Welcome to Episode 149 of the Think UDL podcast: Advancing Learning with Nicole Parsons. Dr. Nicole Parsons is an Associate Professor and the Co-Director of the Program for Advancement of Learning or PAL at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. I was impressed by the PAL program when I heard about it at a recent conference and also the important UDL research they are doing to advance learning for their students. If you want to learn more about UDL interventions in statistics classes, listen to episode 148 of this podcast: Students Tell Us What Works in Statistics with Jen McNally and Laura Callis. In today’s episode, Nicole Parsons and I discuss the program for advancement of learning (PAL) in general and how this brings down barriers for students at Curry College.
Resources
Reach out to Nicole Parsons via email: nicole.parsons@curry.edu or through her LinkedIn Profile
Learn more about the PAL program at Curry College:
PAL App Wheel Introduction: The 2024-2025 App Wheel
Transcript
29:28
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Universal Design for Learning, learner variability, PAL program, Curry College, neurodiversity, classroom norms, emotional capacity, executive functioning, neuro empathy, inclusive language, proactive design, philosophy of care, learning conversations, metacognitive conversations, community building.
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Nicole Parsons
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to Think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian nave, and I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it, and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 149 of the think UDL podcast, advancing learning with Nicole Parsons. Dr Nicole Parsons is an associate professor and the co director of the program for Advancement of Learning, or PAL at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. I was impressed by the PAL program when I heard about it at a recent conference, and also the important UDL research that they’re doing to advance learning for their students. If you want to learn more about UDL interventions in specific classes, listen to episode 148 of this podcast, students tell us what works in statistics with Jen McNally and Laura Callis, who are part of Curry College as well, but in today’s episode, Nicole Parsons and I discuss the program for Advancement of Learning, or PAL in general, and how this brings down barriers for students at Curry College in multiple ways. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode on the think UDL podcast. I’d like to welcome Dr Nicole Parsons to the think UDL podcast. Thank you, Nicole, for being here. That’s an honor. Thank you for having me. I’m so glad that our paths crossed and I was able to learn what you’re doing at Curry College. And so I wanted to delve a little bit further in what you do with pow, and I was able to talk to some of your colleagues about that program for Advancement of Learning. But you’ve done a lot with that, and are kind of have the bird’s eye view, like the administrator’s view, and you kind of know how you can implement that, so I wanted to ask you about that. But first, what makes you a different kind of learner?
Nicole Parsons 02:29
I actually love this question. Thank you for asking it. Everyone’s brain is different, right? No, no two are alike. And for me, learning has never been simply about observing, absorbing facts or delivering the right answers. It’s more about asking questions, exploring and embracing uncertainty. So during my doctoral journey, after years of coursework and exams, I faced a final assignment that was meant to be a written paper, but I knew a paper wouldn’t capture the complexity of my experience, so I created a multimedia reflection. It was a Voice Thread, blending music, art and my narrative, and I presented my learning as a story, not just as words on a page. So my professor could have rejected this unconventional submission, but instead, he embraced it, giving me he received an A on that assignment, he was inviting me to own my own way of learning. It was a transformative moment for me. It made me realize that learning isn’t linear or tidy, it’s messy, evolving and deeply personal. I left my coursework knowing far less than I thought I did at the star and I was okay with it. Owning that vulnerability made me feel seen and confident in my path, and this experience taught me that every brain processes information differently. Some thrive on structure, others on creativity. Some need movement. I have a we just talked about force, but I have a treadmill in my office, and I talk to myself while I’m driving all the time, because that’s how I process information or solve problems. So recognizing and honoring this diversity is essential, not just for learners, but for educators too, when we understand that learning is a dynamic process rooted in curiosity rather than finding the right answer, then we open space for deeper connection, innovation and empathy. Wow,
Lillian Nave 04:31
that was a very wide ranging, thoughtful answer to that based on your experience, and what a wonderful experience to have your advisor validate that. I’m really glad to hear that I’ve been recently talking to some other folks who are interested in especially neurodivergent students in the graduate school space, especially in the. Those non credit bearing, or the comps and those other things that are not part of the regular class, and we still have, like an old structure for that, and you beautifully explained why we need to have more than just one. So thank you very much. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is something about establishing classroom norms, and I’m bringing that up because especially of the newly redesigned UDL guidelines that includes designing options for emotional capacity, and one of those is recognizing expectations and beliefs and motivations and having classroom norms, I think are really important in understanding the environment that everybody will be learning in. So how can you establish classroom norms that anticipate that variability. And do you have some examples?
Nicole Parsons 06:05
Sure. So my first teaching experience was in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I changed careers so I didn’t seek out teaching as my first career. I i started a career, and then I got into teaching, and I started teaching in this city that was known for deep challenges. They had just received receivership, so the state took over the school. It was a city known for their graduation rate hovered around 30% it was a city of immigrants. It’s known as the second poorest country in all of the country, and the students there were understandably guarded. Trust was very hard to come by, and they didn’t open up to me right away. It was a very difficult transition into the classroom from my old job where I worked at a law firm. I knew I had to bridge the gap by sharing pieces of myself with them. I told them about where I was from, where I grew up, where my family was from. We studied. I grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, which is known for the witch trials. So we studied the witch trials, and then I took them on a field trip to Salem, and we shared stories about food and culture. Sometimes we I shared food, and they brought food, and we were building connection beyond the classroom walls. I brought them. I brought in lessons from my past career working for a lobbyist. I showed them how laws were made. We took a field trip to the State House. I taught them how public transportation worked because they were new to the United States. Most of them had arrived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and they stayed there, so I taught them how to use the train. We took a field trip to Boston on the train, and that train ride became a practical skill for them. But these experiences were about creating a learning space where their unique lives and their stories mattered. Setting norms on day one means inviting students to co create the classroom culture instead of an authoritative one way system. It’s a shared journey where everyone’s brains and values are valued. So we focus on empathy, right? That was a way to get in to be ready for learn, but now that we’re in the classroom and we’re learning, because we built the trust and we built the community, and I got the buy in from them, right? This was a classroom that was a resource from English class, so all of my students learn differently, and we focused on empathy. And this this idea called neuro empathy, where it’s the ability to recognize and honor the diversity of minds around us and understanding that each student’s strengths are unique and their needs are unique. And we would say these things out loud. We would process information out loud and process it differently out loud, so that each student could look around them and see that no one was experiencing it in the same way, right? So when students feel seen and they’re invited to bring their whole selves, they stop shrinking to fit the molds. One size fits all. It shrinks people so they start to take up space and thrive when they can bring their selves and their unique brains into the learning process.
Lillian Nave 09:24
Wow. And I can imagine that this was very important and in your head as you moved into the pow. And how you conceive of how this happens in higher ed, is that right?
Nicole Parsons 09:40
Absolutely, when you think about diversity, equity, inclusion, there’s so many layers. There’s so many layers to someone’s identity, the unique way their brain works, their culture, all of that stuff,
Lillian Nave 09:53
right? And the newly redesigned UDL guidelines from this past summer in 2024 Or really did a big shift into thinking about that cultural background, and especially that develop the awareness of oneself and others, that other people are going to be perceiving information differently they’re going to be attacking, you know, whatever the lesson is, differently or having a different perspective on it, and just being mindful of that, or that things might hit differently, right, especially in like a discussion based class, that might be just something to be aware of, and maybe have multiple Ways to get to that answer. What about faculty? Okay, so if you’ve got your class, and you know, you’ve got a lot of different kinds of brains, so how can faculty set expectations for a class, or even administrators set expectations for faculty with a UDL lens from day one.
Nicole Parsons 11:03
Yeah, so setting expectations through a UDL lens starts with vulnerability and intention. You’re really teaching with intention, and you’re being vulnerable, and you have to say it out loud on day one that and you have to believe it. You have to own it, that teaching and learning is a reciprocal process. It’s an exchange. It’s a shared authority between the instructor and the students that are learning. That’s the intention, that’s that’s setting the norm, saying that, and then the vulnerability is sharing your own experiences. What makes your brain unique? What are you trying to learn? Sharing your thoughts out loud. I’m teaching you a new concept today, and each of you are going to process it differently, and that’s okay. If I call you, if I call on you, I don’t want you to give me the right answer. I want you to show me how your brain’s processing the information. It’s a shift, right? So when faculty lead with openness and they share their own learning journeys and uncertainties and challenges. They model that teaching and learning are collaborative, the reciprocal processes. This invites students to engage, not just as recipients, but as active participants and shared exploration. And administrators can support this by also fostering a culture where flexibility, curiosity and kindness are prioritized over rigid control, by setting norms that emphasize respect for neurodiversity, this could be even just language shifts around neurodiversity. Shifting language can be powerful way to create a space that is more open, that allows unique brains to thrive, instead of shrink and cultivating spaces where every unique brain feels honored, every voice matters,
Lillian Nave 12:52
and how would that look like? You said it’s really important to shift the language around neurodiversity. So if I’m a faculty member on the first day of class or before starting a discussion, what would that look like?
Nicole Parsons 13:08
There’s different ways you could do it. But for example, we shifted our language in PAL. One small thing that we did is, and we’ve encouraged it across campus, is instead of saying pal students. We say students in PAL because it puts their identity first, right? So that’s one small shift in language. But then also, we were having a discussion recently at our faculty retreat, and we were talking about executive functioning challenges in a way that makes it sound like that’s a deficit. So shifting the language could just say executive functioning skills. These are skills everybody needs, so it’s not an executive functioning disorder. No, we’re moving away from that. It’s not a deficit. It’s these are these are some things we’re going to practice, because having executive functioning skills are important for every person to thrive. No matter what your learning preference or your neurological makeup is like, we need executive functioning skills to thrive. So this is how I’m going to design the course to make sure that that we’re keeping up with assignments, that you know how you’re going to be evaluated and so forth. But if this doesn’t work for you, then tell me what you need. Or if you feel like you’re exec, you’re you’re you’re not staying on track. Let’s talk about why, but the but shift in the language to be more inclusive. And that’s really what the neurodiversity movement is about, too. It’s about embracing this idea that neurodiversity doesn’t just represent folks that have neurological variances in their brain. It represents all of our brains, atypical and neurotypical, right? We still all are unique in the way that we process and engage with information. In the way that we learn and the way that we practice executive function, right? All of that. So shifting language in a way that makes it more inclusive to everyone in the room, and that turns that deficit model upside down and turns green into a strength based approach, yes.
Lillian Nave 15:18
And you know, everybody has their strengths and challenges, right? Everybody’s got this jagged learning profile, or they’ve got various strengths with things like executive functions, like your working memory or your shifting between tasks and that sort of thing. So if we can help our students understand that not everybody is on the same place at the same time, right? So some people have a much better working memory, or they can have delay aversion, you know, really great with that, like, I can wait and do this later and have that’s kind of an impulse control kind of thing. But others might have, you know, the exact opposite, and they’re really good with, you know, set shifting and moving from one to the other, and they need some help in others. But just realizing we’re all different, and we’re all going to have these changes. We’re getting there together, but we’re all different, and we’re all on the road, you know, so we’re just in different parts of the journey, and recognizing that is helpful.
Nicole Parsons 16:25
Yeah, I agree, another thing that I’ve tried and because also another area where students might feel less engaged is if they just don’t have the bandwidth that day, like we don’t know what their band what their emotional bandwidth is, their ability to to be present in class, if they have other things going on at home, if there’s something that they’re they’re stressed about, right? And emotions can get in the way of learning very often. So if I see that that becomes a pattern. I might call it out in a way that is soft, but maybe start class and say, Okay, well, today we’re going to learn about blah, blah, blah. But before we get started, let’s set our attention for today. Because, you know, there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world that might be troubling us, and your mind might wander, right? So I just want you to know that if that happens, that’s okay, but if you catch it happen, and, you know, take a deep breath and try to bring yourself back to the lesson, right? And it’s okay to ask if you drift it off. And then you were like, Wait, where are we? And you need to get caught up to speed. It’s okay. You can ask, we can get you caught up to speed, right? Normalizing that because it’s normal. But too often people feel like it’s not normal. They feel in shame by it or embarrassed by it, and then we lost them because we didn’t create a space where it was okay for them to drift off and come back, right?
Lillian Nave 17:59
Yeah, you don’t hear people talking about this. So I appreciate that you’re bringing this up that the way we’ve always done it may not be the best way, and we’re not including all of our students or bringing them back in if we leave them behind. What about your advice to anyone who sees the UDL guidelines more as a checklist rather than a mindset, how do you shift from retrofitting accommodations to proactive design with your faculty?
Nicole Parsons 18:36
I think it’s important to think beyond the checklist and imagine that UDL is a philosophy of care. Yes, absolutely, and the shift from retrofitting to proactive design means anticipating the variability before students even enter the room. It requires us to slow down and tune into the rhythms of diverse learners, understanding that being still, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, is a love language that honors presence and reflection. And I use this phrase often with my students, that slowing down is a love language, that being still is a love language like and you know, it’s okay to think and process before you have a response, and that each person has a different amount of time before they do that, right? There’s always going to be that one person in class that is so quick to want to and that’s okay too, but if you only call on that person, then you’re leaving the other students out, right? Yeah. So I try really hard to encourage my students to slow down, and that would be, you know, part of that philosophy of care, of practicing UDL, not as a checklist, but as a philosophy and care being intentional. So when we embrace stillness, we create a space for listening deeply. It creates a space to really allow students to dive deeper, and it helps to design learning experience that resonate with everyone, because we give it time to resonate, time to sink in. And this mindset also asks us to move away from the deficit model, which I described earlier. It’s not what’s wrong or what’s missing, it’s moving toward an expansive view of the possibility and strength that can happen when students, all students, thrive. Some students are in classes. They’re still just surviving. You know, they get their their accommodations, their extended time, their note taker. You know they’re, they’re they’re just surviving. Is when you get when you create these spaces that they can thrive, where they start to take up space, that’s when they’re thriving.
Lillian Nave 20:52
Do you have any examples of these stories from your faculty? I would love to hear about proactive designs.
Nicole Parsons 21:01
Is it actually a student that comes in mind. She just, she’s like in my mind right now. She just was our orator at our at our graduation this year, and she is someone who learned differently. She went to very her parents sent her to private schools that focused on her specific learning. She got some of the best education, and she is the perfect example of someone who refused to shrink herself. She was small in nature, so she’s a dwarf, and her energy radiates like someone four times her size. She will walk and talk and speak like the tallest person in the room. Okay, she’s taking up space, and she’s a force of nature. Being the student orator at graduation, she talked about this openly, honestly, she shared her story so proudly, and it empowered other people to take up space and to fully be themselves. And it also is often the students you talked about, like faculty stories, but often it’s the students that reinforce the faculty’s minds, that shift their minds, you know, because then faculty see that and they’re like, Wow, that’s possible. How do I create a space for that to be possible? How do I create a space for students to thrive, not just survive, right? And she’s a perfect example, but many students who learn differently have been taught implicitly or explicitly to minimize their presence, especially in classrooms, to shrink and adapt, but when we intentionally cultivate neuro empathy, which is the idea that, you know, we have empathy towards this idea that every brain is unique. So it’s not an empathy towards this, towards a person or a culture. It’s an empathy toward the idea that all brains are unique. And when we cultivate that in our classrooms, we’re teaching students not just to survive, but to thrive, and we help them discover their voices, their journeys, and to help them walk confidently into the world. The workplace. Workforce is also looking to embrace this neurodiversity movement, right? And our students are going to show them how
Lillian Nave 23:18
they are our best teachers, for sure. Maybe you could tell me just a little bit more too about that pal program. I did interview your colleagues in another episode, and they explain it. But I think if somebody hasn’t heard that episode, it might be really helpful to learn just a little bit more about your context and what the PAL is at Curry College, yep,
Nicole Parsons 23:44
so we are a nationally recognized program that is well before its time. It was founded by Dr Gertrude Webb, who believed she saw that she was forward thinking she understood the neurodiversity movement and special education before it even happened, right? So she developed this program 55 years ago, before we had special education, before we had the Americans with Disabilities Act, because she saw that students learn differently and that one size fits all, education did not work. So that was the that was how this program was founded. And then later we got special education. Later we got the Americans with Disabilities Act, but we were already doing this stuff before we had to, right? So that, and of itself, makes us have a very special identity, like an inner strength, like we’re the first, we’re the legacy of this, right? And so the people that work with in this program, our faculty, most of them, have never left that spend their first job teaching, and they’ve stayed because it’s such a beautiful place to work. And they’re part, they’re part of a legacy. It’s empowering to be here. Our courses are. Our credit bearing. So it’s not like a traditional academic support program. It’s a, it’s a, it’s an academic program where students are enrolled in courses and they’re earning credit, but within that model, they’re often meeting with their professor one on one, and we have these things called learning conversations, and the curriculum is driven by the individual needs of the students. So we don’t just teach the same lesson to all first year students. It looks differently for every single student. Usually our learning conversations, or we call them metacognitive conversations, but they start with going over the diagnostic testing. Oftentimes, students transition to college and they don’t even know what those scores mean. They don’t even know what working memory and processing speed, and they don’t know all that stuff. So we we dive in deeper with them, so that they understand and and we help them see like we’re like talent scouts. We help them see like their brain as a superpower, right? So that’s the lessons. And then we and then we go over their syllabi, and, you know, each class is different because it’s sometimes focused on a goal, or sometimes putting a fire out that happened an hour before or the last night. And then within our building there’s, well, there’s a diversity of our faculty, so that’s a really important part of our identity, too. We have, all of us have a background in teaching and learning, but we have, you know, other parts of our identities moving in, like, I’m an athlete. We have George, he’s an artist. We have professors that have a background in clinical psychology. So all of us bring something different, our unique experience and our story to this work too, and we do a lot of community building, because we have all of our classes in one building. All of the offices are here. We have an Assistive Technology Center. We have events. Oftentimes, faculty and students do events together, and some of those events might be Well, one of my favorites is when we do trivia night, it’s really funny to watch the students, like, dominate us. I think there’s one time a faculty member actually came in first place. But, and that’s vulnerability, that when you can show up and play trivia with the students and try your best and they’re beating you, you know, but you’re a doctor and they think you’re an expert, like, that’s that’s where the vulnerability happens, that’s where the shift happens. That’s where we’re creating the safe spaces right for students to it’s a community, it’s a learning environment. So pal special. Pal’s unique. We teach students how to learn
Lillian Nave 27:37
so they could learn in their other classes too. Exactly, wow. It’s quite the legacy, as you said, and it’s really amazing what you have accomplished there at Curry College. I’ve heard of curry for actually several years before I got to meet all of you at a conference. Lately, I really think you do have a lot to teach us and to learn how you’re creating that environment that is really neuro inclusive. So thank you for sharing what you’re doing at Curry College with me today.
Nicole Parsons 28:11
Thank you for having me.
Lillian Nave 28:16
Thank you for listening to this episode of The think UDL podcast. New episodes are posted on social media, on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and blue sky, you can find transcripts and resources pertaining to each episode on our website, think, u, d, l.org, the music in each episode is created by the Odyssey quartet. Oddyssey is spelled with two D’s, by the way, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez. I’m your host, Lillian Nave, and I want to thank Appalachian State University for helping to support this podcast, and if you call it appellation, I’ll throw an apple at you. Thank you for joining. I’m your host. Lillian nave, thanks for listening to the think UDL podcast.