Moving Beyond The Classroom

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/vg0827-691197-gutierrezv/

Reflection on UDL and DI

During the last eight weeks I have learn a great deal of valid information. I have understood the meaning of Universal Design for Learning and the ways to perfect Differentiated Instruction. UDL and Di are based on meeting all the students’ needs.
First, in order to meet their needs, we need to know what type of learner they are and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. A great way to learn this information about students is by giving them an opportunity to take Learning style survey. Of course there are several surveys available to the world on the Internet, but the one I fond the most is, http://www.scholastic.com/familymatters/parentguides/middleschool/qui... because this survey can be shared with the guardians of the children. Parents need to know whom their child is in order to know what can be done to help him or her.
Now that I have studied the type of learners I have in my classroom, I have learned that my student population is mostly visual learners and Ells. In this case, I am going to model my lessons with many images and videos. A great site that I can use in a majority of my lessons is http://www.english-4kids.com/videos.html
In addition to including more visuals and videos into my modeled lessons, I also need to keep my students engaged throughout the process to the product. A great site that reinforces almost any topic is http://pbskids.org/lions/ . Students can be given the opportunity to revisit a topic by visiting this site and reviewing what they have learned. The reason was this site or any site is beneficial for the students are because we are providing “option” to the learner. Option means to give the students the chance to choose how they want to learn a topic. On the same matter, we also have to give the students choice on how they want to demonstrate what they have learned by choosing their product. Some students enjoy being verbal, or artistic, or simply write what they have learned so we need to allow them to use Blogs or Voice threads or Power Point to meet their own personal expectations.
The immediate adjustment, I will implement in my classroom is providing students with choice. I think that choice is the secret into allowing every learner succeed and meet their goals!

UDL PRESENTATION

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Presentation

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REFLECTION TIME

Ironically one thing I learned this semester is how important it is to reflect. Reflection time is the moment a student can think back to what was learned and what he or she will grasp onto for their educational journey. I have learned so much and will use almost everything I learned in my career as an educator. 

The GAME plan for example helped me discover my personal goals as well as showed me how vital it is to introduce a GAME plan to my students. I learned that as an educator I need to integrate myself better into the Digital world. After knowing this, I was able to set myself up with an action plan that will guide me to monitor and evaluate my goal. Now I am ready and excited to begin a new year with programs that will create a Digital world for my students as well as myself. I have found websites with programs for every subject! Last year I only used technology programs for math and reading but this year I can target all the subjects I teach! In addition, I will begin the year by modeling my GAME plan and helping my students map out their own GAME plan! It will be great! I have the resources and ideas needed to succeed because of what I learned the past seven weeks!

In addition to jump starting the year with a GAME plan, I will model and assign students project based assignments. This means, I will first model to students the programs I am now aware of ( wikis, digital stories, blogs, etc) , then have them create a project using one of these technologies to describe themselves! It will be a simple objective but it is meant to expose them to the ways in which we can use tools/programs on the web! 

I am very lucky to have taken this course during the summer because I am now ready to start off the year with a whole new world of technology!

Veronica

"GAME" PLAN FOR STUDENTS

Technology Standards for students and for teachers inter-relate with one another. The major standards that apply for teachers, also apply for students. For example, social, ethical, and human issues is important for students to understand the responsibilities and respect that comes with using technology and for teachers is is our job to promote this respect and model the responsibilities. In addition, another standard that demonstrates how the standards inter-relate is the communication standard. Students are expected to "collaborate and interact with experts and other audiences" while teachers are asked to "use technology to communicate and collaborate with peers, parents, and the larger community in order to nurture student learning". This again shows how the NETS-S and NETS-T inter-relate in order to model and guide the students into the right direction with technology. 

The best way for teachers to teach these NETS-S standards to students is by modeling a GAME plan. I will model to my students how I choose a goal from the standards and reflected upon that goal for several weeks. Then I will ask students to do the same. Each student will choose a goal from the NETS-S. After they have chosen their goal I plan on putting students in groups of 2 with a classmate that shares the same goal. These partnerships will be responsible to work on their goal and reflect on their goal by asking themselves; What am I doing? How can I improve? What have I accomplished thus far? These partnerships will be monitored by asking to reflect upon these three questions at the end of every week for 8 weeks. Hopefully, at the end of 8 weeks, they will have accomplished their goal and can choose a new one. By the end of the year, I expect to see progress in each student within the NETS-S standards.

"GAME"-PLAN REFLECTION

• What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice? 

Thus far I have learned about the sites that I have posted in the past posts that I will be using with my students to stay afloat with "digital learning."

• What goals are you still working toward? 

I am still working on what skills to apply to students in order to make the "digital learning" experience diverse. However, I cannot accomplish this until I know who my students will be come fall. 

• Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

A new goal I would like to focus on is one that I can begin now without my students. The goal is communication and collaboration. Within this goal I want to specifically focus on how to:

"communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats."

• What learning approaches will you try next time to improve your learning?

Next time I will begin to focus on my new goal by signing up for educational blogs and connecting an RSS reader to the blogs in order to stay up to date with the newest ideas. 

"GAME" plan continues

How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?

Thus far, I was able to follow the first few steps. I have not been able to do the last steps which is to analyze student data and create goals alongside with students because of the time of year, however I feel ready since I have the sites set up.
https://nyc-acuity.mcgraw-hill.com/index.jsp (English Language Arts and Math)
http://165.155.107.202/lms (Math)
http://4kids.org/games/ (Math and Language Arts)
http://www.mrnussbaum.com/ (Science, Social Studies, Math, and English Language Arts)

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I have learned that designing lessons for our digital native students is easier than I thought. There are so many resources available online that can assist any teacher with any lesson or any students with any skill with the use of the Internet.

What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?

I have to learn how to make time into the class schedule for using websites to reinforce skills. My questions are:
How often should I allow time for students to visit these sites in the classroom?
How often should I assign homework using these sites?

How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

At this point in my plan I do not need to adjust anything. However, once schools begins I think I will make adjustments on the when to create goals with students based on their data.