AI and UDL in Special Education Teacher Preparation
Beth Stark and Jérémie Rostan are the co-creators of LUDIA.
Stark has over 20 years of experience in education and is a UDL and inclusionary practices strategist for international schools. She won the 2021 ISTE Independent and International Schools Educator Award and co-chaired the UDL-IRN Implementation Special Interest group.
Rostan works with international schools to develop transformative programs that combine academic rigor and student experience. He is currently the High School Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator at the International School of Panama.
The problem highlighted in this brief
This brief highlights how an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, known as LUDIA, can support teachers and teacher educators in implementing the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework in their classrooms.
Why does this topic matter to teacher preparation?
To be prepared for the classroom, pre-service teachers need to be taught to intentionally design lessons for all learners. While the UDL framework provides general guidance, it can be challenging for beginning teachers to contextualize the checkpoints within the K-12 classroom setting. Using AI chatbots, such as LUDIA provides them with a reliable and available resource to create inclusive lessons.
About This Brief
Artificial intelligence (AI) shows promise in supporting pre-service and in-service teachers with many daily tasks, including lesson planning (Goldman et al., 2024). While many generic AIs, such as Copilot and ChatGPT, have the capabilities to lesson plan, they lack the pedagogical expertise of other more specialized AIs, such as Magic School’s lesson planning tool or LUDIA. This brief will focus on LUDIA, a lesson planning Chatbot trained in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (Rose, 2000).
Research and Practice Context
AI Use in Teacher Preparation
The topic of AI in education continues to make headlines. Researchers are documenting the ways AI can be leveraged to support student outcomes, teacher efficacy, and pre-service teacher preparation.
The following are key insights shared by Beth Stark on this research. The interview focused on six questions about using AI to design UDL-aligned lesson plans in teacher preparation, as well as recommendations for teacher educators to incorporate these ideas.
Q1: What are the issues that you are trying to address through your research and work with LUDIA?
LUDIA is available through Poe.com, which stands for Platform for Open Exploration and is a platform designed for creating AI-powered bots. As Stark explains, users can interact with LUDIA, as if it were the wise teacher down the hall. LUDIA is user-friendly and easy to use. Simply enter your question or query with as much detail as you can, and wait for the response. Continue the conversation by crafting your own follow-up conversations or by using one of the additional prompts LUDIA generates. As with any AI, remember to sanitize your prompt by not including any identifying student data (e.g., name, ID number, etc.)
STARK: “To have UDL at their fingertips and to problem solve and tinker with concerns and to reframe barriers so that they can really reach a little bit deeper when it comes to looking at how design and the iterative process of design can slowly but surely make a big difference in their classrooms.”
Q2: How does LUDIA support students with disabilities?
LUDIA specializes in the UDL framework. Whereas other AI may know about the framework, LUDIA is trained to align to the framework in its responses. To illustrate this, we asked three AI (LUDIA, Copilot, and Gemini) the same prompt:
How can I adapt my lesson on word problems with adding two-digit by two-digit numbers with regrouping for my class where 3 students have not mastered their addition facts, 5 students read far below grade level, and 2 students have already shown mastery?
STARK: “We need to be intentionally designing for all of the learners in our classroom and so that's where LUDIA can really be a help in any and every way possible.”
Q3: How do you integrate LUDIA into teacher preparation program?
The UDL framework is broad and not content-specific. With LUDIA, teachers can receive feedback and suggestions aligned to the UDL framework specific to their content and course. Additionally, LUDIA can be leveraged to support beginning teachers with designing lesson plans, as we discussed in a previous CIDDL blog.
STARK: “LUDIA is there to provide a contextually relevant, a slow drip, professional learning experience. That's also building skills and repertoire when it comes to just being an inclusive learning designer.”
Q4: How can we better prepare educators for using tools like LUDIA in the field?
Stark emphasizes that despite the presence of AI, the teacher-educator remains pivotal. She suggests adopting a UDL perspective when integrating AI, collaboratively setting goals for AI use, and empowering pre-service educators to choose when and which AI tools to employ. Additionally, she warns against inadvertently erecting additional learning obstacles as AI becomes more integrated.
STARK: “Having a professor that models openness and curiosity about the potential of artificial intelligence is, I would say, probably the most important factor. ”
Q5: What implications do you see for future research, and what are some questions we might be asking?
The research in this area continues to develop. For instance, in CIDDL’s Inclusive Intelligence: The Impact of AI on Education for All, several chapters focus on those essential questions and supporting teacher-educators in leveraging AI. Another example is Black and colleagues (2024) A Framework for Approaching AI Education in Educator Preparation Programs. Additionally, ISTE also put forth a report on Evolving Teacher Education in an AI World.
STARK: “I would really like to see the world of higher education develop a set of guiding questions, essential questions that can really support all educators or future educators in self evaluating how they're choosing to use artificial intelligence.”
Q6: What else should teacher preparation programs consider moving forward?
Resources
When integrating AI into teacher preparation programs, it is essential to remember that the technology is constantly improving. However, it remains crucial to involve teachers in the feedback loop. This guidance is echoed by government recommendations in the ‘AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning’ report and numerous articles and researchers.
Additionally, Rostan shared several resources that can support special education teachers.
Sherpa: This AI is designed to support teachers with oral assessment. Rostan shares that this AI automates some one-to-one teachers with students. Students submit their work and then have a video chat about their work with the AI. The AI will ask about what they have written and check for understanding.
Brisk: This AI is designed to save teachers time. It has a built-in lesson planner, provides targeted feedback on student work, has 504 and IEP templates, and so much more.
References
Black, N. B., George, S., Eguchi, A., Dempsey, J. C., Langran, E., Fraga, L., ... & Howard, N. (2024, March). A Framework for Approaching AI Education in Educator Preparation Programs. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Vol. 38, No. 21, pp. 23069-23077).
Cardona, M. A., Rodríguez, R. J., & Ishmael, K. (2023). Artificial intelligence and the future of teaching and learning: Insights and recommendations.
Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning (2024). Inclusive Intelligence: The Impact of AI on Education for All Learners. Author.
Goldman, S. R., Taylor, J., Carreon, A., & Smith, S. J. (2024). Using AI to Support Special Education Teacher Workload. Journal of Special Education Technology, 01626434241257240.
Rose, D. (2000). Universal design for learning. Journal of Special Education Technology, 15(4), 47-51.
Suggested Citation
Goldman, Samantha R. & the CIDDL Team. (2024). AI and UDL in Special Education Teacher Preparation. The Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.