PATINS UDL Project

Using Tic-Tac-Toe boards to assign curriculum activities or to assess student learning is a great way to let students make choices about the activities they do in your lessons, and it will help them be more engaged and involved in their own learning.  Since it is much easier to set up Tic-Tac-Toe boards for your class if you see some good examples, here are two.

Dave Edyburn has a web site (go to http://www.uwm.edu/~edyburn/tictactoe.html) that offers Tic-Tac-Toe board  information for various primary, elementary and middle school activities, including:

• book report
• hats
• spelling
• community helpers
• nutrition
• poetry
• sailing

Maureen LaFleche also has a web site with a good example of using a Tic-Tac-Toe board for offering students choices in curricular activities in the review of a novel in her literature class.  Go to:  http://tkamforall.pbwiki.com/Activities

Free lesson plans help bring Google Earth into classrooms!

“Google Earth Lessons” is a free public resource created by teachers, for teachers, to give educators tools and ideas for using the free Google Earth software in their classrooms. Using the ideas and resources found on this site, teachers of all subjects and grade levels can incorporate Google Earth into their curriculum.

A section called “Google Earth How-tos” gives educators the basic skills they need to use the software, and a discussion section includes threads for exchanging ideas on a variety of topics.

Users also can search for lessons by content area (social studies, math, science, language arts, & cross curricular), share lessons with others, search through a library of screenshots, and more. All that is needed to use the lessons is a free download of Google Earth software.

http://www.gelessons.com/lessons

Check out this great web site from PBS (Publics Broadcasting System) that allows you to experience the difficulties that students with learning disabilities and other disabilities face day to day in the classroom. There are opportunities for you to feel your own disabilities in the areas of reading, writing, math, and attention as well as resource information and ideas for helping students with these problems. (Just click on the title “Misunderstood Minds” link to go to the web site.)

There will be a training opportunity this summer…in Boston… at Harvard! I went to this training in 2007, and it was great. You will have the opportunity to meet lots of other people who are trying to implement UDL in their school and learn about many tricks of the trade in making it happen.

The 2009 Universal Design for Learning Institute: Reaching all Learners will be July 6-10, 2009. It will address crucial questions about how to provide full access to the general education curriculum for all learners, especially those with disabilities, through Universal Design for Learning. The week-long training is designed to help educators meet the challenge of teaching diverse learners in inclusive, standards-based classrooms.

Enrollment in this seminar is on a first come, first served basis. There is more information at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/k12/programs/ude.html

As your school is working to implement UDL, you will certainly find that there is technology that will help you in the process. You will need to remember your vision, consider the curriculum involved, and be sure of your technology support system and your school’s capacity for handling the technology. Don’t forget to consider how you will collaborate, communicate, and share information about UDL with others. As with any technology, collecting data on the positive or negative benefits is important so you know how to proceed further.

I’m attaching an information sheet that will help guide you through making those technology decisions. 7 Guiding Questions for Technology Decision Making

When you implement UDL principles in your classroom, there will always be issues about how to grade students. Is it “fair”… for a student who writes a good 6-page paper explaining the causes and results of the Great Depression …and a student who makes an instructive 16-screen PowerPoint with audio and video links to highlight certain points about the causes and results of the Great Depression …and a student who writes a short play to illustrate his knowledge about the causes and results of the Great Depression for a typical family of that time… to each get an A or a B? Should the “hardest” task get an A and the others get something else? What is the “hardest” task? Does the hardest task represent the most learning? Who has made progress in their understanding of the Great Depression?

Dave Edyburn (University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee) has provided a nice bibliography of sources that address this topic. Zero and Grading Policies

You can also go to the following sites on the Internet for information:

An Introduction to Grading by Dennis Munk, with links to instructional tools and research related to grading. It also has links to actual case studies dealing with grading. : http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/specconn/main.php?cat=assessment&section=grading/main

Grading Policies That Work Against Standards…and How to Fix Them by T.R. Guskey: http://www.ncacasi.org/documents/other/grading_policies

Fair & Equitable Grading Practices for Students with LD Who Have IEPs, by D.D. Munk: http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=1154

Role of Zero in Grading by Karen Walker, with links to other online articles about grading:  http://www.principalspartnership.com/zerograding.pdf

Check out the research reported in Education Week that focuses on the connection between exercise and learning and achievement! This is an easy way for teachers to help every student prepare to learn.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/13/23exercise_ep.h27.html?tmp=1954207192

The CITEd (Center for Implementing Technology in Education) web site (http://www.cited.org/) has a technology matrix that compares various technology that might be used for math, reading, writing or assistive technology.  This may help you decide what technology might be best for you.

If you have never been to the CITEd web site before, I recommend that you take the 7-minute tour of the site so you know all of the things that are available here…and there are a lot!  You can save information into kits that can be distributed to others for sharing/training purposes. There is research to support what you are doing.  Throughout the web site the focus is on UDL and best practices.

Also, CITEd and Don Johnston, Inc., joined forces to produce a series of webinars on a variety of topics dealing with UDL which are archived at:  http://www.donjohnston.com/prof_services/VIP.html

Last summer I attended a very informative seminar about UDL at Harvard. It would be a great opportunity for someone from your UDL teams to learn a lot more about UDL and bring back new ideas to everyone else. It is July 7 – 11, 2008, in Boston.

Check it out at (scroll way down the page): http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/k12/index.html

Tina