"Begin with the end in mind." So often, in the classroom and in the rest of our lives, we don't do this. What sounds like fun today? What will make the students tune in? What will make ME enjoy the topic? As an experienced teacher, I've done the background work, trudging through the standards and making sure all of my lessons connect to them, and using "backwards design" to be sure that the lessons build up to and support the assessments. However, in most cases, that was a WHILE ago. It's time for a curriculum refresher, and UDL is one component I'll use.
As the Common Core began making its way through our state (and into my building), I have to confess that my first thought was, "Will I have to get rid of any of my favorite lessons/topics?" I LOVE my 1920s stock market simulation in U.S. History; I wait expectantly for Romeo and Juliet to roll around in English 9; I dread teaching the Electoral College in Civics, but always find the students' questions engaging once they "get" it. How will "new" standards change all of this? Far more practically, how much time will it take me to re-build each of my core classes?
UDL will give me a structure to facilitate the changes that are coming, and I am confident that even my favorite lessons will be more approachable and more meaningful when this process is done. I think the most appealing quote from the reading and videos is that we need to "reduce the disabilities in the curriculum itself, so that fewer kids will be labeled as disabled, and more will be successful." WOW -- that was NOT written by a textbook publisher! I love the view of our educational "stuff" as disabled; few teachers would disagree. Creating more interactive, flexible media with excellent content is an art form that is coming along, but has not yet reached a sustainable, affordable level.
I think UDL's Book Builder is going to help this. I've been playing with it a little, and am seeing the potential of the online, interactive style. This one bears watching. Textbook companies are getting the clue that their competition is gaining strength, and today's school books are much more visually appealing and have more bells and whistles (especially web and smart board connections) than their predecessors. However, purchasing new texts for an entire building, let alone a whole district, is cost-prohibitive. I wonder how much more life traditional textbooks have.
Aside from the disabled curriculum, I have to look at my own disabled methods. As a high school teacher, when I'm tired and busy, lecture becomes my default. I know the content well, and I love to talk, so this isn't hard. Yes, I pause to ask good questions and have discussions. Yes, I put notes on the board/overhead/projector. Yes, I use visual aides. Yes, I have an engaging presentation style. However, lecturing does not allow students to engage the material at a level necessary for deep understanding, and it does not give them ownership of learning. I'm the one doing all the work and most of the thinking. This is the main thing that has to change in my classroom.
The biggest problem here is that I don't always start by thinking of UDL's "multiple means" rules. Yes, within my several-week unit, I hit all of the learning styles, and I often provide choices within my assessments. However, UDL's principles, combined with the Capturing Kids' Hearts training our staff attended in June, is revising my thinking on how to handle each class period. Part of making every kid successful is setting a small, achievable goal for EACH class period; something they can walk out and "know" or "understand" or "do." I need to make my building blocks smaller, and be sure that every student can approach, be engaged by, and then act on each part.
This is best done by, as one UDL video put it, "translating standards into things that are important to do." I love the Book Builder text called Making History: A Guided Exploration of Historical Inquiry. This is a perfect example of an important learning process, broken up into approachable steps. It's a model for what I'm going to try to do: find the ending target and then break down the "chunks" into incrementally smaller pieces, one class and one learner at a time.
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