One of my favorite parts of being a consultant is observing classrooms and having the opportunity to connect with students. While completing learning walks in an elementary school, I noticed two girls snuggled up to an iPad, sharing an earbud, completely absorbed. They smiled up at me, and I asked them what they were doing. They shared that they were listening to a chapter from Where the Red Fern Grows and told me about all the choices they had to access the text.
I was all in. I sat down and asked, “Why are you reading the text?” They looked at me like I had missed the plot. “We just have to read it,” they said. “Oh, I know, but why are you reading it? Are you going to summarize the passage, make a connection, or visualize and create an image?” Their collective eyebrows furrowed even further. I tried a new tactic. “Okay, so what are you doing after you read the text? Will you be discussing it or writing about it?” They weren’t sure. When I went into the classroom, I saw more of the same. Students were focused and comfortable, using the options available to them, but they weren’t clear on the purpose of the work or how they would know they were successful.
Now, as a former English teacher, I am ALL for reading for pleasure, but that can be combined with a purpose as well. Students can fall in love with a story and still know what they are working toward, how they will be assessed, and how the day’s reading connects to their growth as readers and thinkers. And given how little instructional time we have, that clarity becomes even more important.
This scenario is not uncommon. In this classroom environment, the teacher had provided options to read or listen and for students to work alone or together, and clearly the classroom community was amazing, and I would have loved my own kids to be a part of it. The students had options, and the teacher was incredibly flexible. The next step was making the purpose and assessment expectations more visible so students could use those rich choices strategically. Without that clarity, it wasn’t clear if the choices were, in fact, relevant, and this happens a lot.
When I first learned about UDL, I sometimes jumped to the choices too. I was so excited about giving students voice and flexibility that I didn’t always slow down to make the destination visible first. Those early lessons weren’t failures. They were part of learning how to design with more intention.
That hallway conversation became one concrete example of what my team and I were seeing everywhere. Teachers were working so damn hard building playlists, designing choice boards, and curating resources, and they were frustrated that students kept choosing the easy option, getting distracted, or treating choices like a menu instead of a strategy. The issue wasn’t heart or effort. The issue was clarity. Students didn’t always know the purpose, the success criteria, or how they would be assessed, so even thoughtful options couldn’t do the job we hoped they would.
That realization is what led to the updated 2026 UDL Flowchart.
The heart of UDL has not changed, and the process of instructional design has not changed. What changed is how clearly the tool needed to communicate the order of thinking that strong UDL has always required.
The updated flowchart makes visible that instructional clarity, including both learning objectives and success criteria, comes first. Proactive planning for barriers comes next, because teaching and learning must be designed to be flexible and to remove predictable obstacles. With barriers anticipated, backward-designed formative and summative assessments can then be created and communicated with learners so they can plan, make responsible decisions, monitor progress, and adjust. Only after this foundation is in place do purposeful options make sense as a pathway to agency rather than a menu of preferences.
We also integrated CASEL’s 3 Signature Practices to make explicit how UDL routines can support student agency and responsible decision making. Transformative SEL, rooted in developmental science and research on engagement, well-being, academic achievement, and long-term success, reminds us that clarity and choice only matter when students feel safe to take risks, reflect on progress, and co-own their learning.
This shift mirrors what we know about effective instruction: when expectations are clear and success criteria is visible, students are better able to lead their own learning, transfer skills, and develop the habits they need beyond school.
It’s a lot to think about, no doubt, and I’d love to hear your feedback on how the tool helps you get closer to universally designing your lesson plans and identify where barriers may be preventing full implementation of UDL in your classroom. And try not to get discouraged. I promise you that when I was first universally designing lessons, I didn’t even get past the first step at first, but it gave me something to shoot for.
You got this!
