Marrying ‘universal’ neurodiversity and Universal Design for Learning to enhance inclusive pedagogy: A case study from the primary school geography classroom

Griffiths, Dominic and Leach, Irene (2022) Marrying ‘universal’ neurodiversity and Universal Design for Learning to enhance inclusive pedagogy: A case study from the primary school geography classroom. Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching (14). ISSN 2514-6963

Preview

Accepted Version Available under License In Copyright. Download (432kB) | Preview

Abstract

In this article, we take forward some of the ideas presented in an earlier Impact piece (Griffiths, 2020), which presented the case for using ‘neurodiversity’ as a framework for looking beyond the (SEND) labels that some learners attract, to build a more individually responsive and flexible repertoire of teaching approaches. We recap some key points about what the term ‘neurodiversity’ can mean and look at how it might be applied as a theoretical underpinning for a ‘Universal Design for Learning’ (UDL) approach to inclusive lesson planning and teaching (Meyer et al., 2014). To illustrate this, we offer the example of a UDL-based primary school geography lesson. We hope to show how the approaches used in this case study example might be more widely applied to inclusive teaching and learning.