Courses are often described as though they should produce a clear before-and-after story. That is hardly ever an accurate account of courses I take. My basic understanding of learning did not change. I already considered learner variability, agency, belonging, and the role of the learning environment central to educational practice. What changed was my precision. I can now name certain problems more accurately, and I have concepts that allow me to distinguish between things I might previously have discussed together. These distinctions include performance and potential, ability and current accessibility, support and reduced expectations, participation and actual influence. They may…
Author: Stephanie Wössner
Universal Design for Learning did not introduce me to an entirely new educational philosophy. Much of it aligns with how I already think about learning: learners vary, that variability should be expected, and learning environments should anticipate it before an individual is treated as an exception to the intended design. What the course gave me was a more precise framework for translating that stance into concrete design decisions. This matters, for instance, in the context of giftedness and 2e. Accessibility is still easily confused with simplification. A learner who needs support may receive easier work, less content, or lower expectations.…
Looking back over the past weeks, I would not say that my course on giftedness and 2e profiles fundamentally changed how I understand giftedness. I was already skeptical of attempts to reduce ability to an IQ score, high grades, or unusually fast performance. What changed was the precision of that skepticism. Learning more about twice-exceptionality, or 2e, made it increasingly difficult to treat observable performance as a reliable proxy for ability, support needs, or intellectual level. In 2e, high cognitive ability coexists with disability, neurodivergence, or other substantial learning and support needs. Even that description can be misleading when it…
The “Videos” and “Podcasts” categories on PetiteProf79 will no longer be continued as separate sections. Over the past few years, many contributions have appeared there, and they remain part of my intellectual and professional journey. For that reason, the existing content will remain available on PetiteProf79. At the same time, my work has continued to evolve. Videos, podcast episodes, and other conversation-based formats are now collected on my main website. There, they can be placed more clearly within the broader context of my work: as part of an ongoing engagement with future-oriented learning, human digitality, educational transformation, and the question…
This interview is a longer version of the interview that was printed in issue no. 13 of the magazine on. Lernen in der Digitalen Welt on design thinking.
I designed the following project for the Goethe Institut Pune, India. The project was originally designed for learners of German as a foreign language. However, it can be adapted to all other languages, of course..
I designed the following project for the Goethe Institut Pune, India. The project was originally designed for learners of German as a foreign language. However, it can be adapted to all other languages, of course..