Supplementing Multiple Modalities and Universal Design in Learning with Goal-Setting

Russell Jay Hendel

The basic idea of this paper is that the principles of proper goal-setting should supplement application of the principles of Universal Design in Learning (UDL) and pedagogic challenge to instruction. 1) The concept of pedagogic challenge is well understood. The pedagogic hierarchies of Bloom, Anderson, Gagne, Van Hiele, and Marzano give precise characterizations of pedagogic challenge. Hendel has recently advocated a unified view of these pedagogic theories. 2) Similarly, the concept of Universal Design in learning by which the same content is presented to different students in different modalities making the learning experience universal is fairly well understood. 3) The concept of proper goal-setting, that is the proper sequencing of a learning task into component subtasks in such a way as to maximize learnability is also fairly well understood, however, it is not often discussed or applied. This paper reviews the basic ten attributes of goal-setting and supplements this review with experiments highlighting the efficacy of certain techniques. The paper concludes by reviewing three learning domains–mathematics, chess, and writing-where goal setting can change our perspective on proper teaching.

Full Text