This week, we explore a few ideas on how you can universally design your approach to classroom management and instruction to support as many students as possible proactively. If you haven’t already learned about Universal Design (UD), you can learn more in our introduction and explore three ways to apply UD to your physical classroom space by creating sensory-friendly environments, designing with felt-safety in mind, and setting your space up to support supportive collaborative learning. 

Building upon concepts of Universal Design (UD) with curiosity and creativity may lead to opportunities to adjust your instructional design to support the regulation of students’ nervous systems, too! Although these ideas may be less concrete than designing a physical space, they likely will have similar benefits and support relationship building, regulated engagement in instruction, and greater retention of learning. Similarly to physically designing with inclusivity and accessibility in mind, it can support an educator’s nervous system, too! 

By implementing some of the strategies previously discussed, like giving students options to choose a place to complete independent work, even in high school, a choice to sit under the overhead light or away from it, and a choice of fidgets that best meet their sensory needs at the moment, you are already increasing the autonomy that they may experience in your classroom. 

You are also teaching them both an important life skill and a strategy to support their nervous system regulation in your classroom: listening to their body. 

Ask them what your brain and body need at this moment to help you complete this work. And then help them figure it out within the boundaries of your space and comfort as an educator. 

By proactively choosing a variety of options to make accessible within your physical design of the classroom and knowing why you did or didn’t choose other options, you may feel more comfortable having conversations with students about options, and they may feel more trusting of you and your reasoning; will they always be thrilled? No, and you may have other helpful options that you can ask them to choose from or even consider their feedback and how you could adjust your universally designed space to better support their needs.

Sure, some students may seem to be trying to ‘manipulate’ you or ‘take advantage’ of the system. 

Let’s reframe that! 

Those students are children trying to get what they are experiencing as their needs met the best they can with what they know at the time. 

How to Accommodate by Design

Similarly to adjusting your classroom design, your choice to proactively adjust your educational approach will also leave you, hopefully, more regulated and scrambling less to adjust reactively for specific students—which could also cause them to feel othered or like a burden for needing these changes. 

What instructional accommodations are most common for students? Off the top of my head, here are a few that I can think of: 

• Access to noise-cancelling headphones
• Access to fidgets or other sensory tools for regulation
• Permission to listen to music or white noise in headphones during independent work times
• Extended time on tests, assignments, and projects
• Alternate options for assignments and projects based on need
• Reduction of frequency or quantity of assignments in favor of quality

Many of these are accommodations that we, as adults, make for ourselves regularly in our lives. Some of these are already addressed if you’re using the tips from our previous articles in this series. Below are a few additional ideas for how to support inclusivity and accessibility, regardless of IEP or 504 accommodations, through your choices of instructional design and classroom management practices. 

Allow Headphones for Music or White Noise

Investment: None

As a child, my mom could not understand how I could possibly work with the TV on. I remember it being a huge point of contention, and then, eventually, she realized that it was just how my brain worked. As an adult, I often work while listening to music that others would find super distracting or with the mundane droning on of a live news channel on YouTube. I also have ‘background shows’ that I watch when I need to concentrate. 

Here’s the reason why I don’t understand the rule that bans listening to music or using headphones: The ones who are going to use this option are probably doing it anyway, and now you just have to correct them less for it — why wouldn’t we want to make a change that would allow that? 

In school, I cut my hoodies from the inside of the hoodie pocket, strung my headphones up through my shirt, and hid them with my hair so I could listen to my favorite CD of the month on repeat. I still was able to listen to my teachers when I wanted to and complete my work.

There was never a time when the music was the reason I didn’t listen or complete my work—never. 

Within the boundaries of your classroom and the policies of your school, consider your reasoning for not letting students listen to their own music, in their own headphones, while completing independent work. My guess is, the students who are not completing the work, will not be struggling to complete it because of their choice of music. 

It also decreases the need for students to hide what they are doing, causing further distraction from their work, and nervous system dysregulation if they are worried about getting caught or you catch them. By proactively creating expectations and a system related to this, you create trusting and supportive relationships that don’t require you to manage who has the accommodation and who does not. 

Offer a Variety of Options for Larger Assignments

Investment: None

Rather than just adjusting your expectations for those with accommodations, you could include more opportunities for students to make decisions that best support their learning and engagement style with assignments. 

In real life, we often do not write five-paragraph essays to get our point across. Most times, a five-paragraph essay that is sent to a coworker in an email will be skimmed, disregarded, or interpreted to be over-explaining or perhaps even chastising. 

Yes, as an educator, you are required to teach certain things and have students complete specific ways to show that they are learning. And, within the freedom that you do have, you can choose to allow students to do things like: 

• Create a PowerPoint rather than write an essay
• Record audio or video of themselves explaining the topic or 
• Use a range instead of a set number for paragraph or word count if it must be an essay

All of these options are free to implement and require little to no extra effort on your part. Once they become a habit, you will naturally include them with ease. 

Besides, wouldn’t you rather read a PowerPoint than a five-paragraph essay filled with fluff, anyway? I know I would, and as a college professor, I ask my students to cut the fluff that they have been programmed to include because, quite honestly, I don’t have time or desire to read the same introductory sentence written in three different ways because they think they have to. I want the info, and I want it well written, yes, but I also don’t want to waste my time or theirs because I respect them as humans, and I respect that I only have so much energy in a given day. 

Offer Flexible Deadlines

Investment: None

I’m not sure there would be anything that annoyed me more than hearing a therapy client of mine tell me they could not turn in an assignment anymore because it is late and ‘locked.’ 

There has been no time in my career when a boss has told me never mind that task that I gave to you because the deadline has passed. Instead, they may speak with me about what is going on, why the deadline has passed without the task being completed, and what can be done to support me in meeting a new deadline, whether that is completing it ASAP or at a date in the future. 

As an educator, you have to keep your class going at a certain pace, and I recognize that. A way to accommodate this is by offering your students a chance to self-advocate and request an extra day or two, at least one or two days before the assignment is due. 

Teach them how to proactively communicate and share when they think they can have it done. This is a life skill that will support them for the rest of their lives in careers, relationships, and beyond. It also supports their own sense of self-worth related to work completion. 

If you are on a deadline that cannot be flexible, explain that to students earlier (or set your classroom deadline two days earlier than you’d like it to be completed to allow for flexibility). I’m not a big fan of penalizing late work, and I understand that some schools may have that policy. Consider what policies are in place, where you are able to be flexible, and how to support your students the best that you can. 

From my experience, students are not often taught to self-advocate (or how to write emails). 

To help, here is one below, possibly for middle or high school.

Subject: Requesting Extension 

Body: 

Hi [Teacher Name],

I am writing to request an extension of [assignment name]. I need extra time to complete [what is left to do?]. I can have it for you by [date] if that works. 

Thank you for considering, 

[Student Name]

Changing your instructional design may not seem like an easy task, and it may seem daunting. If you are stuck in the old way of thinking, too, it may seem like the students are ‘winning’ and you are the one overaccommodating them. Let’s try to reframe that again. First, everyone wins when students are more regulated, better able to engage in the classroom and retain more learning. Punitive discipline goes down, test scores go up, and everyone enjoys school more. 

Many aspects of school do not mirror real life, and by providing a few flexible accommodations to all students instead of just the ones required to have them by law, you will proactively support students in learning not just how to adhere to reasonable expectations that will be similar in real life but supporting your own nervous system regulation in the process. 

To learn more about making your instructional approach and way of being as an educator more inclusive, check out our book studies.

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This article is the fifth and final article that is part of a five part series about Applying Universal Design.