Universal Design for Learning

The UDL guidelines for teaching make sense to me.  One of my first complaints as a teacher, was that I didn't know how to reach all of my students.  Some seemed to know everything that I wanted to teach them, while others appeared to have never been in a social studies classroom before.  A good colleague of mine said that we couldn't  reach all of them, that's why we "teach to the middle."  I tried that for many years and was frustrated by the number of students I knew were falling through the cracks.  I'm so glad that someone finally said there isn't a child right in the middle - that the problem was in the curriculum and traditional teaching methods. 

To reach all students (the goal of UDL), teachers should allow for multiple means of representation.  I believe this supports several theories in education about good teaching.  Beginning with teaching vocabulary and activating  prior knowledge to the multiple intelligence models, the experts have always said that good teaching presents new information in several different formats instead of just one.  Sadly, many teachers felt they couldn't do this, because they had too many standards to cover.  I'm happy to say that my district leaders say that we are teaching too much and that we need to eliminate standards.  They believe that the key to education is to "go deeper" and cover each unit well.  We are told that we should take the time to use formative assessments and reteach when material is not understood.  As a district, we are taking the needed to steps to make this a reality.  I loved the "HIAT - UDL tool finder."  It makes using new technology to support your lessons easy.  I shared this website on our district's SS blog and I'm sure other teachers will love it! 

The second part of UDL emphasizes giving students multiple means for action and expression.  This means that the teacher is giving students several ways to express what they have learned, rather than relying on traditional paper and pencil, multiple-choice assessments to measure student learning.  I have worked to make sure that all students are aware of the objectives for each unit.  I have written them in the form of "I can" statements and give each student a copy so that they can check them off as they reach the objective.  I have also developed projects to give students additional formats to show their learning.  However, I have not utilized electronic forms of communication yet.  I went to a National Quiz Bowl competition in May in Atlanta, Georgia.  I brought a stack of DBQ essays to grade in between matches, and felt good about using my time wisely, but lamented the fact that my bag weighed about 100 pounds.  I looked at the teacher next to me and she was grading essays too - but on her tablet.  I need a tablet first, but feel I could easily incorporate this into my lessons. 

Finally, UDL emphasizes giving multiple opportunities for engagement.  I feel that my prior blog speaks to this.  By incorporating more technology, a teacher gives more opportunities for engagement and with less burden on the teacher!  I feel very excited about using more technology to increase student engagement and decrease the work load for myself.  Technology seems to have the answer to several of the problems that I've been writing about, everything from finding the time to give prompt feedback to making the learning relevant - I just need to take the time to find which technology works for me in my district. I am so glad that this class is giving me the opportunity to do that!