Universal Design Learning is an idea that basically wants to help all students by breaking down learning barriers. These barriers are things that might keep a student from absorbing the material. All students learn differently, and we need to make sure that students are getting the access to different mediums they need in order to learn successfully. This video about UDL gives a good general overview and definitions about what UDL is and how it can help our young students.
This article about UDL goes into more detail about what these learning barriers are for our students. There are several reasons that students can be struggling to learn, such as physical disabilities, emotional/behavioral challenges, learning disabilities, autism, attention issues, lack of knowledge, and language barriers. All of these things can contribute to a student not being able to really learn. However this does not mean that they can not! We just need to better understand our students so that we can help knock down learning barriers. Technological development can help bring down some of these barriers. Simple printed text does not do well with various students. But with digitized text it can easily be altered to change the size, content, and can even focus on just one section of reading much more easily. It also gives more access to these materials. UDL encourages instructors to use various media in order to represent the new materials for students. Teachers can use books, pictures, videos, interactive activities, art projects, etc. With all of these new learning materials the students will hopefully become more engaged overall in what is being learned, since more barriers have been removed. They must also be allowed to make their own mistakes so that they can learn to cope, and progress through it. The lessons must also be engaging, and must be encouraging students to complete it and get to the next one. One of the toughest things to work with though regarding UDL is making it work alongside state standards. Standards have to be taught and enforced in the school curriculum, but the teacher needs to make sure that their classroom is being run efficiently using UDL techniques. This will help their students to be more engaged and excited about learning in the classroom.
I have personally never heard about these ideas until I read this article. I have always known that students learn in different ways, but I never actually thought of barriers that were preventing them from learning. I am not sure how exactly I might remove these barriers in my future classroom, but I will definitely be paying a lot of attention to my students and how they learn. They will teach me by seeing how they learn in my classroom. I want to cater to their strengths and weaknesses, and I want to challenge them to do better.
This video and article relate to ISTE Standards for Students 1 and 2. The first standard involves creativity and innovation. In order to really see where the students are struggling, and to think of new ways to teach them, a teacher must have some original ideas to help their students. They will need to develop new methods to help all of their students learn alongside other types of learners. The article also relates to the second standard because communication and collaboration in the classroom will be key in order to be able to utilize these learning methods with all of the students. Students will need to work together on the same topics, even if their learning types are different from one another.
What do you think about UDL? What are some barriers that you have seen in the classroom that prevent effective learning?
------------------------------------------------
http://www.udlcenter.org/resource_library/videos/udlcenter/udl#video0/
Ralabate, P. K. (2011, August 30). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. The ASHA Leader. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/universal-design-learning-meeting-needs-all-students
No comments:
Post a Comment