Skip to main content
Universal Design for Learning
The Action & Expression Principle

Learner Variability in Strategy Development

Like many other areas of skill development, students come to our learning environments with variable expertise in executive functioning. This variabilityOpens in a new window may be due to opportunities (or lack thereof) for skills development provided in previous learning environments and the stress experienced in these. Furthermore, the inability to interconnect skills and learning from one course to the next can create a siloed learning experience that can increase stress, lack of engagement, and confusion.

Chronic stress impacts the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, resulting in behavioural inflexibility, difficulty making action-oriented decisions, and inhibited working memory (Molina, 2015Opens in a new window). In her book on antiracism and UDL, Fritzgerald (2020) unpacks a model called the TERA quotient (Stanier, 2016) through a UDL lens. Each letter in the acronym (adapted below) stands for what happens in our brains when we assess if an environment is safe or unsafe.

Learn More

Watch this videoOpens in a new window (Runtime: 6:57 min) in which college students discuss mental health.

  1. Team – What communicates to students that they are part of the learning team?
  2. Expectations – Do students know what’s about to happen?
  3. Rank – Whose status is higher, yours or the students’?
  4. Autonomy – How much say do students have here?
Learn More

More Feet on the GroundOpens in a new window offers a free learning module on the various indicators of mental health challenges.

If a student assesses that the environment is unsafe, their brain will move into fight, flight, or freeze mode, turning off the prefrontal cortex. The good news is that, like other aspects of the brain, executive functioning is highly plastic. Learners can build new connections across the brain if they find themselves in a learning environment that welcomes their whole selves. During the pandemic, there was an increased understanding of how stress-aware and trauma-aware pedagogyOpens in a new window can create communities of learning built on trust. These learning communities of trust provide opportunities for more empowered choices of expression and autonomy of learning.

Reflect

Imagine your variable learners in the teaching and learning spaces you design. How might they answer these questions posed by the TERA quotient? How about in your department or institution? What might these answers mean for the cognitive load used by learners to assess their safety and belonging within our learning institutions?

Kate KleinOpens in a new window, a professor, facilitator and writer, has been researching the impact of school wounds in childhood and how these impact adult learners in post-secondary contexts. In this video from a larger workshop on Healing School Wounds, Kate shares what they’ve learned about the intersections of UDL, particularly regarding the role of choice in developing learner agency, and trauma-informed pedagogies.

School Wounds2:22 min

In this video, Kate shares what they’ve learned about the role of choice in helping to heal school wounds.

Next chapterCollaborative Activity 7: Assess a Technology Tool