PATINS UDL Project

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

From Indiana’s et cetera (ETC: Education Technology) newletter, a recommendation to check the Grant Wrangler web site. It allows you to pick the date the grant proposal will be due or to search for topics by key words. You can subscribe to a free bi-weekly update on grant opportunities.

http://www.grantwrangler.com/

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

At the recent TRLD (Technology, Reading and Learning Diversity) Conference I attended a workshop by a grant-writing specialist, Sheryl Abshire, from Lake Charles, LA, about how to approach grantgivers, write grants, and get grant funding. All of you can probably use grant money, to cover the costs of attending conferences or training sessions or for additional technology to implement UDL in your classrooms and schools.

Sheryl listed several keys to successful grant writing, which included:

• do exactly what the RFP (request for proposal) guidelines say
• connect the grant request to something that is for ongoing improvement
• provide specifics on how you will use the grant money and how you will collect and evaluate the data
• be passionate, creative and innovative about your plans
• focus on areas of need in your school or district
• include what you/your school/your district will provide to help make the grant successful (e.g., partnerships with other community resources)
• if you write the grant for professional development, link it back to improving student achievement in an area of need

She provided several websites with grant information:

Her personal grant information website with resources listed alphabetically: http://www.cpsb.org/Scripts/abshire/grants.asp

The School Grants web site with grant information for PK-12 (note that it has sample grants and fund raising information on the sidebar to the left) http://www.schoolgrants.org/

The eSchool News website which provides grant and funding information for schools. You can sign up for a funding alert newsletter there also. http://www.eschoolnews.com/funding/

An information resource website, Thomson West, that has a Grants for K-12 Hotline that provides a bi-weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for a yearly fee. http://west.thomson.com/store/product.aspx?r+139011&product_id=40560035

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has launched Bytesize Science, an educational, entertaining new podcast for young listeners. Bytesize Science translates cutting-edge scientific discoveries from ACS’s 36 peer-reviewed journals into stories for young listeners about science, health, medicine,energy, food, and other topics. New installments are posted every Monday and are available free of charge.

Go to:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/bytesizescience

It’s a great way to make science more fun and accessible for today’s students.

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

Let’s discuss which of the components for implementing UDL (from CAST’s Systemic Change Planner) you think are the most important and why. What problems are you anticipating as you being to implement UDL and how do you plan to deal with them? All of you will encounter some problems – let’s help each other by suggesting ways to deal with them.

There are 8 components listed at the CAST site:

• Technology infrastructure
• Digital content resources
• Administrative support
• Teacher training and support
• Redefined roles for special and regular educators
• Collaborative curriculum planning
• Parent and community involvement
• Creative funding

For the Systemic Change Planner go to:
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/tools/systemicchange.cfm

Tina

Please think about which forms of flexibility strike you as most important for improving the quality of assessment:

• flexibility in presentation
• flexibility in expression and strategic supports
• flexibility in engagement

Please tell everyone what you might try to do differently in assessing students and why you will be doing these things.

Will it be “fair” to offer different assessment options to students in your class(es)? Why or why not? Will these options be available to all of the students or only to ones you choose?

Tina

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