Things I from readings, videos and UDL lesson and principals:

The videos from this week were very inspiring. It gave me chill bumps to see all the things some of these young students are doing with technology in their schools as well as in their personal lives. From helping younger students see their potential to one student using his knowledge to make his Hocky swings even better, the future looks very bright for them. It made me start to examine what we do in our school in the way of technology and how we let the students take on what they will and help them reach their full potential. Even though these students are sometimes doing things with technology we may not fully understand, we make sure they have all the tools they need in order to reach their full potential. I am proud of what my school offers all the students as well as how open minded the teachers are when it comes to trying something new in the classroom. I only hope this trend continues so we can make sure we are meeting the students in their learning space as well as not using outdated things to try to inspire them. 

After all the readings and videos from the week the assignment was to create a UDL lesson for the students in my group scenario. We chose to do a third grade reading class and the lesson I tackled was about character traits of the character. The UDL principals are to present information in a variety of ways, differentiate the ways students can express what they know, and stimulate interest and motivation for learning. I don’t know how other teachers are writing their lesson plans, but I know when I do mine, I always take these things into account. I have to try to reach every style of learning so variation in my teaching and outcomes is something I do daily. When I finally learned everything I might need to know about how to create a UDL lesson plan, it was time to actually do so...and wow! It took forever! I have been in the classroom for six years now and consider myself to be a great teacher! I truly now know that while I may not be writing out true UDL lesson plans for each thing I teach, I take into account the principals every time I get up in front of the class. No matter what age, what grade, there are students that are going to have different learning styles, be at different academic readiness, and they will all bring different things to the table when it comes to being able to show me what they have learned. Universal design lessons to me, is how we should all be thinking and teaching everyday! NO-I don’t think we should develop the three page lesson lans for each topic, in fact I think it is a waste of time. In college when I was learning HOW to become a teacher we did these relentlessly! The only reason we did is so that we would actually begin to think about each part of the lesson, how we wanted to convey the information, and how would we differentiate to meet the needs of all learners. I understand how to do this now and do not plan to write or type out another UDL lesson plan. Although, I will stand true to the UDL principals.
Here is a sample of the ebook I created for this weeks assignment as well.
http://bookbuilder.cast.org/view.php?op=view&book=65091&page=1

Here is the UDL lesson I came up with:

 CAST’s UDL LESSON BUILDER

Lesson Overview Title: Character Traits and Feelings

Author: Shanna Hollis

Subject: Reading

Grade Level(s): Third Grade

Duration: 1 hour

Subject Area: Character Traits

Unit Description: Students will learn the difference between feelings and traits in order to understand who the character is in the book.

Lesson Description for Day: Differentiate between character traits and feelings

State Standards: §110.14. English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 3, T EK (5)a & b, (6), (7), (8)a, (10),  (12), (14) NETS-s: 1.b and c; 2.a,b and d; 3.b and c; 5. B and c; 6. a, b, c, and d.

 

 

Goals

Unit Goals: Students will build their story comprehension skills as well as the importance of character traits as well as character development in a story. Students will also gain an understanding of how to use the ipad as well as various apps to present information learned.

Lesson Goals: Students will understand how to pull out the character traits and feelings from the story; both those that are explicitly stated as well as those that are inferred.

 

Methods

Anticipatory Set: We will read the short story Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. Students will then get to brainstorm ideas of how they think Lilly felt in the story and try to explain why.

 

Introduce and Model New Knowledge: As a class we will have a picture of Lilly on the interactive white board and we will write the words is…around her. Students will get to put on the board what she is and we will discuss why she is that why.

Provide Guided Practice: Students will take pictures of themselves using their ipads. They will turn in Screen Chomp (an app we use daily to take notes and pictures to put in our interactive notebooks) to write various things around their headshots. For those that choose, they can record the information they want to present of themselves using the record button on this App. The students will share with each other what they made and explain why they either feel a certain way or what the traits they listed for themselves are.

Provide Independent Practice: Students will use the App Toon Doo to create a short story about EllRay. They can use the information we came up with as a class and of course add things to what they think he is feeling or his traits. We will present at the culmination of the activity.

 

 Assessment

Formative/Ongoing Assessment: Teacher observation as well as various checks into their projects to make sure they are including both feelings and traits of EllRay and explaining the difference.

Summative/End of Lesson Assessment: Students will present their final project about the book EllRay Jakes. They will show that they understand how he feels as well as his traits. They can do this by using various modes of delivery. Animoto, Toon Doo, Wordle, anything they would like to show their comprehension of the material we have discussed- Feelings versus Traits of EllRay. They must provide evidence of where in the book they are either getting the information or inferring the information.

Materials: Lap Tops for each student or student group, Microphone for hearing impaired, computer settings larger for student with visual problems, the book Ellray Jakes, online book to be read aloud for students with reading problems, headphones.