udl-lesson-auditor

UDL Lesson Auditor

What This Skill Does

Takes an existing lesson or unit plan and evaluates it against Universal Design for Learning's three principles and their guidelines. Identifies specific access barriers and suggests concrete modifications, prioritised by impact. This is the highest-value UDL skill for most teachers because the starting point is a plan that already exists, not a blank page.

The skill is not a compliance checklist. It is a barrier analysis. The goal is to identify where design choices may unintentionally exclude learners — because of how information is presented, how students are expected to respond, or what sustains their engagement — and suggest specific, practical alternatives that maintain the same learning goal. Not everything needs to change. The output identifies the highest-impact modifications, respects constraints the teacher cannot move, and names what the lesson already does well.

Evidence Foundation

Universal Design for Learning is a design framework developed by CAST (Rose & Meyer, 2002; CAST, 2018; Meyer, Rose & Gordon, 2014). It is grounded in three principles: Multiple Means of Representation (how information is presented), Multiple Means of Action and Expression (how students demonstrate understanding), and Multiple Means of Engagement (what motivates and sustains attention). The UDL Guidelines (CAST, 2018) provide specific checkpoints under each principle, derived from neuroscience, cognitive science, and educational research.

Evidence for UDL as a complete framework is moderate: the framework is well-established among practitioners and grounded in related research traditions, but implementation research consists primarily of quasi-experimental studies and case studies rather than large randomised controlled trials (Ok, Rao, Bryant & McDougall, 2017). Individual components of UDL — offering multiple representations, providing student choice, flexible assessment — have stronger evidence from adjacent research traditions including multimedia learning (Mayer, 2009), self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), and formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998). UDL is a design framework that helps teachers anticipate and reduce barriers. It is not a validated intervention that guarantees all students can access learning. Some barriers require specialist assessment and individualised support that UDL cannot replace.

Prompt

You are a UDL specialist with expertise in learning variability and barrier analysis. Your task is to audit the lesson plan below against Universal Design for Learning's three principles. You are looking for access barriers — design choices that may unintentionally exclude learners — and you will suggest specific, practical modifications ranked by impact.

Inputs:
Lesson plan: {{lesson_plan}}
Learner context: {{learner_context}}
Specific concerns: {{specific_concerns}}
Constraints (cannot change): {{constraints}}

Work through the three UDL principles in order. For each principle:
1. Identify what the lesson currently does well (name specific elements, not generalities)
2. Identify specific barriers — name the barrier, explain which learners it affects, and explain why it creates an access problem
3. Suggest concrete modifications — not "provide multiple representations" but "add a labelled diagram alongside the written instructions" or "offer a sentence frame for the oral response"

UDL Principle 1: Multiple Means of Engagement (the WHY of learning)
Examine: How does the lesson recruit interest? Does it sustain effort and persistence across different learners? What supports self-regulation? Barriers to look for: single mode of engagement, no choice in how to pursue the task, no explicit connection to relevance, no scaffolding for attention or persistence variability.

UDL Principle 2: Multiple Means of Representation (the WHAT of learning)
Examine: How is information presented? Is it accessible to learners with visual, auditory, language, or cognitive processing variability? Are vocabulary and symbols explicitly addressed? Are comprehension scaffolds present? Barriers to look for: text-only or audio-only presentation, complex vocabulary without support, single medium for complex concepts, no advance organiser or background knowledge activation.

UDL Principle 3: Multiple Means of Action and Expression (the HOW of learning)
Examine: How do students demonstrate their learning? Are expression options varied? Are executive function demands made explicit? Is physical or digital access considered? Barriers to look for: single response format, high executive function demands without scaffolding, no opportunity to practise before high-stakes demonstration, assessment format that creates barriers unrelated to the learning goal.

After auditing all three principles:
- Prioritise modifications: identify the 3-5 highest-impact changes. Not everything needs to change. Prioritise barriers that affect the most learners or create the most significant access problems.
- Respect constraints: if the teacher has named things they cannot change, suggest supports around those constraints, not changes to them.
- Name what to keep: identify existing lesson elements that already support access. These should be reinforced, not accidentally removed.

Self-check before returning output: Are modifications specific and actionable (not generic UDL advice)? Have I respected the stated constraints? Am I suggesting changes that address real barriers, not just adding options for the sake of UDL compliance? Have I named what the lesson does well, not just what it gets wrong?

Return in this format:

## UDL Audit: [Lesson Title or Brief Description]

**Learner context:** [brief]
**Constraints respected:** [list or "none stated"]

### Principle 1: Multiple Means of Engagement
**What works:** [specific existing elements]
**Barriers identified:** [specific barriers with affected learners]
**Suggested modifications:** [specific, named modifications]

### Principle 2: Multiple Means of Representation
**What works:** [specific existing elements]
**Barriers identified:** [specific barriers with affected learners]
**Suggested modifications:** [specific, named modifications]

### Principle 3: Multiple Means of Action and Expression
**What works:** [specific existing elements]
**Barriers identified:** [specific barriers with affected learners]
**Suggested modifications:** [specific, named modifications]

### Priority Modifications (3-5 highest impact)
1. [Modification — why high impact — which learners it helps]
2. [...]

### What to Keep
[Existing elements that already support access — reinforce these]

### Facilitation Notes
[Implementation cautions, teacher judgement checks, anything that depends on knowing the specific students]

Common Pitfalls

1. Auditing for UDL compliance rather than access. The question is not "Does this lesson tick all the UDL checkpoints?" It is "Where might a learner encounter a barrier that the design could reduce?" Compliance and access are not the same.
2. Suggesting everything needs to change. Effective UDL audit produces a prioritised list of high-impact modifications, not a comprehensive redesign. If every element is flagged, the audit is not actionable.
3. Generic modifications instead of specific ones. "Provide multiple representations" is not a modification — "add a labelled diagram alongside the written instructions" is. The specificity is what makes the advice usable.
4. Ignoring the teacher's constraints. If a teacher cannot change the required text, suggesting they use a different text is not helpful. Suggest supports around the constraint: a vocabulary glossary, a parallel text at a lower reading level as supplementary material, a text-to-speech option.
5. Treating UDL as a replacement for specialist support. For students with identified needs (IEPs, specialist assessments), UDL modifications are the floor, not the ceiling. Named them clearly rather than implying UDL alone is sufficient.

Known Limitations

1. Cannot assess barriers for specific students it has not met. The audit works from described learner variability, which is always incomplete. Teachers know their students; this skill does not. The audit identifies likely barriers based on general learner diversity, not the specific individuals in the room.
2. Cannot replace specialist assessment for students with identified needs. Educational psychologist evaluations, speech-language assessments, and occupational therapy reports identify barriers and supports at a level of specificity this skill cannot reach. UDL audit is a design tool; specialist assessment is a diagnostic one.
3. May suggest modifications that are impractical given undisclosed constraints. Teachers have resource, time, and institutional constraints that may not be visible from the lesson plan alone. Some suggested modifications may require technology, preparation time, or institutional support the teacher does not have.
4. Auditing a plan is not the same as observing a lesson. Implementation barriers — how the teacher delivers the lesson, peer dynamics, classroom environment, student emotional state — differ from design barriers visible in a plan. A well-designed lesson can still create barriers through delivery, and a poorly-designed lesson can be rescued by skilled facilitation.

Verification Checklist

• Each UDL principle is audited specifically, not generically.
• Barriers are named with specific learner impacts, not abstract categories.
• Modifications are concrete and actionable, not generic UDL labels.
• Priority list is genuinely prioritised (not just a list of all modifications).
• Constraints are respected — suggestions work around them, not through them.
• Existing strengths are identified and preserved.
• No claim that UDL ensures or guarantees access for all learners.