Information on Universal Design for Learning

 

When looking through the guidelines for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) there are some that I do daily with my students.  I teach kindergarten so I often use tactile elements in my stations.  For example, I have letter cards that have the letter made from sandpaper so the students can trace the letter and feel the paper while tracing to offer an alternative for visual information.  I also, always pre-teach vocabulary especially because I have some students with limited English Language, so I always make sure to go over vocabulary before we start a lesson and that an example of guideline 2 which is providing options for language, mathematical expressions, and symbols.  Another process that I do daily with my students is utilizing my document camera for modeling of steps in the writing process.  Since students are just starting their writing journey it is critical that they see exactly how a sentence is formed, and my document camera is a great way to show them.  I can easily show them each step I take and then gradually release them to try on their own and explore.  In kindergarten we also use sentence starters with our students because they need a way to get started on their work.  We give them sentence starters like I went, I see, I like, and I can, which helps them start their sentence and they can try the rest on their own.  Guideline 9, which is about providing options for self-regulation, is I think the best option kindergarten students receive.  We give our students many different calm-down strategies that they can use when they are feeling frustrated or upset.  Our counselor also does guidance lessons with a small group of students that may need extra help controlling their emotions. 

            When thinking about what guidelines I could use right now in my teaching practice, I think I could implement guideline 2 where it mentions supporting decoding of text, mathematical notation, and symbols.  It talks about using digital text with a human voice recording and I have used a website in the past called Epic books that I think my students would love.  They have options for books to be read to the students and it even highlights the words as they go along and this not only helps with decoding but shows students concepts about print like starting on the left page before the right, etc.  In guideline 3, where we activate or supply background knowledge, I think incorporating a KWL chart would be beneficial for my kindergarten students.  This gets the kids engaged because they are stating facts that they already know but also what they want to learn which gives us specific answers to find.  Looking at guideline 7, which provides options for recruiting interest, I usually set a timer for how long students should be working on projects, but I could implement that students who finish early can do an alternative activity and those that need more time can finish later in the day. 

            I would love to implement some of these guidelines in my work, but I may need some additional help with a few.  I would love to offer an option for text-to-speech for some of my students, but I know that the equipment is very pricey, and I would likely need to talk to the administration staff to see if this would be available for my students.  I think another guideline I would love to implement would be guideline 8 which provides options for sustaining effort and persistence.  I would like my students to track their goals, but I think getting help from my partner teachers or maybe the school librarian to come up with an idea of how we can track goals and the organization of goals for the students would be beneficial.

            Looking closely at UDL, something that I would like to know more about would be setting goals for students in our school.  Goal setting provides students with a sense of ownership and responsibility that I think is important even for younger students.  When doing more research on goal setting with students with a focus on elementary school, I came across a website that gave great ideas and even had printable resources available.  The website is https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/ and if you go to resources they have student grouping graphic organizers, a planner for investing students in the rules of the classroom and their goals, and a student practice template for organizing their thoughts on paper.  There are also professional development opportunities for making a more responsive classroom environment for your students. There is also an App that I would like to start using called EVERFI.  We have the application on our district Chromebook, and it will help students set goals and help them practice them as well.  I got more information from the EVERFI website as well as an article by Amber Osuba about how goal setting for students nurtures a growth mindset: https://everfi.com/blog/k-12/student-goal-setting/.  This website helped me to get more information about SMART goals that students can make for themselves as well.  More information about SMART goals can be found in this article here: https://www.ucop.edu/local-human-resources/_files/performance-appraisal/How+to+write+SMART+Goals+v2.pdf.

Overall I would like to implement SMART goals for my students and show them how they can use their goals to foster their learning and gain independence in their own learning.