Degner (2017) Final.pdf


Educational Renaissance Vol. 6  (2017)

A Syst em s-Wide Approach t o Universal Design for  
Learning Im plem ent at ion

Joni L. Degner , UDL Facil i t at or , CAST Professional Learning Cadre & Bartholomew 
Consolidated School Corporation
     email: jonidegner@gmail.com

Universally Designed Leadership: Applying UDL to Systems and Schools 
by Katie Novak and Kristan Rodriquez

$34.99, Paperback (ISBN: 9781930583627)
$34.99, ePUB (ISBN: 9781930583634)

Book Review

In the book Universally Designed Leadership: 
Applying UDL to Systems and Schools authors Katie 
Novak and Kristan Rodriquez apply a Universal 
Design for Learning framework to Educational 
Leadership. Novak and Rodriguez begin by 
reminding readers of CAST?s suggested model of 
UDL implementation which includes five phases: 
Explore, Prepare, Integrate, Scale, and Optimize. 
Universally Designed Leadership is intended to 
support schools and districts in the first three 
phases (Explore, Prepare, and Integrate) with a 
promised forthcoming second volume to support 
the final phases (Scale and Optimize). In true UDL 
fashion, Novak and Rodriguez explicitly state the 

goal of their work: ?Our goal is to help education 
leaders learn why UDL is important, what 
groundwork needs to be laid to implement UDL, 
and how to start to build the system? (Novak & 
Rodriguez, 2016, p. x).  ?Chapter 1: Building Your 
Understanding? begins by activating or supplying 
UDL background knowledge for readers and 
helping leadership understand the necessity of 
?minimizing the threat of adopting ?another? 
initiative? (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016, p.1).  In this 
chapter, Novak and Rodriguez masterfully apply 
the metaphor of gravity to leadership: ?Like 
gravity, great leaders are a force that can pull 
together their colleagues to create a highly 

Universal Design for Learning (UDL), an instructional framework based in neuroscience, optimizes 
teaching and learning by supporting learners through three overarching principles: Multiple Means 
of Engagement, Multiple Means Representation, and Multiple Means of Action and Expression 
(?About universal?). These principles and the subsequent framework that grew out of the work of 
CAST co-founders and framework co-creators Dr. David Rose and Anne Meyers has become greater 
than the sum of its parts. Practitioners who have even dabbled in Universal Design for Learning have 
likely come to the understanding that UDL is a student-centered value system of flexibility, 
accessibility, and high standards for all students; indeed, the goal of Universal Design for Learning is 
to create learning environments where students grow to be experts in their own learning. The Every 
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) defines and endorses Universal Design for Learning as the framework 
for designing learning experiences that support the success of all learners.

mailto:jonidegner@gmail.com


DEGNER |  A SYSTEMS-WIDE APPROACH TO UNIVERSAL DESIGN

functional system? (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016, p. 2).      
No time is wasted in articulating that leaders 
themselves must be expert learners as they 
navigate the phases of UDL implementation.

Universally Designed Leadership provides a look into 
one district?s thinking, engagement of 
stakeholders, and self-reflective practices that led 
them to the phases of UDL implementation. 
Armed with their own mission and the 
endorsement of UDL in ESSA, they set forth in 
creating a shared vision for the district, resolving 
to do the following: ?design an inclusive plan, 
implement the plan, monitor progress, and refine 
the strategy? (Novak & Rodriguez, 2016, p. 7).  One 
of the highlights of Universally Designed Leadership 
is that it features many tools, graphics and tables 
(multiple means of representation) that help 
readers understand how these critical components 
of district or school-wide UDL implementation 
align to the UDL framework. For instance, on the 
table that aligns the steps of creating a shared 
vision to the UDL framework, the step Design a 
Plan for Shared Vision aligns to these UDL 
components

- Provide multiple means of engagement by 
optimizing relevance, value, and 
authenticity as you consider all 
stakeholders and their involvement.

- Provide multiple means of action and 
expression by guiding appropriate 
goal-setting and planning for strategy 
development.

The table aligns each part of the shared vision to 
actionable UDL steps, and it is just one of several 
alignment tools to guide leadership in their 

thinking, reflecting, and strategizing through the 
Explore and Prepare phases of implementation. 
Perhaps one of the most helpful alignment tools in 
Universally Designed Leadership is the one that 
shows the crosswalk between UDL and 
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Positive 
Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), New 
Curriculum Standards, and Educator Evaluation. 
This alignment tool will be pivotal for schools and 
districts who are seeking to eliminate random acts 
of school improvement, improve student 
outcomes, and organize the meaningful work they 
are already doing.

For readers who are fans of Novak?s UDL Now, they 
probably loved her teacher translation of the 
guidelines. In Universally Designed Leadership, 
Novak and Rodriguez bring that same clarity and 
functionality to administrators in a version that 
articulates the ?big ideas of each guideline and its 
implications for administrators? (Novak & 
Rodriguez, 2016, p. 8).  Great UDL leaders will be 
dog-earring, highlighting, and referring to these 
pages of Universally Designed Leadership. This 
understanding of the guidelines as they apply to 
administrators will move them through the critical 
conversations about data, data-collecting, and 
data-based decision-making, all detailed, aligned, 
and supported in the Explore phase of Universally 
Designed Leadership, a phase the authors liken to 
readying the site upon which to pour a foundation 
for a home.

Novak is a master of UDL analogy, and there?s no 
shortage of that in this book. Novak and Rodriguez 
skillfully thread the analogy of building a house 
throughout the pages of Universally Designed 

This movement toward UDL has brought forth inspiring leaders and advocates like Katie Novak. 
Novak?s work in UDL as a veteran teacher and now administrator in Massachusetts, and her passion 
for bringing UDL to the masses is evident in her first tit les UDL Now: A Teacher?s Guide for Applying 
UDL in Today?s Classroom and UDL in the Cloud.  In one of her latest books, Katie Novak teams up with 
seasoned administrator Kristan Rodriguez to bring us Universally Designed Leadership: Applying UDL 
to Systems and Schools (from CAST Professional Publishing), a book that leverages their collective 
expertise in a system-wide approach to UDL implementation.  Universally Designed Leadership bears 
the appealing and even endearing hallmarks of much of Novak?s work: practical and functional 
knowledge, masterful analogy, and a trusted, authentic teacher voice.

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DEGNER |  A SYSTEMS-WIDE APPROACH TO UNIVERSAL DESIGN

Leadership which provides the reader with a 
cohesive vision to the work of UDL 
implementation outlined in the text:

In our role as leaders, we are tasked with 
building the foundation for our schools to 
flourish. A foundation alone, however, will not 
result in high-performing districts. It?s the 
house that we build upon our foundation that 
will define us as leaders(Novak & Rodriguez, 
2016, p. 41).

Calling on the work of Curtis and Clay?s Strategy in 
Action: How School Systems Can Support Powerful 
Teaching and Learning, the authors again share 
their own example in using the logic model, ?a tool 
to plan, implement, and evaluate district 
improvement strategies and initiatives? (Novak & 
Rodriguez, 2016, p. 42).  True to UDL flexibility, the 
authors also remind readers that if a school or 
district has an existing action-plan template, the 
components of the logic model can be easily 
overlaid and connected to that work. One of the 
hallmarks of UDL is that it focuses on students 
becoming expert learners, and Novak and 
Rodriguez keep that goal at the forefront of 
Universally Designed Leadership:

For so many years, we created plans based on 
the actions of adults and not the outcomes of 
our students. We had action steps about 
professional development, and the success 
measures were defined by us completing the 
task. We never asked ourselves whether it had 
any meaningful impact on achievement. Logic 
models hold us accountable for student 
outcomes(Novak & Rodriguez, 2016, p. 46).

One of the strengths of this book is how the text 
itself models the UDL framework. This section 
about data-based decision-making and the logic 
model is cerebral, especially for a reader who may 
not be an administrator dealing with this work on 
a regular basis, but the text circles back at just the 
right times to solidify understanding, call on prior 
knowledge, and ready its readers for movement 
through the phases of implementation.

One of the greatest triumphs for teachers comes 
from ?Chapter 6: Professional Development that 
Models UDL.? In this Prepare phase of 

implementation, administrators are called on to 
provide universally designed professional learning 
for teachers.

Collaborating with staff to define a PD calendar 
and PD initiatives goes a long way to increasing 
engagement. Our professional development 
choice offerings have been a great success 
because they are based on evidence, involved 
multiple stakeholders, and celebrated and 
elevated our teachers to increase engagement. 
(Novak & Rodriguez, 2016, p. 71)

This chapter delivers 10 Steps for Designing a 
High-Quality PD System for UDL along with their 
district?s example of celebrating teacher leaders, 
utilizing a multipart series approach to PD, and 
supporting the people designing and delivering PD 
(outlined in table 6.1 Applying the UDL Guidelines 
to Professional Development). The 10 steps and 
the example of their district?s work around 
universally designed PD, what they refer to as 
critical parts of ?the foundation for success for all 
learners? will have teachers cheering and 
celebrating their administrators and saying, ?Atlast! 
UDL for us!?

Universally Designed Leadership concludes by 
offering leaders the possibility of an 
unencumbered evaluation process. True to form, 
this section scaffolds this process through an 
examination and UDL alignment of the 
Massachusetts Model System for Educator 
Evaluation, sample rubrics from Bartholomew 
Consolidated School Corporation, a district that 
explicitly included UDL into its teacher success 
rubric, and two case studies.

Returning to the analogy that great leaders are like 
the force of gravity, Katie Novak and her works 
have been a force of leadership, innovation, and 
inspiration for the field of education and Universal 
Design for Learning. Her partnership with Kristan 
Rodriguez and the work that resulted in Universally 
Designed Leadership are defined by a true modeling 
of the UDL framework, a call on leaders to be 
expert learners, engaging all stakeholders, 
leveraging UDL as a district-wide decision-making 
tool, and focusing on student outcomes. 

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DEGNER |  A SYSTEMS-WIDE APPROACH TO UNIVERSAL DESIGN

Universally Designed Leadership is a must-read for 
educational leaders seeking to create highly 
functional systems that value all stakeholders and 
focus acutely on student outcomes.

References

About universal design for learning. (n.d.). 
Retrieved February 2, 2018, from: 
http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html

Novak, K., & Rodriguez, K. (2016).  Universally 

designed leadership: Applying UDL to systems and 
schools. Wakefield, MA: CAST.

47

http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html