In this week’s reading from Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice (Meyer, Rose, Gordon 2013), John Mundorf spoke about the paradigm shift from thinking about student disability towards considering the disabilities and faults in the curriculum. He states that we, as the educator, can control the environment, the goals of a lesson, and the materials we use within the lesson so we need to focus on that instead of “listing problems” with students. This really stood out to me because I have encountered many teachers who tend to focus on the problems they are having with specific students instead of taking a UDL approach to difficult situations. Perseverating on challenging students is not helpful and leads to frustration. When we shift our attention to the areas we can control, it is easier to maintain a positive outlook. It reminds me of the serenity prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” There are many things that our students face that we cannot change, but the way we teach is something we have the power to change...if we are brave enough to try.
When I see that students are struggling with something that I have assigned, I take another look at the way I have taught the information, not just throw blame at the students. Just today, I created a new document to try to solve an issue I was having with my classes. I had spent a lot of time working last weekend on revamping my planning sheets for students. I have a total of nine different planning sheets, one for each different theme that students can choose from when deciding on their idea for their artwork. I had realized that the planning sheets as they were were missing something. With the help of my teacher friend, I was able to revise these sheets in hopes of making them work better. I rolled out the new sheets to students at the beginning of this week and one thing that I discovered was that the students were having a hard time keeping track of where they were in the process. Since we all have chromebooks and the first page of the sheet was filled with hyperlinks, I didn’t print them out. I discovered that some students really have a hard time managing having multiple windows open on their computer. I also realized that I needed to label the planning sheets with “Step 1, Step 2, etc.” Today, I created a blank template of the planning sheet with further instructions that could hopefully clarify directions and serve as a visual reminder of which step they were on. I printed these sheets out today and gave them to my last period class. I am not sure if this really helped or not yet, but at least I am trying! I was able to point at the sheet and ask, “Which step are you on right now.” Which was easier when had a concrete piece of paper vs. something on a screen. When listening to Lindsay Tavares share her story of the lesson that didn’t go as planned, I could totally relate. There have been many times when I have tried to plan a great lesson for students, but it falls flat. In my high school classes, it can be hard to predict how the students will react to a lesson. Teenagers seem to be especially prone to variability dependent on the time of day, their relationships at school or at home, how hungry they are or how much sleep they got (or didn’t get). Now throw 20+ of these young people in a room together and the variability grows exponentially. This can be overwhelming to consider, but at the same time gives me some solace in knowing that the task of hitting the nail on the head for every lesson is not an easy one. It helps me to be kind to myself and not feel like a failure when my hours of preparation don’t go as planned. Now, I think it is important to note that the fact that this is challenging does NOT mean that you should just accept the status quo. I believe that our kids deserve to learn and we as educators need to strive to do our very best for our students by remaining reflective and refusing to settle for what is easy. Over the past months, I have worked to implement some of the strategies that we have been learning about and I feel more confident in my overall understanding of the concept of UDL. There is still so much more to learn, but I think that will always be the case.
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AuthorMrs. Taborda is the studio art teacher at Oxford High School in Oxford, MA. This blog will document her journey as an educator and share the happenings of the OHS art room. Archives
November 2018
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