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What A Month!!

9/28/2016

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So it has been a busy month! Multiple full day trainings, pilot teams kicking off, meetings with Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and overall getting the message out about Universal Design for Learning! With all the craziness it still has been so encouraging! Teachers are interested and wanting to talk more about this whole "UDL thing" and overall the buzz has been extremely positive. Our year 2 pilots just had their full day training at Bitwise and we are very excited to see what new frontiers of learning their students will experience because of their hard work! Our year 1 pilots are also working through their first UDL training at Fresno State now and developing solutions to the problems of practice they are facing within their classrooms. 

Remember Universal Design for Learning is a design lens that we apply to the instructional strategies and environments we already are working in. For those of you who have already been trained reflect on the aspects of UDL that were interesting or inspirational to you and try something out! Take a little risk and see what happens. 

So what have been your thoughts everyone!? Take some time and let us know what you are feeling around Universal Design for Learning. We are just so excited to see how this way of design thinking will have a positive impact on the kiddos of Sanger Unified. 



A Story about trying new things

So here is one of my favorite little podcasts episodes showing the power of trying something new. Check it out!
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What do you think?

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Universally Designed Test! Is it possible....

9/8/2016

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I don't know if it is possible but at least the state is trying!!!

Check out this document!

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So you want to UDL?

9/6/2016

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Sanger Unified is committed to the vision that “All students will have the options to demonstrate what they learn and the opportunities to be successful and achieve their dreams!”  Universal Design for learning is a framework and lens that supports our vision.  Bringing UDL to a place in which teachers are creating the buzz and drive behind implementation has been a powerful result of thoughtful and intentional design.  The intention behind our efforts of scaling out UDL was not to create a top down new initiative that teachers and leaders would implement out of compliance and only while monitored, it was to create and foster a mindset of accessibility~“that what is necessary for a few is really great for all!”

The roll-out was a two-prong approach.  One prong was designed to engage teachers in learning while doing, playing and creating, and following the process and lead of the teachers and their students.  We created this by opening up the opportunity for grade level PLCs throughout the district that were interested in playing with the UDL Principles and guidelines.  

Working with these initial 8 pilots, we met throughout the year as a PLC team. Between PLC meetings, we would meet with individual PLCs to support and answer questions specific to their needs.  During this time PLCs were encourage to select a Principal they were interested in exploring and guidelines they wanted to work at implementing.  The process and implementation were non-evaluative PLC teams were encouraged to take risks, learn from failure or mis-steps, and share transparently the successes and pitfalls of working within the UDL lens or frame works.  We were intentional in creating an atmosphere and culture of trust within the Pilot PLC so learning was free to occur.

The second prong was to engage the site leadership in the process. This involved front loading information and an understanding of UDL through District Principal PLC’s, Administrative Retreats, and other informal opportunities to discuss UDL and status of the pilots, as well as training side-by-side with their Pilot PLCs.  This allowed Principals to share in the learning process yet also to share a collective understanding of UDL and how it was being implemented through across the district.

Sanger’s UDL roll-out has been thoughtful and intentional by design. UDL is being introduced through Curriculum and Instruction to emphasise it’s a best practice and is for ALL students.  The selection of a small pilot group was designed to allow for nurturing of the implementation practice and support for the pilots, as well as, create a safe PLC in which participants would share the ups and challenges of designing and implementing UDL.  Our success in creating a mindshift is indicated by the number of new PLCs wanting to become pilots and the interest other staff members are having in learning more about UDL!

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Universal Design for Learning and Technology

9/2/2016

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Do you need to technology to Universally Design content? Yes and No. Like that answer? Given this is the political season I figured it would be safe to give a some what political answer. Haha, but seriously to do great designed lessons you really don't need high tech technology. Instructors can put together incredible content and learning experiences with little to no formal technology at all. But the question is, if we have access to technology and our students' current stories have technology as an embedded plot line why wouldn't we use it? 
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​The reality is Universal Design for Learning forces partitioners to put technology in its proper place, as one of many tools to solve problems. With that said, we all must acknowledge what a powerful tool technology is because of the complexity, depth, and speed with which we can tackle problems. Concepts that kids were previously lock out of due to their only being presented in text and maybe a picture, are now open for students with the advent of tools like youtube, virtual field trips, 3D printing, Prezi, and screen casting. The amazing simplicity of UDL in finding clear goals that can be represented and expressed in a myriad of ways, naturally lends its self to the exploration and efficiency of finding those ways out. Technology is proving to be a very helpful tool toward that end. 

Universal Design for Learning also protects us though from some of the pitfalls and dangers of over technology use. By being so learning and goal focused Universal Design for Learning forces practitioners to value all learning variability, even "old school" variability.
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​Universal Design for Learning embraces technology but it loves it for the learning it brings and the ways in which it helps meet goals, NOT the bells and whistles it brings with it (though it thinks those are really cool too).😋
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A Cautionary Tale. So last year in our beginning pilot trainings I dove into tech as the primary means of representation and expression for focus learning about UDL. We were doing fantastic Prezies, learning UDL principles via video games, all the notes were on google drive via a shared folder, and all was shiny and new in terms of the tech connections. Midway through the year though, a teacher came up to me and asked for handouts. I had stopped printing handouts because all was available online and in one of those fancy means. I was taken back! Handouts! But for her she really felt comfortable handwriting notes on handouts. She also happens to be a calligraphist and has beautiful handwriting. For this teacher the technology was actually a barrier for her accessing content. Rather then force her to acquiesce to my design paradigm, I had to go back and reevaluate the goal of our trainings. The goal wasn't to learn new technology, it was to learn UDL and to put it into practice each day.  If I am honest my first inclination was to want to teach the technology and for teachers to experience the technology, if it wasn't for Universal Design for Learning, I would have totally taken my preferences over those of the teacher group. I could have easily made technology knowledge a prerequiste for Universal Design for Learning knowledge. So now needless to say, all presentations and professional development has handout options that teacher are welcome to grab should that be helpful for them. ​
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