Yeah, I think one of the great challenges in that is from the teacher perspective, you need to be crystal clear about your success criteria, about what are students supposed to know and be able to do at the end of this? And it doesn't have to be a writing assignment if the standard is not calling specifically for writing as the way that you're demonstrating your competency. So I think that's where it can be a challenge. If you are not crystal clear around what you're trying to accomplish and what the kids are supposed to know and be able to do, then it makes it harder to be intentional about offering those different ways for them to express what they learned.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah. Yeah, that's big. And let's again, just be honest that this is new and different and therefore kind of harder work, at least initially, that if you're used to, I have a final exam at the end of my history unit and students answer these multiple choice questions and then write an essay. And we're encouraging people to think, "Well, what about those kids for whom writing is not the best way to express what they know?" They know the content, you know they know the content because of how they've participated in class discussions or whatever it might've been. But when it comes time to write the essay, organizing it or the time management piece, whatever it might be, is going to be the barrier that prevents them from demonstrating that knowledge.
So to create clear other options for students does take some work, it takes some thinking. There's no way around it. There are ways to do it. And once I think people get into a groove of learning, "Okay, it can look like this or this." And like you said, being really clear of here's what counts as demonstrating your learning, it really is possible, and it really can open doors for students to not just earn grades, but feel confident to share what they've learned in ways that they might not have before. But you're absolutely right that you have to be really clear on what your goals are in order to do that work.

Eric Neal:
Something I love that you talked about earlier is that it is difficult upfront, and it is hard to change and to think of things in this new and different way. But it really ties in with something else that I really loved, is people throw around teacher efficacy and collective teacher efficacy all the time. And a lot of the research on that was done here in Columbus at the Ohio State University. And when I looked into a lot of the research, what I found was there were four components that made up that total effect where you had high teacher or collective teacher efficacy. And I can never remember three of the four because they're not like 25% each. It was like three of them were 20% and one of them was 80%.
And that 80% one that makes up the biggest part of that effect is mastery experience. And it is the feeling that you have as a teacher where you were purposeful in something and you used your skills and your knowledge to develop something, and then you did it and then it worked, and you got the outcomes that you wanted. And so as people dig into this, it really becomes easier not just in the technical part of applying the guidelines to your lessons and doing things like that, but in the, you see the benefit that it has. You see the higher levels of engagement, you see students overcoming obstacles and becoming expert learn... And that builds up your positivity and your feeling about you as a practitioner and about as a teacher. And that's where the real teacher efficacy and the collective from the group if you're doing this and the whole building come from.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I coach and consult in schools around New York City, and yeah, country, and world, but a lot in New York City. And I was working with a high school teacher last year who had this great assessment for a unit in an English class, and there were basically 10 options of what students could do that we're going to put together sort of like a mini portfolio, and they had to choose six of these 10 options, which already is terrific. I loved it, including that element of choice.
But she came to talk to me about like, "Oh, so I'm going to develop a scaffold for each one. And maybe they're sentence starters and maybe it's a little graphic organizer so that each of these 10 have their own support built in." And she wanted some help thinking through what those scaffolds could look like. And I was happy to help her think through that. And then as we were wrapping up, she was like, "So last question, how do I figure out which kids to give these to?" And I took a beat, gave her a minute, she's like, "Oh, wait." And we've been doing some work in UDL in her school, and she's like, "You're going to tell me to just offer them to everyone, huh?" And I was like, "Well, what would you think about that?" And she's like, "Okay, yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, why not? And if kids don't need it, they're not going to use it. And if kids are feeling really inspired by this one of the 10, they're not going to need the graphic organizer, but why not have that be a support?"
And I saw her in the hall the following week, and I was quickly in passing with a bunch of teenagers all in front of us in these narrow hallways, and I was like, "How'd the 10 things go? How'd the supports go?" And she's like, "Great. Never doing it differently again" Just called across me. She's got it. She's like, that changed how she... She was already doing great work, but there was something about thinking of it through your UDL lens, giving the options to students that she's like, "Yep, now this is how I'm going to not only do this unit next year, but probably the thought I'm going to put into units and assessments going forward."

Eric Neal:
Yeah. I love that so much.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, Eric, it occurs to me we are having a great conversation that's going in multiple directions, but I would be remiss if I didn't name the third principle of UDL that we didn't get to yet, which is multiple means of engagement, just for folks who are tallying at home.

Eric Neal:
Don't want to miss that one.

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah. Yeah. So multiple means of engagement. I referred to earlier when talking about, right, if you use a pond example, frozen pond example, or the people on the subway example. But what that comes from is a recognition and a variability in how students engage with one another, how students engage with the content, what they bring from their own lives to the school experience, into the content. And so it really encourages teachers to think about ways to offer options for students to connect to their learning and connect to one another in the process.
And so a big part of that is you were mentioning ways to collaborate and make sure there's choice in who you work with and in what way you work in structuring those options for students. But it also really does have to do with students feeling like they belong in the classroom, like their lives and their experiences matter and are important not only to the class community, but to the learning that's going on. And so that teachers can create choices for students in topics to whatever extent there's an ability to have flexibility in topics, and materials, and again, groupings, so that students can find their way to engage with the material in a way that works for them.

Eric Neal:
I love that. And what you just said there kind of brings me to your workshop. So one of the things that's been a challenge, I think, is helping people to bridge the connection between the guidelines, the resources that are out there, all of the learning they have, to actually put this in teacher's hands in a way that will help them really get this into the classroom and start getting better outcomes for kids. So you're coming to State Support Team 11 on March 11th to do a workshop about lesson planning with UDL. Can you tell us who the target audience for that is and what the participants can expect?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited about it too. And I didn't realize until just now that we have this 11-11 connection. March 11th with state support team 11. But I mean, it's going to be a group of teachers, people in the classroom doing the work, and again, that want to know, "What can I do differently practically to make real differences for my students?"
And so people who come can expect us to really be walking the walk. We're going to be experiencing ourselves as adult learners how a UDL approach really feels, what it's like. It's very much built into the design of the workshop, and sort of doing the work to make that connection between, "Okay, we just experienced this as a group of grownups in a workshop space. How does this translate to how you think differently about the questions you pose, how you offer choices, how you represent new content to the students in your classroom?"
And so choice is going to be built into all activities, because fundamental to UDL, from a choice of the icebreaker to a choice in lesson planning templates. All the concepts that we explore together are going to be taught and shown in multiple different ways. I mentioned like visual and auditory and movement and story and all those kinds of ways. And like we were just talking about, engagement is really, really central, that I'm going to make sure that participants enjoy the time, yes. But it's not just like a dog and pony show. It's about having meaningful ways to connect with one another, to process the content, to connect to the experience, to have it feel really relevant to them.
And as you just said, taking on UDL can be a lot of work, and people may have heard of it before or been to a workshop before or seen the guidelines online before. And what I sort of charge myself with anytime I work with teachers is to do the work of making sure that what I call the M&Ms of inclusive education are made very clear and connected. And the M&Ms for me are method and mindset.
So we're going to have method, we're going to have the stuff, the strategies, the practices. You're going to leave there having an idea of what to do or something in your hand, you will do differently the next day, but it's going to be grounded in the mindset. It's going to be grounded in the approach, the philosophy, the thinking work that is not just about a new neat trick you can use, but is a way to at least begin that sort of shift in thinking about what this work is and how we plan instruction differently.
And I'm actually really excited too, not just for the workshop itself and what's going to happen at the workshop, but actually after the workshop, because we've arranged to have the participants be able to have regular follow-up emails with sort of doable next steps to check in. So this isn't just a one and done, I went, that was fun one day and I'm back to my new normal. We'll hopefully keep it fresh and inspire some new ideas, and also give folks the opportunity to receive a certificate of implementation.
So folks really want to dig in and submit a UDL aligned practice that they've tried out. They'll get some feedback from me about ways to maybe reconsider or strengthen the design of that support or that approach or that lesson, and then resubmit it for their official certificate of implementation. So hopefully that'll be a nice thread to keep this work alive and in people's minds and make it really practical for folks after the workshop as well.

Eric Neal:
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. I think this is going to be a great day and just a really good use of people's time. So if people would like to know more about you and the work that you do, where should they go?

Aaron Lanou:
Yeah, you can basically search my name most places. My website is aaronlanou.com. I'm Aaron Lanou on LinkedIn. Instagram, I'm @aaronlanou. So if you Google my name, one of those things might pop up in whichever platform you're most interested in using. We can connect that way.

Eric Neal:
Great. Well, thanks again for joining us today, Aaron. It's been a real pleasure.

Aaron Lanou:
Thank you so much, Eric, and really looking forward to the 11th.

Eric Neal:
Me too. Well, that wraps up this episode, the State Support Team 11 podcast. If you'd like to know more about us and the work that we do here at SST 11, go to our website SST11.org. Give us a call at 614-753-4694. Or hit us up on Twitter, we're @sstregion11. If you'd like to get ahold of me, I'm at eric.neal@escco dot.org Until next time, thanks for listening.