Universal Design for Learning

I am very familiar with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as I have been learning how to incorporate the CAST UDL guideline checkpoints in my lesson plans for the past 2.5 years. Below I have attached the pdf that I use while writing my lesson plans.

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Understanding by Design

I am also familiar with Understanding by Design (UbD) but I know it better as Backwards Design which has been a focus in my education courses for the past 1.5 years. There are 3 steps to this process;

  1. What is the goal? What do you want the students to learn? (competencies or leaning outcomes)
  2. How will you assess that they have achieved the goal? How will you give feedback?
  3. How will students reach this goal? What activities and lessons will you use?

In Shelley Moore’s video Backwards Design: A great way to move forward! She compares understanding by design in the education context to lessons taught in self-help books. In self-help books they often mention the strategy of “keeping the end in mind”. What this means is setting a clear goal for yourself first, so that you can make an effective plan to meet this goal. This is a very similar process to lesson planning. First we choose the goal, then we make the plan to help the students reach the goal.

https://youtu.be/mLKHaNo98Ts

Universal Instructional Design

I am somewhat familiar with Universal Instructional Design (UID) but this has been less talked about in my courses so far.

Similar to UDL guidelines there are 7 principles for UID;

  • be accessible and fair
  • be flexible
  • be straightforward and consistent
  • be explicit
  • be supportive
  • minimize unnecessary physical effort
  • accommodate students and multiple teaching methods

References:

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Five Moore Minutes. (Aprile 1st, 2019). Backwards Design: A great way to move forward! [Video] YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/mLKHaNo98Ts

Response to Oleg’s blog post

In Oleg’s blog post he share his personal experience of online learning during Covid and the many benefits it has had on his learning. I think his opinion and viewpoint is interesting to read as most of the experiences I have heard about during online learning in the pandemic have been negative. Oleg provides a link to a Youtube video titled “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to”. This music and image seemed very familiar to me! I finally put my finger on where I recognized it from, when I was working in a middle school class their teacher had this on in the morning while the students entered the classroom and prepared for their day. It has a calming nature to it and I think starting the day with music is a great way to enter the learning environment! I will definitely save this channel for future use in my classrooms.