Matt

6/20/12 ~ Reflection

Yesterday we further explored the UDL program. I found the brain networks very interesting, especially when the picture was used. It was fascinating to me to see how many different approaches and focuses people took when they were told to look at the photo. Another part that I enjoyed was the article "willing to be disturbed", which was an article that challenged readers to rethink their perspectives and some personal beliefs. It really made readers think about themselves and how they use preconceived notions. I would have to say the sentences that I enjoyed most was "When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationships with each other." and "Of course it's scary to give up what we know, but the abyss is where newness lives." (Wheatley). These really made me focus in on what the author was trying to convey and made the message much clearer. I look forward to today.

6/20/12 ~ Aspirations

I aspire to be more open in my approach to reaching more students. We have made strides and leaps towards reaching more learners, but I feel that we still cannot reach everyone at this point. There are too many different road blocks preventing this, and some are those that cannot be seen. Looking to our choice boards, we have unbuckled the restraints of our students learning and kind of loosened the belts; however, there still are restraints tightly in place. Our choice boards have us assume what our students would enjoy and how they would learn best. This, however, is not optimal. What I aspire to do is get to know more about my students learning and see what would make them more invested in it. I need to find out what would make them more ambitious towards their own learning. A great way may be to allow students more freedom when it comes to how they can learn best and display that they have learned the educational goal. Choice boards have opened up many more paths for students, but not nearly enough. I also want to be able to reach my more advanced students a bit better. I actually want to follow in the footsteps ofVirginiaand maybe allow students to show me what they know before hand, which would allow them to go onto more advanced concepts if the on grade level concept is already mastered. I think that we have been concentrating so much on how to reach everyone, especially students that normally are not usually successful in school in the traditional sense. We, however, are forgetting about the other end of the spectrum and not letting them blossom. I hope that this new fluidity could be integrated into and improve my classroom.

6/21/12 ~ Reflection

Yesterday really cleared up a few questions that we had about UDL. There were some guidelines and checkpoints that we had previously found vague, such as 8 and 9. We were given a great resource that gave explanations and examples of each. It even gave lists of videos, software, and websites that could help us meet the guidelines. I also rather enjoyed the article yesterday. I still have some questions on how to sucessfully reach every student, especially students that are disinterested or refuse to work no matter what you do. I would have to say that using the UDL program I have sucessfully reached more students that I ever would have than the 'old' way of teaching, but I still cannot reach all of them.

Today I had revamped a previous lesson plan to reflect the common core and the UDL principles that were reinforced by this workshop. You can see it here: