Welcome to my approach to applying the UDL principles through instructional and assessment strategies that address the "who", “why”, how”, and “what” of learning. This application of UDL approach ensures that all students can learn in a safe, efficient, equitable, and effective environment.
Start by asking myself What do I know about my students interests?
This important question and determination opens the door to true engagement with my learners. Using the data from various assessment gathering tools, I have found specific learning activities to be more rewarding than others when it comes to engagement. For example, below is a math lesson plan I created for my students, having obtained data from the beginning of the school year which indicated a large percentage of my students were gamers.
The purpose of this particular lesson is to introduce part of a larger set of curriculum programs meant to enable students to understand what function notation is and how to use, analyze and express features of functions represented in graphs and in the real world.
The concepts being introduced are - functions, graphs, and plotting points.
The students will learn how these concepts are applied in their everyday lives and how it may someday prove useful in their careers. For example, the use of quadratic equations can be used to determine the speed of an object: click here to see a real life example:
As we continue to build on equations by using functions in our next lesson, the students will see how these functions tie into other real world examples they may be able to relate to. Such as how a function plays a role in everyday things they do from -- sending a text, to playing video games.
The Hook: Video Game - “FortNite”
How do we program a game like “FortNite” to determine where the target is on the screen when your goal is to destroy the target? Imagine the video game screen is made up of X & Y coordinates. The entire screen is known as a “coordinate plane” in math terms. Today we will learn math concepts such as “quadratic equations” and move on to other more challenging math concepts to allow us to plot X & Y coordinates on a coordinate plane or in other words a computer screen in order to eliminate our target. The images below are a visual tool to aid in the translanguaging objective as pictures are universally understood.
Note: To be clear the picture below is an image of the “FortNite” characters on a computer screen. The superimposed graph paper located directly above the image is placed there as a learning exercise for the students to be able to locate the x & y coordinates of the “ForNite” Characters and plot points on the graph paper using the image below the graph paper as a “character tracker”.
I then consider various ways of differentiating process by asking myself What do I know about my smaller subset of students?
I differentiated process by providing multiple means of action and expression by allowing the students to have the option of showing their understanding of the given material by either: verbally explaining their thought process in solving the equation in a combination of their native tongue and English while using visual aids to support their explanation or they may have chosen to provide only a written form of their explanation in a combination of their native language and English. They may have chosen to pair up with someone who speaks their Native Language and have one person speak while the other guided in the explanation process for the solution to the problem. As a result the instructional arrangements I used varied depending on the students, in some cases I paired the students up when I deemed it beneficial and in other cases I had the students work independently at first and then share out as a group. As far as the layout of the classroom, given our new hybrid model, my students are seated 6 feet apart, with no more then 5 in person students; while the remaining students are typically signed in to the live google classroom where by both the in person students and the remote students are able engage synchronously via the google meet. The students uses a one mic approach, meaning everyone's mic is muted and if one person wishes to speak, he/she must make the request in the chat room. The order of the students wishing to speak or answer is considered based on the order the students entered their name in the chat room. Extra credit is given to the students who volunteer as the names in the chat room is used to track who gets the extra credit for that day. When breakout groups are set up, the students one mic policy still follows however the facilitator for that group manages who speaks next.
Lastly, I then consider various ways of differentiating product by asking myself once again - What do I know about my students?
I differentiated product by having to provide customizable problems tailored to each of my students based on their ability levels. With the example of the quadratic equation solution given for this lesson, I would tweak the equations accordingly to allow for various levels of complexity and explanation.
Second, I would address the “multiple means and action and expression” aspect of the UDL framework by varying the methods for response to the given problem. In this case, the students were allowed to respond verbally using various language styles and choices. They were also allowed to respond in writing providing visual representations. Lastly, I asked them to provide a self-assessment and reflection in any format they chose as means of establishing their level of “Engagement”.
Ways in which the students demonstrated learning and engagement...
Following a trip to Google with my entire computer science class, a few were selected to represent New York in a National computer competition. Below is a recap of their adventure: