The CAST website, www.cast.org, is an amazing website that can really help teachers find ways to help all their students access the curriculum and achieve success. While visiting this website, I visited the page, http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/, and came to an activity that really resonated with me. It was called "Getting to Know You the UDL Way." It focused on the brain's three networks: recognition, strategic network, and the affective network. I started out by choosing an activity; I went with creating a community garden. I first thought about what background, skills, and interests that I would be able to bring to the project. Next, I thought about my strengths and challenges for each of the three brain networks. Then, I was able to reflect on my students and my teaching practices. Something that was really important to me was the fact that each child brings a different set of strengths, challenges, and interests to an activity. For example, one of my students with autism has difficulty writing but is an exceptional artist. If she's having difficulty writing about a concept, I can often gauge her level of understanding by her drawings and labels. After completing this activity, I thought about how important it is for a teacher to help students tap into their strengths, challenges, and interests, so we can help bring out the best in our students. UDL is a great way to do this.
I also looked at that activity and I thought it was very useful to find out my strengths and challenges. I think it is great that you are focusing on a students strength in the classroom rather than trying to "fix" her needs/challenges. Too often teachers view an IEP and use the accommodations set out, but not all the time do those accommodations tap into students strengths.
ReplyDeleteI was immediately drawn to this picture. I could not think of a more perfect demonstration of why UDL is so important in our classroom. Lets be honest, that elephant would not be able to get to the top of the tree as easily as the monkey, which is where UDL comes in to help assist students achieve goals that are set who may need accommodations and adjustments to get to that final goal. Love this!
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