I watched a 50 minute webinar about UDL, here is my summary of the presentation.
Don Johnston Webinar, led by Joan McAlpin and Dr. Hillary Goldthwait-Fowles, titled: "Why UDL is Tough to Implement- and Five Necessary Components to *Really* Make UDL Happen"
They will be talking about some of the challenges with Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and strategies to make UDL work in the classroom. The goal of the webinar is to empower educators and administrators to overcome the obstacles to implementing UDL. So what is UDL? UDL is forethought not afterthought, it takes planning before hand and is not just something thrown together. UDL is a framework that plans for student differences. All students learn in different ways so lets plan for that. Provide options and flexibility to curriculum, assessment and environment. UDL Guidelines are the road maps and tools used to provide multiple means for engagement, action and expression. Assistive technology should be used to help improve UDL. Assistive Technology helps students reach grade level content in a way that works best for them. UDL is also highlighted in ESSA. UDL allows for flexibility and honors variability. When creating UDL educators want to be co-creating the environment with their learners not making the environment for them. This will help empower and engage the students.
5 Misconceptions of UDL:
UDL is a "Special Ed thing"- UDL supports students with disabilities, but it is the job of the generalist education teacher to support ALL learners in the way that helps them to develop into expert learners.
UDL is a "program"- UDL is not a program but a foundational framework that helps support learners differences by empowering educators to meet their students needs by co-designing the learning.
UDL is Differentiated Instruction (DI) - UDL and DI are not the same thing, DI can fit within UDL as a strategy to help meet the students needs. UDL is a broader proactive plan to create options, choices and flexibility in the curriculum. While DI focuses on providing direct support to the learner. UDL has all the adjustments or ways that the material is going to be presented differently in the beginning and through out the lesson not at the end like DI. So DI can work with UDL, but it is not the same thing.
UDL is something you "do"- UDL is not a "treatment", it's a mindset shift, deeper it's a paradigm shift. It is not done to the learner but it is a proactive plan that involves and helps the students find what works best for them and starting with that. Again our overall goal is to develop expert learners. UDL is a way of teaching and doing it, not just something to do or a box to check off a checklist. Often educators try to average it out or make it even across the board, but we have to honor variability.
UDL is a "technology thing"- UDL does encourage assistive technology to help learners, it can help customize the learning process but it is not all UDL is. Teachers have to not stigmatize the assistive technology and recognize that there is more than one way to learn something. Accommodations are not cheating but a right to students, and they should be involved in the process.
"When access is a practice of love it is no longer simply about logistics and something you have to do, but something you want to do." -Mia Mingus (#AccessIsLove)
Accessibility is not about doing this perfectly but recognizing the worth of others and the immense gifts each of person brings. "Thoughtful curriculum design and implementation are essentials for effective teaching and learning, and universal design for learning provides a framework for accomplishing this. However...expertise is not a state of arrival-it is state of becoming. Educators are learners, too, who reflect on, refine, and improve their practice. All effective teaching is both science and art, requiring practitioners to accept some trial and error and commit to reflection and revision practice as needed. " ("UDL Theory and Practice" by David Rose p. 83). UDL is about growing and a process of becoming, not a state to be in.
Educators have to do inner reflection and then work to change the curriculum to make UDL work. Inner reflection should look at you judgments about learning, your attitudes about learners, and your beliefs around equity. So often schools and educators want to do the same thing for each students thinking this makes it equal for all students. Each student is different and learns differently and teachers need to find what helps them. Depending on the school or the class UDL may look different and the way it is implemented, but the goal of implementing UDL is the same. To make change one has to start by acknowledging that there is a need for change in the school system, then understand the need for systemic change (why it is necessary), then get ready to make the shift, look at what works with UDL and what does not, and finally continue no matter the challenges that arise. UDL is a shift of a system it will be a process, and will take years.
Don Johnson has some amazing tools that can help empower students. uPAR (Protocol for Accommodations in Reading) is an amazing tool that gives data on reading accommodations and what are the best reading supports for the student. Snap&Read works on Chrome and IOS, it provides speech to text and many other tools. Co:Writer provides embedded dictation, vocabulary support, spelling conventions and word prediction.
"Why UDL is Tough to Implement- and Five Necessary Components to *Really* Make UDL Happen" :https://vimeo.com/386587281
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