My six-step lesson/unit planning process: A practical guide to creating a more inclusive classroom

3 hours ago

6 min read

By Marcus Lau, district resource teacher (supporting inclusive education), Vancouver; PhD student, Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, Faculty of Education, UBC

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has become a familiar term across BC schools because it is woven into workshops, professional development days, and curriculum conversations. There are incredible resources available including websites, videos, toolkits, and planning templates.

As an inclusive education teacher, despite being surrounded by these materials, I often found myself wondering how to actually start using UDL in real unit or lesson planning with real students and real classroom challenges.

This article is not another overview of UDL guidelines. Instead, it is a step-by-step guide to the mindset shifts that helped me move from understanding UDL in theory to applying it meaningfully in the classroom.

Let’s walk through the planning process together with UDL in mind.

Step 1: Begin with learners, not content

In traditional planning, it’s tempting to start by picking a big idea or a content standard. UDL invites a different beginning: Start with the people, not the content.

Reflection questions

Who are my students culturally, linguistically, socially, and academically?
What identities, experiences, and ways of knowing do they bring into the room?
Whose perspectives have traditionally been missing from this area of learning?
How can I intentionally include missing voices to address systemic biases and barriers?

Practical strategies

Use pre-course surveys to welcome student interests, identities, and specific learning needs right from the start.
Facilitate classroom activities like learning maps or all-about-me posters to make student strengths and goals visible.
Ask students directly what they want their teachers to know about them as learners to build immediate rapport and trust.

Planning tip

Taking time to learn about my students first always makes later steps easier. It’s not “extra work”; it’s the essential work.

Mindset shift

Start with authentic curiosity about your students. Inclusive unit planning begins by designing with the learners in mind, pro-actively identifying and removing barriers to belonging.

Step 2: Co-construct clear and meaningful goals

Once you have a clearer picture of who is in the room, the next step is setting the destination. What are we learning, and why does it matter? In a UDL classroom, we do not just set goals for students. Instead, we invite them into the process of defining what success looks like.

Reflection questions

How can I explain the learning goals in ways that connect to my students’ real-world experiences and interests?
How can I invite students to share what they already know and what they want to learn about this topic?
How can we co-construct success criteria while clarifying the meaning and purpose of our goals together?

Practical strategies

Introduce the unit’s central concept using accessible and relatable language that avoids jargon and finds a hook that resonates with students’ lives.
Sit down with your students to brainstorm together what doing a great job looks like and use their input to build the success criteria.
Collectively write “I-can” statements to break the goal down into manageable and actionable pieces that students can track.

Planning tip

A unit or lesson where students believe in the goal feels completely different. When they understand the reason for the work, motivation and connection come naturally.

Mindset shift

Don’t keep learning goals hidden behind your planning sheets. Set meaningful goals that are co-constructed. Shared purpose drives engagement.

Step 3: Anticipate and design for variability

This step is the heart of UDL. It is often where things feel overwhelming at first because we know our classrooms are diverse. UDL asks what flexible pathways we can design so all learners can access information and engage with their learning meaningfully. As a novice teacher, I quickly realized that I cannot do it all at once. I have had to give myself the same grace I give my students.

Reflection questions

How can I offer choices that help students build persistence and manage their effort even when the work gets hard?
How can I vary how students access information so every learner can reach the same content regardless of their reading level?
Am I cultivating multiple ways for students to show their thinking so every student feels they belong and can express what they know?

Practical strategies

Build your inclusive library sustain-ably by adding one high-quality, flexible option each time you plan, to create deep, lasting changes without feeling overwhelmed.
Empower students by making scaffolds like graphic organizers and digital templates available to the whole class to remove the stigma of help.
View your plans as exciting prototypes that grow alongside your students by building in quick moments to tweak the design based on their interactions.

Planning tip

Each flexible choice you design is an act of inclusion and an investment in student success. Every time you offer a choice, you are telling your students that their unique way of learning belongs in your classroom.

Mindset shift

UDL is not about doing everything perfectly at once. It is about anticipating and planning for challenges while treating planning as a living and growing process.

Step 4: Design flexible and equitable assessments

Traditional assessments often privilege certain ways of knowing. UDL invites us to think differently. How can every student show what they know in ways that are grounded in the strengths and needs we uncovered in Step 1?

Reflection questions

Is my goal focused on a specific standard (the what) or is it accidentally tied to a specific method (the how)?
Does the format of this assessment create a barrier that prevents me from seeing what the student actually knows?
Have I provided a range of options for how students can navigate this task so they can lean into their strengths?

Practical strategies

Discuss your plan with a colleague to ensure the assessment matches the learning goals and to help identify barriers you might have missed.
Allow varied methods of response like movement, digital tools, or oral storytelling so that the mode of expression does not become a barrier.
Build in specific checkpoints where students can reflect on their progress and show their thinking throughout the process rather than only at the end.

Planning tip

Designing flexible assessments does not mean lowering the bar. It means clearing the path. Focus on removing barriers so that every student has a fair and meaningful way to show what they know.

Mindset shift

We are not lowering the bar. We are creating multiple ladders so that every student can reach it. Assessment is about honouring the diversity of human expression and navigation.

Step 5: Reflect collectively and iteratively

Reflection is not an afterthought. It is a vital part of the UDL process. As a beginning teacher, I sometimes thought I had to figure everything out on my own. However, I learned that the most powerful growth happens when we reflect with others.

Reflection questions

When and where did students seem most engaged, and what was the specific task at that moment?
At what specific point in the lesson did I see students get frustrated or tune out?
What is one thing my teaching partner or educational assistant noticed during the lesson that I might have missed?

Practical strategies

Plan quick check-ins during the unit by asking students what helped them learn the most this week to gather real-time feedback.
Meet with support staff and colleagues to share observations and reveal successes or barriers that you might not see alone.
Invite families to share quick observations about how their child is engaging with the learning at home to build a stronger community.

Planning tip

Do not leave reflection to chance. Build short and regular moments of reflection into your unit plan so you can gather real feedback when it is most useful.

Mindset shift

UDL is not something we perfect alone. It is about fostering belonging and community through shared and evolving practice.

Step 6: Refine, reimagine, and keep going

Inclusive planning is always a work in progress. After completing a unit, I return to it with fresh eyes. Each piece of feedback offers clues for how I can refine and make the next version even stronger.

Reflection questions

Now that I have noticed where students got stuck, what specific tool or support can I build into the design next time?
Now that I have seen where my students thrived, how can I use those same successful strategies in other parts of the unit?
Looking back at the glitches, what was a physical, digital, or social barrier that I can remove entirely before I teach this again?

Practical strategies

Use the rose, thorn, bud method to quickly identify a design highlight, a specific barrier, and a new idea you are excited to try next.
Keep a notebook specifically for quick reflections and focus on small, actionable notes that you can read a year from now.
Set aside a short block of time after each unit to update just one or two elements like your learning goals or choice options while the experience is fresh.

Planning tip

The best time to plan small improvements is while the experience is fresh. A few minutes of reflection now can save hours of rework later.

Mindset shift

UDL is not about getting everything right the first time. It is about continually designing to challenge exclusionary practices and believing that every small revision brings us closer to a truly inclusive classroom.

Final thoughts

You do not need a brand-new planning system to begin implementing UDL because you already have the tools. What truly shifts is your mindset. We move from planning for most students to planning for every student.

To support this shift, I have created a UDL Mindset Visual. This is a quick reference graphic that lays out each planning step alongside its key question and mindset prompt. It is a guide designed to keep your thinking focused and inclusive at a glance.