My Worst Test: A UDL Cautionary Tale
The worst assessment I ever gave was during my second year of teaching. I still look back on it and cringe. I had my 8th grade physics students design and carry out their own lab experiment, assessing them on experimental design and their ability to draw conclusions. The premise seemed solid enough: students would choose a factor they thought would influence the rate of dissolution of an electrolyte tablet, then design an experiment to answer their question. I was trying to apply Universal Design for Learning principles, specifically offering student choice to increase engagement. In practice, it was a disaster.
Electrolyte Tablets
CAST UDL Guidlines
The problems started immediately. The task was far too difficult for where my students actually were. Many didn't have enough background knowledge in experimental design or the scientific method to be left alone with this level of independence. Sure, we had done theoretical work about identifying variables and writing research questions and hypotheses, but I had massively overestimated their ability to translate that knowledge into writing an actual procedure. They could identify independent and dependent variables in other experiments, but designing their own? That was a completely different skill, one I had never actually taught them.
An example of a variable table we practiced
I spent time with each student individually trying to improve their procedures, but they were still all over the place. And I let them proceed anyway (so dumb!). Their data collection was chaotic. We had made data tables together, but students didn't use them appropriately. Many couldn't actually use the data they had collected to draw any meaningful conclusions. The whole thing fell apart.
Looking back, I can see exactly where I went wrong. In my eagerness to apply UDL's principle of providing multiple means of engagement, I confused "student choice" with "complete autonomy." The UDL guidelines recommend optimizing choice and autonomy (CAST, 2024, checkpoint 7.1), but that doesn't mean throwing students into the deep end without a life jacket. I should have offered choice within a much more structured framework. Instead of letting them pick any factor, I should have given them a small list of two or three independent variables to choose from. As Selwyn (2011) reminds us in his discussion of educational technology, we need to consider not just the activities themselves but "the social contexts and social circumstances" in which learning happens (p. 8). My students needed scaffolding that honored where they actually were, not where I assumed they should be.
Here's the thing that really gets me: this could have been a valuable formative learning experience. According to Schneider and Hutt (2013), grading historically "began as an intimate communication tool among teachers, parents, and students used largely to inform and instruct" (p. 1). This assessment could have served that original purpose of grades as feedback for learning. But my school required a certain number of summative assessments per semester, and I was under pressure to generate gradebook entries. So instead of using this as a low-stakes opportunity for students to practice experimental design with meaningful feedback, I turned it into a high-stakes summative disaster.
I wasn't being fair because this assessment wasn't really assessing skills I had taught. I had just assumed they already knew how to do this. The lesson? UDL principles are powerful, but only when applied thoughtfully. Student choice needs scaffolding. Authentic assessment needs instruction. And sometimes, the real problem isn't the framework you're using but the systemic constraints that force you to grade everything that moves.
References
CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. http://udlguidelines.cast.org
Schneider, J., & Hutt, E. (2013). Making the grade: A history of the A–F marking scheme. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2), 201-224. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2013.790480
Selwyn, N. (2011). What do we mean by 'education' and 'technology'? In Education and technology: Key issues and debates (pp. 1-19). Bloomsbury Publishing.
