Welcome to Episode 141 of the Think UDL podcast: Strategies to Support Neurodivergent Learners with Jennifer Pusateri. Dr. Jennifer Pusateri is a Senior Universal Design Consultant at the University of Kentucky, as well as a talented author, speaker and educational consultant with whom I love to work and with whom I have worked often! I was so excited to participate in a workshop of hers entitled “10+ UDL-Aligned Strategies for Supporting Neurodivergent students” at a recent conference and I knew I needed to bring this to my Think UDL listeners. In today’s episode we discuss neurodiversity, terminology, and multiple strategies to support neurodivergent students in areas such as focus, attention, and motivation, organization and structure, unspoken expectations, time management, emotional and sensory regulation. And what we talk about today isn’t everything in this power-packed workshop, so if you want to learn more you can find Jen’s contact information on the ThinkUDL.org website resources for this episode.
Resources
Find Jen Pusateri on LinkedIn at or her website Jennifer Pusateri Educational Consulting and she has put together a resource document to accompany this podcast episode on UDL of Neurodivergent Learners.
Transcript
53:00
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Neurodivergent learners, UDL strategies, executive functions, time management, sensory regulation, unspoken expectations, organizational helpers, cognitive load, accommodations, emotional regulation, social interaction, processing time, motivation, learning management systems, inclusive education.
SPEAKERS
Jennifer Pusateri, Lillian Nave
Lillian Nave 00:02
Lillian, 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 141 of the think UDL podcast strategies to support neurodivergent learners with Jennifer Pusateri. Dr. Jennifer Pusateri is a senior universal design consultant at the University of Kentucky, as well as a talented author, speaker and educational consultant with whom I love to work and with whom I’ve worked often. Luckily for me, I was so excited to participate in a workshop of hers entitled 10 plus UDL aligned strategies for supporting neuro divergent students at a recent conference, and I knew I needed to bring this to my think UDL listeners in today’s episode, we discuss neurodiversity terminology and multiple strategies to support neurodivergent students in areas such as focus, attention and motivation, organization and structure, unspoken expectations, time management and emotional and sensory regulation, and what we talk about today isn’t everything in this power packed workshop. So if you want to learn more, you can find Jen’s contact information on the think udl.org website, resources for this episode. I’m so excited to bring this conversation to you, and thank you for listening to the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor text help a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood. It has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12 right through to higher education for the last three decades, discover their impact at text. Dot help forward, slash, learn more. That’s L, E, A, R, N, M, O, R, E, okay. Thank you so much. I want to welcome Jen pistari to the podcast. Thank you so much for recording with me today. I’m delighted, so glad. I want to get to this amazing workshop and what you’re doing to help support neurodivergent learners. But first I’m going to ask you, since I’ve already had you on the podcast before and asks you my usual question. I want to ask you, what do you want instructors to know about neurodivergent learners? Man,
Jennifer Pusateri 03:09
there’s so many things. The first thing that comes to mind is that, like, just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. And I think there are a lot of folks who are neuro divergent, who feel a little self conscious about their neuro divergence, and so if they’re coming to you with some accommodations, they must really need it like this is not typically something that people would just make up. The second thing is that these people are brilliant, like neuro divergent folks, have some of the most creative, innovative, out of the box ideas that you have ever heard. And like, we just don’t always value that in in academia, Well, honestly and in our society, true, you know. And I think these are where some of our most amazing ideas are coming from. But when we’re not really equipped to help them succeed in higher ed, then sometimes that can get stuck. And I hate that, like I want, I want these ideas. We need these brilliant ideas in our society. Yes,
Lillian Nave 04:14
we do. And I love that you start with the brilliant minds part, because I have been so impressed and flabbergasted by some of the brilliant things my students have said that I just wasn’t expecting. And there’s a lot of times you’re just tooling along in a course, and you’re kind of wanting people to follow you and do what you say or fit in a box, and then something brilliant comes out, and I’m like, Oh man, I need to spend more time offering those opportunities, because it really changes things. So thank you for telling us many of the strengths and opportunities that we have with our neurodivergent learners already off the bat. So the reason I have you here, Jen is because, first of all, I super admi. Your brilliant brain, and therefore I went to your UDL, UDL aligned strategies for Neuro divergent students workshop, which was fantastic, and I wanted to talk to you about it. And I noticed that when you were giving this workshop, you intentionally designed the activities in the workshop that would help, or be like you were showing us how to do really good teaching. And then you peel back the curtain a little to tell us why we did it that way and what benefits they provided. So for example, this is the one I loved. You started out by asking participants to think about the question they wanted to answer during this workshop, like, how can I support neurodivergent students? You gave us a minute to think about it, provided a countdown timer during that minute that we could look at. You told us we were about to discuss this topic in a small group. And you also had the question on the screen the whole time while the countdown was going and during this discussion, it was incredibly well designed. Why did you design it that way.
Jennifer Pusateri 06:00
I think I just wanted people to know that, like, like, the things that that will be really helpful for Neuro divergent learners. Excuse me, it’s not rocket science like these are pretty simple changes that you can make to your teaching, and it’s going to make a huge difference for your neuro divergent learners. So some of the things you mentioned were built in because of some of the challenges that neuro divergent students face in higher ed settings. So like, processing time is one thing. A lot of folks that are neuro divergent have different processing speed, and they may need a moment or two to think about something before they’re ready to jump in and answer. So, like, if your only opportunity in a class to participate is if you’re cold called on, like, that’s right, like, that’s not going to be that’s not going to be great, because you need that moment or two just to process the information, process your response before you before you give that so building in that one minute to think before you jump into some like a pair share or any of that, that one minute of processing time can make a huge difference. And then some of the other things were kind of built in for those same reasons, like a countdown timer being up for for folks who have time blindness, meaning that they time passes and doesn’t feel like a minute, but, you know, it’s, it’s a little convoluted, so having that up on the screen helps. It also helps with a sense of urgency, so that you don’t tend to tune out or daydream, because, you know, you have only one minute for this con enough for this thing to think about. So just simple things like that can, can be a big, a big deal, a game changer for Neuro diversion students.
Lillian Nave 07:42
Yeah, I also love that the that whole part about you’re going to be talking with other people made me start to think, too. Like, Oh, I better have something to say to my neighbor. You know, otherwise it’d be, I’d kind of be in LA, LA land for a little bit of like, oh, I came up with my answer. Oh, I’m gonna have to talk to somebody too. So appreciated that part. So I really appreciated that you took the time to educate the group to in the workshop me as a participant about the terms you were using, because I must say that these are terms that are all over higher ed right now. Lot of people are talking about neurodivergent learners, and they’re using these particular four terms, neurodiversity, neurodiverse, neurotypical and neurodivergent. But I often see them misused or just like not quite applied in the right circumstances, and I thought you gave a really great definition and understanding and differentiation, so I was hoping you could clarify that for our listeners today.
Jennifer Pusateri 08:51
Yeah, for sure. So the word neuro diversity is really the one I want to start with, because it kind of that word evolved out of online autism communities from kind of the late 80s and 90s. And it was this group of people who had found each other online and were like, there’s like, actually, nothing wrong with our brains. Our brains are just part of this huge spectrum of brains that exist in the world, this diversity of brains. And so this idea of neuro diversity is similar to what we might think of as biodiversity, like in a biome or a natural habitat or whatever biodiversity meaning that you have this huge variety of things within one community or one area, and like that our brains are the same, like there is not really a normal brain and a not normal brain. That’s not really how it works. So this idea of neuro diversity was was put out there to challenge that idea of this duality that has been set forth through the medical model of neuro normal. Brains versus not normal brains. And that’s just not true. So that’s what that word is for. Then we have a different word, neurodiverse. So neurodiverse is really describing a group, like the characteristics of a group of people. So in the same way that you might say, Wow, the plants in this forest sure are sure are biodiverse. Like there’s a lot of biodiversity here. You might say the students in this class are neurodiverse, meaning that this particular group, the characteristic of this group is that they are neurodiverse. There are all kinds of different types of brains in this group, okay, but sometimes folks will use the word neurodiverse to describe a person, and that’s not really how it’s typically used. So you wouldn’t say, oh, you know, so and so she’s by she’s neuro diverse. You would typically we refer to people as neuro divergent. And I will say that there are some people who identify as neuro divergent, who refer to themselves as neuro diverse, and I’m not going to tell them that they’re wrong. But, typically the word neurodivergent is what we use there, and then that really brings us to these other two kind of problematic words, which are neurotypical, and then what has been put as the opposite of that neurodivergent. So the word neurotypical really is not a thing. I mean, we’re gonna be honest, it’s not really a thing. It’s this social construct that’s been built up over time and and it really just means, hey, this is what our society says is a normal brain. But, you know, obviously there are going to be different understandings of what a normal brain is depending on what society or community you live in, so that that’s so, it’s not so it’s not real guys, it’s not a real thing. There is no such thing as a normal brain, and that’s just, that’s just not how neuroscience works. So the opposite of that, if you’re not neurotypical, then people would say that you might be neurodivergent. And so the neuro divergent, really, if we’re if we’re looking at this false dichotomy of normal versus not normal, neuro divergent would be used to describe a not normal brain. And again, that’s just not, that’s not how it works, guys. Yeah, so, but I will say that folks who do identify as neurodivergent have kind of reclaimed this word and said, No, you know what? Yeah, I mean, my brain does not work in the way that you seem to think is normal and like, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m okay with that. And so in the same way that, like the queer community has taken the word queer back, the neuro divergent community have said, no, no, that’s actually we are neuro divergent. That’s, that’s who we are. So yeah, that’s kind of how those words work out.
Lillian Nave 12:50
Yeah, I appreciate that so much. And that neuro typical versus neuro divergent is really, to me, just a majority like and who even knows, like when we find out how how wild and varied all of our brains are, there might be more neuro divergent brains out there than neuro typical. So I just think about, like the majority, which is what we’ve sort of been socially accepted to think is what is supposed to be out there, but it may not even be. So it’s like a It’s, I feel like it’s a step up. It’s like, better than saying abnormal, but it’s still saying, you know, away from the accepted norm, almost. So we’re working right, we’re we’re working on it, yeah, and I do like that, but that you can at least say, You know what, it’s different. And difference is good, neurodivergent. This is good. I want you to know that I’m neurodivergent, because then you’re gonna better understand me. Yeah, for sure that. So I can see you know why it’s why it’s still really important to make that difference in category. But I still think we, we have a bit of a negative connotation that we’re probably working our way out of. I hope I think we’re doing okay. So love it. I love our talk about names and labels and words to help us understand this conversation. So next is, what about these challenges? What challenges do are neurodivergent and awesome and wonderful and brilliant students in college?
Jennifer Pusateri 14:31
Yeah, I think a lot of it can come down to executive functions. So executive functions being kind of the skills and processes, cognitive processes that help us to organize, plan, set goals, achieve those goals, etc. And that’s one of the most difficult areas for Neuro divergent folks. Now I will say neuro divergent is a huge umbrella and includes a lot of different conditions and diagnoses. So like some of those things may be more prevalent for certain neurodivergent people, and some may not. It just is going to kind of depend. And I’ve always heard people say, you know, if you know one autistic person, you know one autistic person, the same thing applies here. But if we made a like a Venn diagram of all of these different categories that we might include under neurodivergence, and we put in the middle, where do they overlap? Well, they tend to overlap in this area of executive functioning, of where those challenges lie. So we know we’re talking about things like focus, memory, emotions, action, actually, getting in and doing the thing, effort, things like that, and that can be really some I mean, if you think about an academic setting, there’s kind of a couple pieces to learning. There’s the learning the content piece, but then there’s managing the learning. Is the other part, and the managing the learning is that’s the executive functioning that’s making sure you have the materials that you need that’s making sure you organize your study time, that’s making sure that you have planned ahead so that you have enough study time before there’s an exam like that part, the planning for your learning is such a big piece that I think a lot of folks forget about and so because that’s one of the biggest difficulties for neurodivergent People, that executive functioning that can really cause some problems in a higher ed setting.
Lillian Nave 16:26
Yeah. And so these, these challenges, it’s like we’ve set up a system that doesn’t really help or work for many of these brains. I was thinking biodiverse, neuro divergent brains for the neurodiversity that we have in our college classrooms. Our system is kind of slanted towards that neurotypical where we are. And also, I think, a bias too, about well, you have to adult well, you need to do this. And the thing is, we don’t test on it, and we don’t explicitly say it a lot. We’re just saying. We’re going to understand that this is part of it, but not even tell the students so that those students who are neurodivergent, who might have more challenges for that, are going to be put at a disadvantage.
Jennifer Pusateri 17:16
Yeah, and you know what? In in higher ed, we we should on our students a lot. We should on them a lot. We say they Well, they should know how to do this, like this is college. They should know how to plan their time, and they should know how to organize their materials and like they don’t, like they don’t, is the thing many of them don’t, and not even just under a diversion students, but executive functioning, that those skills in our brain are not really finished cooking, if you will, until about age 25 for most people, and even for Neuro divergent folks that can be up to 35 years old. So none of them are probably great at these skills quite yet. So the fact that we expect them to know how to do these things, even though we’ve never taught them, no one has ever taught them, it’s a little absurd, if we think about it. Yeah, absolutely.
Lillian Nave 18:01
I love that. Gonna use that now we should honor students. Don’t shoot on your students. That is really good. Yes, copyright Jen PIs Terry on that one. Okay, so let’s not shoot on our students. So what would be some UDL strategies that instructors can employ to support these neurodivergent students with respect to some of those executive functions like you’ve mentioned, focus, attention and motivation.
Jennifer Pusateri 18:33
Yeah, that’s I love that one. That’s one of my favorites, probably because it’s the thing I really struggle with. So there is an acronym that you can use that will help you remember what things will help to motivate neuro divergent students. And that acronym is in cup, I n, C, u, p, in cup. And so those five things are I stands for interest. So students are things that they’re interested in are going to help motivate neurodivergent students. N stands for novelty, anything new or exciting or different. C stands for challenge. U stands for urgency, and then P stands for passion. And the one of those that I example, I like to give is challenge. If I can challenge myself to do something I don’t want to do. Oh, I don’t think I said this. I myself am neurodivergent. I’m ADHD. I was diagnosed in college with that, which is late for ADHD, but not for females. Many females are diagnosed much later. So for me personally, when I am faced with something I don’t want to do, like, we’ll say, unload the dishwasher. Sample, yes, I do not want to do that, and it’s very difficult for me to motivate myself, so I have to sometimes rely on these other things to motivate me. So I will, like, if I’m making lunch or something, and I put in a microwave sweet potato for. Seven minutes, and then I try to challenge myself to beat the microwave, unlike the dishwasher, uh huh, yeah. And it seems silly, but like, for some reason, like that thing works, that works for me, or this sense of urgency you of the end cup urgency is another piece that really helps a lot. And I’ve heard someone say that when neurodivergent people allow urgency to be their motivator, it’s almost like your adrenaline is taking over where your lack of motivation is. It’s like that’s taking over for that, that part of your brain that should be doing that work, and it’s not so something I know, if something’s due today, then I will absolutely get that thing done today, but if it’s due in three weeks,
Lillian Nave 20:45
right? Happening exactly? Yeah, and
Jennifer Pusateri 20:47
there’s a researcher. Last name is Hollowell, and he does a lot of research on ADHD. And one of the things that he says is, there are, there are two times for people who are ADHD, there’s now and there’s not now, and like, if it’s not now, I’m not paying attention to it. Like, if it’s if it’s something that’s due now, I will take care of it and I’ll pay attention to it. So, so anyway, these outside motivators, these, well, some of them are internal motivators, but interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, passion, I think those things are really helpful for knowing how to motivate. Yeah, yeah. Neurodivergent folks,
Lillian Nave 21:20
oh my gosh, absolutely. You bring up so many things, besides the fact that my clean dishes, I said after the interview, I’m going to do that because I will only have 15 minutes. Yes, that exact same thing, and so many other things, like how when I don’t want to do a task, I’m just looking at all of the ways I do it. It’s when I’m now on, like, a maybe I have to attend a webinar and I have to do that. Well, that’s when I’ll get these other things done too. Like, you know, I can, I can go through my email, I can do all this. It’s only because I have, yeah, this. Either I’ve got the set amount of time, or I’m trying, yeah, to avoid something else that I’m avoiding.
Jennifer Pusateri 22:07
Same thing, yeah, my house has never been so clean as when I have something due, exactly, deadlines, yeah,
Lillian Nave 22:13
oh my goodness. I get so much done, right? Yes, okay, all right. So, yes, so we can help our students when we think about ways that we can incorporate those interests, novelty, child, urgency and passion. So choice, flexibility, giving our students right they something that they want to work on, and what about things like organization and structure. How can we help our students with something like that?
Jennifer Pusateri 22:45
Yeah, so if you’re a professor, or if you’re an instructor in higher ed situation, and like you think that students know why they’re doing a given assignment, let’s say, but you haven’t told them why this is a thing and why this is connected to our course or our learning outcomes or whatever like they may not know that, but especially for Neuro divergent students, a lot of times they don’t necessarily pull out that that kind of hidden idea, I guess. Yeah, so it can be really helpful if we can illuminate some of those things for them. And I’m thinking about one example I like to use is reading academic journal articles. Like, there is a very set structure, especially within your field, as to what an article like, what kind of order an article should be in right? Like, what how this is going to be laid out? But like, I don’t necessarily know that until someone points that out to me, yeah. And then once you pointed it out to me, then I can start to see that. But like, if you’ve not told me that that structure is there, then I’m probably not going to just figure that out for myself, yeah. And then when it comes to things like organization, it’s, I will say that for Neuro divergent folks, a disorganized professors course is really difficult. It’s really, really difficult. And so the more organized the course is, then the easier it’s going to be for a student to navigate. And so one of the easiest ways I’ve I’ve seen people do that, is to use like in their learning management system. We use Canvas at my university to use modules, and to set those modules up as by week, because the students kind of are thinking about things from a week perspective from week to week. So instead of organizing it like thematically, like by themes or units or sections or whatever, think about, can I organize this by weeks? Because that will help my students with that organization of their time and keeping their things all straight together. So, yeah, that’s, that’s kind of one way to think about that.
Lillian Nave 24:57
And you know, I definitely see. Organization and organizational helpers all over the place. And why shouldn’t they be in education? For instance, if I have a doctor’s appointment coming up, I get an email or a text. If I need to have, like, if I’ve put in an order, I’m gonna get, you know, it’s ready, and you’ve got to go, you know, come get it. So reminders and and things that help me to understand, like, here’s the layout of the next month, you know, I have a my Google Calendar is what structures my whole life, you know. And so I want to put that out for my students, so that they know you know what’s coming up, and they would know you know how to prepare or those sorts of things. And when I I’ve seen classes where you go into the learning management system, and instead of a week by week structure, it’s like, here are all the readings, here are all the assignments over here, here are all of the deadlines over in this place, over here. And that means the student is going to have to do all of that connecting of the dots, and that’s a lot of cognitive load. And, yeah, that’s a term I’ve learned by doing this podcast that. And so they’re doing all of that logistical rigor, and then they can’t get to the actual intellectual rigor because they’re trying to figure out where to find, you know, the thing that they’re supposed to be doing. And by the time they figure that out, they’re not at all interested in spending all of that energy into, like, digging into the material,
Jennifer Pusateri 26:33
yeah? Like, if you have a finite, a finite amount of cognitive energy, I want you spending that on learning the things, not on finding the things Yeah, you know, like, That’s so frustrating. Yeah, agreed, yeah. Okay.
Lillian Nave 26:45
So another thing that you talk about, and that you mentioned in your workshop were something that I often miss, which are the unspoken expectations and social interaction, like what you said. Hey, heads up, you’re going to have to talk to your neighbor next. What can we do? What are some UDL strategies that support neurodivergent students with respect to those unspoken expectations or social interaction? Yeah,
Jennifer Pusateri 27:17
well, in the same way that that we don’t necessarily we, meaning neurodivergent people, don’t necessarily see that hidden organization. We also don’t necessarily see your hidden expectations for us as a professors. So one of the things I started to to do was to lay out my expectations for student behavior in my syllabus, and I have it laid out kind of in a little grid. And if, if we have show notes, or whatever I can, I can send you a link so we can add that in there.
Lillian Nave 27:48
We will that in the resources section. Yeah, perfect. So
Jennifer Pusateri 27:51
I’ve got this laid out so that I’m breaking up kind of our major activities in that course. So it might be lectures like when, you know, in this class, we’ll be having a lot of lectures. We’ll be doing a lot doing a lot of in class discussions, and we’ll be doing some group work. And so for each of those three categories of activities, I want to let students know exactly what I’m expecting from them for those particular pieces. So for a lecture, I’m going to let them know that I’m expecting that when I’m talking, that they’ll be silent, and that when it’s time to respond, I’ll have some question and answer time, and that’s when they would that would be a good time for them to raise their hand if they have a question or whatever. And I’m going to indicate, you know, if you have a question, you will raise your hand. And then I’m also going to say that, like, your movement during this time, you should really be seated during lectures. And I know this sounds silly, like we shouldn’t need to lay this out for folks, but I think having this in the syllabus is really helping to kind of curb some of those things that those behaviors that maybe we’re not sure what to do with when we see as professors. So if I’m laying that out and I’m saying, Okay, well when we’re having in class discussions. You know, whenever you’re it’s your turn to talk, you should use a talking level voice. This is not where you’re using a, you know, a yelling voice. That wouldn’t make sense, yeah, in this situation. But if I don’t tell students that specifically, we might begin to have some issues. So having this all laid out nicely in a little grid in the syllabus. It’s there that way, if you’re someone who maybe gets confused by those kinds of things every now and then, you can take a look at that and know ahead of time. But I also think something like this is helpful for like international students, right? Or first gen students, any students that may not automatically know the cultural expectations of sitting in an academic higher ed setting and being in a class like that, right? So, so laying it out and your syllabus is going to help to to really curb some of those issues that we might be seeing. And I know that when we came back in person from COVID, we we are starting to see more behavioral issues in our classes. Yes, at least at my university, faculty just seem to be baffled as to like what I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not sure why they don’t understand this all of a sudden. So laying something out like this is going to be, I think, really helpful for that.
Lillian Nave 30:13
Yeah, and we do know that students come from all different backgrounds. Some are really well prepared for a college type of setting, and some need a lot more support, a lot more understanding of what that is. And also, you know, when you brought up the International and first gen students too, thinking about that, the unspoken expectations for like, social interaction for the students too, I know there’s a lot of students who think they’re not supposed to ever talk in class like they are just supposed to listen like they their place is, like, a big power differential, and you’re not supposed to, like, bring up your ideas. Why would they do that? And so even, you know, helping students to understand that there’s going to be times in the class where I really want you to be trying out whatever your new idea is, and and it, it doesn’t have to be perfect, and we want you to try this and speak to your neighbor, or, you know, have a conversation, or, you know, we want to have a back and forth with the Professor. Even those types of things are going to be really helpful to prepare students to think, Oh, this is it my place. Like, am I even supposed to be able to doing that right?
Jennifer Pusateri 31:32
Yeah. And then, and when we’re thinking even about, like, students interacting with each other, I I think it’s tricky, because, you know, as professors, we know that working together as a group is an important skill. Collaboration is a really important skill, and we know that that’s what the workforce is looking for as well. So, like, this is an important thing, but just throwing students into groups and hoping for the best is not really going to work out real well, and it’s going to be really upsetting and probably very stressful for Neuro divergent folks. So there are lots of things that we can do up front on our end that are going to help with that. One thing one of our professors at my university starts out by having students share, just like, very simple things, and it’s not like, like, one of my least favorite things is tell us something interesting about yourself. Like, for some reason in my neurodivergent brain, that turns into like, Well, I think this is interesting. But while other people think this is, you know, and I just go into brain space about it, and I don’t think I’m alone there, but some things like, what is a food texture that you absolutely cannot stand like, something that’s more of an opinion that folks can share. So if you’re starting out with interacting with people in your class on something low stakes, like that, then you can build your way up to more significant and even academic focused things like group work, group projects, etc. But if you’re just like jumping right in group work, that just doesn’t it doesn’t go real well. And so there are plenty of group work contracts that you can take a look at online, and I have another one. I’ll add that one to our list of things we can put in our show notes. But just as simple as having a conversation up front with people in a group of like, hey, just when we’re working in a group, these are some of the things that, like, really stress me out. Or when I’m in a group, I tend to work better if and then fill in the blank. Like, having your group, letting your group know those things up front is going to prevent a lot of issues going forward,
Lillian Nave 33:30
yeah, just all those unspoken expectations. Like, how are we going to communicate? Is this going to be via text or Snapchat, or are we going to do it via email? Are we going to meet in person and, like, roles too? Those are, yeah, really helpful. Is there going to be someone who’s the communicator, who’s going to convene our sections sessions? Is there someone who can take the notes? Or, you know, it’s a lot of unspoken expectations that we just don’t lay out there, right?
Jennifer Pusateri 34:00
Well, and even, like, what, what do we do if someone’s not doing the work? You know, like, like, planning ahead for those things is so great, and that’s one of our new 3.0 guidelines, is we find the actual wording, so I don’t say the wrong thing, anticipate and plan for challenges. That’s six, 6.2 under strategy development, anticipate and plan for challenges. So we can do that for our students when it comes to social interactions, and even with those unspoken expectations, superstar
Lillian Nave 34:27
Jen bring it in with the 6.2 of the guidelines. Love it Okay. So then we’ve got a couple two more things I want to ask you about one of those huge overlaps under that neurodivergent umbrella where we often see challenges is time management, lots of flavors of neuro divergence that have time management as a challenge. So what could we do that’s. A UDL strategy to support time management skills. Well, I think, and this kind
Jennifer Pusateri 35:05
of goes along with the other stuff we’ve said, like, don’t assume that your students know how to do this already. One of the things I suggest a lot is to scaffold these kinds of skills pretty heavily toward the beginning of your course, and then gradually remove that scaffolding as you go throughout the course. So one of the examples I use is assigning large readings. Now some students will understand that if a professor assigns you a large Reading section, like, I don’t know, 30 pages or something, that you don’t have to sit down and read that all at once, but some people, like myself didn’t really know that. Like I didn’t know that. I don’t know why. I just didn’t I didn’t know that. So we can start to teach students these skills that we wish they were walking into our class with one of my favorite Lillian Nave questions that I’ve ever heard was, Are you teaching the students you have or the students you wish you had, yeah, and so if we’re if they’re not coming in with these skills, we want them to have, then we can start to teach them those skills. So if I assign a large reading, what I might do for the first couple weeks of class, maybe the first three or four weeks of class, is, I might say, all right, friends, we have this chapter that you’re going to be reading this week, and that’s a lot of pages, I would suggest that you break this down into three or four days of reading. So instead of reading all 30 at once, you might read seven or eight on this day, seven eight on this day. And I would like actually lay that out. So Monday, you might want to read this many pages. Wednesday, you might want to read this many pages. And I would give that to them, maybe in a checklist format. So I’ve done that for a few weeks. So then I’m going to say, you know, where I’m assigning, assigning another large reading. And you remember, over the last few weeks, I’ve given you a checklist of how you might break that down, but, but going forward, this week, I would like for you to make your own plan of how you’re going to break this reading down, and you’re going to turn that into me, and that’s going to be, I’ll know that that’s your plan for reading. So now we’ve kind of started to shift this over from me, the professor, being the person that’s running this, to them taking on a little bit of that responsibility themselves. So we might do that for a few weeks. Then after that, I might ask students to I might assign the same reading and just remind them, you know, if, if it was helpful for you to have a checklist of days that you might break down those readings into smaller pieces and that worked out for you, you might want to continue to do that over the next few weeks and then at the end. Now you don’t have to remind them anymore. So like those just taking that heavy scaffolding at the front and reducing it a little bit over time, now you’ve taught them a skill that they can take with them to any other course that they’re taking, but honestly, like in anything else they’re doing in life, like now, I can see that, okay, this is the thing I can break down into smaller chunks, so that setting them up with those skills, I think, is something that we kind of forget. It is our job, also in higher ed
Lillian Nave 38:00
oh my gosh, yes. So very helpful, and we’re teaching them to be that executive functioning part, or helping with that executive functioning part of the brain while we do that. So Okay, fantastic. And then the last one that I wanted to ask you about is part of the new revamp of the UDL 3.0 which has this whole emotional capacity section, and the thing that you mentioned in your workshop were things like emotional and sensory regulation. So what could be some UDL strategies to support students in that area of emotional and sensory regulation.
Jennifer Pusateri 38:42
Well, some of the things, especially when it comes to sensory things, like, I don’t really have a lot of control over as a professor, I get to decide the temperature of the room. I don’t get to decide where the lights are or how many, you know, so, so some of that stuff we’re kind of stuck with. But I can remind students that, you know, we all learn differently. We all process information and senses sensory information differently. So if you’re the kind of student who finds it easier to listen and focus when you’re doing something with your hands, like using a fidget toy, or just, you know, doodling or crocheting, for example, then I want you to know that I’m okay with that. If that’s helping you, then great. So that part of that is just normalizing the fact that, yeah, it’s really hard to sit and listen for like, 45 minutes or whatever. And if this is a thing that is useful, use that. So that piece is helpful, but also just acknowledging that sometimes there are going to be disruptive things, loud noises, people outside with leaf blowers and so forth, or someone doing construction and that. Yeah, that has an effect on a lot of people. So we’re not, I don’t know. We don’t seem to be quite ready in the society that we’re in now to think about so. Sensory informational inputs as being that disruptive, but they kind of are for some folks. So acknowledging that is really useful. We can also think about, can we build in places that we think students might get to a certain frustration level at this point? So can we build in what I like to call, just in time resources at that particular place. So, like, one example is a class in a class I taught, we were doing something with Google Slides. And I mean, I think most of my students have used Google Slides, but I don’t know for sure. So I found a very simple YouTube video, like five minutes of how to use Google Slides as a student, and I added that in my canvas assignment at the at the part in the lesson where they would be working on a Google slide thing, so that, like, what they’re going through there, they start getting to Google Slides. They’re freaking out because they don’t really know how to use it. It’s right there, like it’s already there. And I’ve already just thought about that, that issue that may come up and put that there to help reduce that emotional frustration that happens sometimes for students. So thinking about it ahead of time. A lot of what we do is, how is thinking about stuff ahead of time and trying to cut those issues off before they even become a problem for our students.
Lillian Nave 41:16
You are an amazing professor. I love your brain and how you thought about all of these things that help our neuro diverse student population, both neuro typical and neuro divergent. And this is a lot of really good design that makes really does make life easier once you’re in the course, because then you’re not getting the student that says, Well, I don’t know how to use Google Slides, or they don’t hand it in because they got frustrated, or they didn’t realize how to do that. And there we go with that logistical rigor, and not the intellectual rigor, because you have helped them with the logistics in order to actually get the real work done. So, oh, I love it this. I think it’s such a dynamite workshop presentation and ideas that you’ve come up with, you’ve really laid it out really well. It’s helped with my executive functions. I’ll tell you that. Well,
Jennifer Pusateri 42:11
honestly, if we’re gonna be honest, Lillian, these are just things I wish professors would have done for me as an undiagnosed, or late, diagnosed, neurodivergent person, yeah. And I just, I know they will be helpful, and I hope that, I hope that other folks find them helpful as well. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 42:29
And we really do have to get away. I think we have to get away from the perception, I think that some have in academia that’s, well, that’s part of college, you got to figure this out. You’ve got to figure out really read someone else’s mind is really what it is. And you have to read all five professors minds that you have this semester, and then all five of the next. And all every semester, you have to read their mind. And they think differently about you know, what they’re expecting you to do, and so you have to. So it’s a lot of mind reading that I didn’t think was a three credit course, actually, in mind reading, I never, never did that one. Yeah, exactly. But we are. We’re making our students do that when, when, when we don’t explicitly lay out our expectations or or say what we want them to do, or provide these things that will help them to be successful in
Jennifer Pusateri 43:28
us. And I think that’s the biggest piece. Is like, it’s not that your neuro divergent students can’t do the work. It’s just that there are these other pieces, these what when we talk about cognitive load, we talk about extraneous load as being the thing that’s not helpful. Extraneous load are the things that are not actually moving you toward the learning, and that seems to be the issue for many of our neurodivergent students. It’s those pieces that get in the way. It’s not the learning the things. It’s the those extra pieces around the outside that actually aren’t even helping with the learning in the first
Lillian Nave 44:00
place. Exactly. Oh, my goodness, yes. So this is a this is a lot of good information. This is a lot of things that we could be doing. So let’s say we’ve got a listener who’s super on fire. This is amazing. And they might think, Oh, we’ve covered a lot. How am I going to be able to do all that? How should they approach this? What advice do you have for them?
Jennifer Pusateri 44:28
Well, I mean, I think always starting with the thing that you’re the most concerned about, like your particular goals or problems of practice that you’re encountering, is a good place to start for any of us. So if it’s something that you’re seeing an issue with, then that’s a good place to start for you. The other piece that I was thinking about, and I’m not sure if folks are aware of this or not, you’re allowed to ask students. So if a student provides you with an accommodation request, you’re allowed to ask them. More information about the request you’re not allowed to ask them about. Well, tell me what your diagnosis is, or, you know that’s you’re not allowed. Those are the questions you can ask. Okay, but what you can say are things like, Okay, I received your accommodation request, and I want to make sure that I’m giving you whatever it is that you need so that you can feel like you’re in a good place for learning. Help me understand a little bit more about blank and or what has worked well for you in the past, for whatever the thing is that is on their accommodations request. Because, again, like we talked about earlier, you know, if you know one student with ADHD, you know one student with ADHD, so each each each student is going to be a little different. And like, we’re totally allowed to ask them what helps them and what works best for them and and sometimes that helps to dispel some of the anxiety that we feel as professors when we get an accommodations request that we’re not sure what to do with. You’re allowed to ask the student about what, what’s going to help you better? Like, what, what can I do that’s going to help you? On your end, again, we can’t ask them tell me about your diagnosis. Or, you know, tell me what’s wrong with you. Yeah, don’t ever say that, guys, please that, because that’s not really what it is. It’s the fact that this is a system that was not designed for a neurodivergent brain. But, like, our neuro divergent brains are so amazing. Yeah, and like, if we’re not able to give these students the things that are going to help for them, like we’re losing out as a society, like we’re losing out on all of these creative, brilliant thinkers. And I that makes me real sad. That makes me real sad for folks, because these these students are smart and they’re capable. That’s not the issue, so feel free to ask them about what’s going to work best for you. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 46:47
I’ve been recently rereading Jay dolmages academic ableism, and one of the points that really stuck out this this time is about how accommodations that it’s sometimes like playing the old game battleship, like, because you, like, you think about battleship where you have, like, it’s almost like a laptop, and you sort of throw something over the side. And that’s really what’s happening, is you’re throwing something over to the other player, and that’s what you’re doing to the accommodations office. And they’ve got like, whoa, we’ve got extra time. Here you go. How about that? And so you have this accommodation of extra time that may or may not work right, that may or may not be the thing that’s really going to help that student, and so it’s sort of like lobbing these All right, well, how about a note taker? Is that? Is that going to be helpful? Because it’s not, it’s not, it’s it’s not exactly sure. We’re not exactly sure if all of these things are going to be helpful, because, again, it’s a system that’s like set up so that not all of the brains that are participating in that system are privileged in the same way. And so it’s accommodations are wonderful and great and very helpful, but sometimes we’re not even sure how helpful, or if that’s going to actually do it, you know, or help help all of the things that our student needs. And so having that conversation, you know, maybe it’s like, okay, well, this isn’t on the accommodation letter, per se. But there are also other ideas that maybe the student has too, that might really work for everybody involved well.
Jennifer Pusateri 48:39
And another thing is, like, we know for sure, and I can’t remember, I think it’s a fourth. I think it’s only 1/4 of students that really need accommodations are requesting those accommodations, a lot of students out there that are probably not getting the help they need. And the other thing that I think is helpful for folks to know is that, like as an instructor, you can build these things in as part of your course, yeah, and and then, like, even if a student doesn’t have an accommodations request because you’ve built these pieces in as part of the way that your course works, they may be getting their needs met anyway. And that’s the beauty of Universal Design for Learning, right? Like, I don’t have to know who needs to help in my room or in my class. Rather, I can just put those things out there and make those available to everyone, and then the people who need it have it. And if you don’t need it, you can feel free to ignore it like it’s not gonna harm you in another way. So these are things you can build in. You don’t have to have an accommodations request in order to build these in. Absolutely,
Lillian Nave 49:38
yeah, and it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. And the thing is, often you’re not going to hear about it. You hear about it when things aren’t working well. But if you don’t hear about it, that’s that can be really wonderful, because you actually have supported all of your students, and they’re able to get to the learning and then you have a wonderful. Like experience as an instructor too, because people are, like, swimmingly going about all of the material. It’s really great. So agreed. Well, thank you so much, Jen, because this was excellent. And you have, by the way, this is like, only a tiny bit of all of the wonderful ideas that I learned about from you, and you have a great workshop that you give. You give to other people, don’t you?
Jennifer Pusateri 50:26
I do. I would love to come give that at your college or university, that’s right,
Lillian Nave 50:31
so we could put a link to your your page, your website, so if people want to find out more, or have you come and talk to their teaching and learning centers or their faculty. I, I must say, I highly recommend it, because it definitely changed the way I’ve been doing some things in my life, and I’ve been doing this a while, and I was like, oh, Jen, thank you for pointing out these things to me. Oh, thanks. It’s so good so so thank you very much, and I appreciate you, and thanks for being on the podcast today. Well, thanks for asking. You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released, and also see transcripts and additional materials at the thinkudl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor, text help. Text help is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Text help and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding with over 50 million users worldwide, the text help suite of products includes read and write equatio and orbit note they work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Text help has changed the lives of millions worldwide and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030 visit text, dot help forward, slash, learn more. That’s L E, A, R n, m, O, R, E, to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Oddyssey quartet, comprised of Rex Shepard, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez, and I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast.