Transiting from Idea to Practice

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The foundations of Universal Design for Learning have almost been taught to every teacher in Sanger Unified School District. Now comes the hard part, the application of those foundations into the day to day of school instruction. The sense we are getting is that teachers are eager to "see" UDL, but do not always know exactly where to start. So lets talk about it and see if we can find some practical examples of places to start! Over the next few weeks the blog will focus on those specific practices, trying to drill down to practical levels as we "show" UDL in the plan clothes of instruction. This week we are focusing on goal setting. 

Goal Setting​

Goal setting, specifically having a clear, direction is imperative for good instructional design. There is too much flying at us (new technology, new curriculum, new ideas, new buzz words) at one time to NOT look at our standards. Sometimes we are like I was on my first road trip across country, too focused on sights, billboards, scenery, and new experiences to remember to check where I was going. #beinglostinwyomingisnotaparty We need to realize that this initial standards check and goal setting will actually will save us time as we keep focused on the learning objective or objectives at hand. 

When looking at a standard make sure your PLC identifies the actual task or set of tasks that the standard is expecting of students. It is surprising to find that many of the things we are teaching and methods we are using to assess a standard actually could be greatly diversified. If the standard is writing then have your goal incorporating writing, but if the standard is reading comprehension or some NGSS standard then have writing be an option for kiddos in showing what they know but not the ONLY option. 

An example: 

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.1
Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Many people would traditionally have students show there understanding of this standard through writing, but no where in the standard does it specify writing. Writing is most definitely a facet of text citation and should be taught within a lesson series on this standard. But writing shouldn't be the only option, people also often cite evidence from texts in presentations, songs, and no political speeches ever. 😉

So when writing a goal for this standard why not make it open ended. 

Students will use textual evidence to restate what a text says. 
or
Students will use evidence from text to support an inference about the text. 

Now I have options for kiddos who are great speakers and kiddos who are great writers to both be able to share their awesome text knowledge.