June 25, 2008
UDL – Wed Morn – Goals, Materials, Methods & Assessment
Type of Educator: Classroom teacher
To determine if a classroom teachers curriculum is UDL compliant I would suggest the following “look for” questions.
To determine if GOALS are universally designed I might ask myself:
- Does the language of all goals and benchmarks reflect the same standards (level of achievement) for all students? (YES)
- Do the goals or benchmarks specify a specific path or method for achieving the benchmark? (NO)
- Does the goal specify the central thuoghts in our content… and what is not central to our content? (YES)
- Do the goals help my students to understand the WHY/WHAT of today’s lesson — why it’s relevent, why it’s important, what they need to accomplish?
To to determine if MATERIALS are universally designed I might ask myself:
- Do the materials come from a flexible list of options that provide students the opportunity to choose a method of expression?
- Do I have hands-on materials?
- Do the materials come from a list that reflects a variety of objects the students are likely to be familiar with and some with which they are unfamiliar?
- In computer class, are the options for media varied and reflect the variety of technologies available in the classroom?
To determine if METHODS are universally designed I might ask myself:
- Am I using a variety of instructional methods with students? Methods that address different intelligences and ways or organizing the content?
- Am I allowing the students to access their background information and background vocabulary and attach new information/vocabulary to that? (Vocab trees, etc.)
- Am I providing choices to them?
- Are my methods fun?
To determine if ASSESSMENT are universally designed I might ask myself:
- Am I providing choices of assessments?
- Am I providing clear and specific criteria in my rubrics that communicate the steps to achieving a good grade (success)?
- Do I have criteria for success that reflect the variety of strengths in my students?
- Are the students motivated by my assessment and reward system to put forth their best effort to complete the work?
June 25th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I wonder if this would be a nice basis for a short (3 min) movie…sort of a “here are the four things we struggle with in secondary ed, here are the questions to ask yourself, and here are the ways you might answer them”
June 29th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Wonderful blog post….an example, a model, the three principles….all wrapped up in one complete and concise e-presentation!