Appendix C: Design Principles for Lesson Adaptations

Curriculum Access for Students with Low-Incidence Disabilities: The Promise of UDL

Adapt Lessons to Reach All Students
Principle	Criterion/Feature
I. Concepts or principles that facilitate the most efficient and broad acquisition of knowledge
	Focus on essential learning outcomes Capture rich relationships among concepts Enable learners to apply what they learn in varied situations Involve ideas, concepts, principles, and rules central to higher-order learning Form the basis for generalization and expansion
II. Useful steps for accomplishing a goal or task
	Planned Purposeful Explicit Of medium-level application Most important in initial teaching of concept
III. Instructional guidance provided by teachers, peers, materials, or tasks
	Varied according to learner needs or experiences Based on task (not more than learner needs) Provided in the form of tasks, content, and materials Removed gradually according to learner proficiency
IV. Integrating knowledge as a means of promoting higher-level cognition
	Combines cognitive components of information Results in a new and more complex knowledge structure Aligns naturally with information (i.e, is not "forced") Involves meaningful relationships among concepts Links essential ideas across lessons within a curriculum
V. Structured opportunities to recall or apply previously taught information
	Sufficient Distributed over time Cumulative Varied Judicious, not haphazard
VI. Preexisting information that affects new learning
	Aligns with learner knowledge and expertise Considers strategic and proximal pre-skills Readies learner for successful performance

Kameenui, E. J., & Simmons, D. C. (1999). Towards successful inclusion of students with disabilities: The architecture of instruction. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children.

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