Optimizing Learning through Universal Design
California ClearMath aligns with the Universal Design for Learning principles by optimizing engagement, providing multiple ways for students to represent and express their understanding, and incorporating inclusive strategies, meeting the accessibility and inclusivity expectations outlined in the California Mathematics Framework.
- Multiple Means of Engagement
- ClearMath incorporates real-world situations and relatable scenarios, making math meaningful and relevant to students. It promotes sustained effort by providing clear learning goals and scaffolds that help students stay motivated and persist through challenges.
- Multiple Means of Representation
- ClearMath ensures accessibility by clarifying vocabulary, using visual aids, and connecting prior knowledge to new learning.
- Multiple Means of Action & Expression
- ClearMath allows students to demonstrate their understanding through various methods, such as verbal explanations, drawings, and hands-on activities. Opportunities for self-reflection and actionable feedback empower students to monitor their progress and refine their learning.
Tailoring Instruction with UDL Strategies
Embedded Supports: Differentiation Strategies
- These strategies provide flexibility within the lesson to allow for varying student acquisition and demonstration of learning (Assistance for All; Just in Time Support; Challenge Opportunity). Each Differentiation Strategy aligns to a UDL Guideline to empower you to make intentional instructional decisions, confident that supports, access, and challenges are inclusive and accessible for all students.
Empowering Multilingual Learners
Multilingual Learner Support empowers educators to recognize and harness the rich cultural and linguistic assets that multilingual learners bring to the learning environment — a cornerstone of California’s English Learner Roadmap (Principle One). The embedded strategies enhance educators’ capabilities in supporting language development by focusing on the foundational aspects of language, such as language functions, the structures and forms in which these functions manifest, and crucial academic vocabulary.
- Multilingual Learner Supports
- These supports provide you with a structured way to help students develop academic language and mathematical communication skills. (In the facilitation Notes)
- Multilingual Learner Support Handbook (mention where in CLC–Course Intro, Module, Topic)
- The Multilingual Learner Support Handbook provides topic-specific resources to support multilingual learners. Leveled scaffolds are included so that students at the Emerging, Expanding, and Bridging proficiency levels can all achieve each lesson’s language goal.
- The Multilingual Learner Support Handbook provides teachers with support for using Math Language Routines. For each lesson, the handbook identifies which Mathematical Language Routine accompanies a particular activity, and instructions provide detailed steps for applying the MLR to the specific context of the activity.
Fostering Supportive and Responsive Instruction
The instructional materials provide recommendations teachers can use to support the whole child as they develop as learners. When students are encouraged to bring their whole selves to the learning environment, they are more likely to fully engage in the learning experiences.
- Lesson facilitation notes include Cultivate Connections callouts that provide teachers with opportunities to connect to students' experiences, cultures, interests, and identities.
- Student Look-Fors are included in the lesson facilitation notes to support social and emotional learning and serve as a reminder to monitor student progress with each competency.
