Universal Design for Learning Background

Universal Design for Learning Background

Teri Engleman

EDU673: Instructional Strategies for Differentiated Teaching & Learning

May 23, 2011

Differentiation requires a teacher to be knowledgeable of her students and their needs. By acknowledging and adapting lessons to individual differences teachers can be more effective with their instruction. Ms. Engleman has a diverse group of students in her class, and in order to be sure each student is understanding and retaining the lessons taught she must use differentiation. The following paper is an example of how Ms. Engleman can differentiate her lessons.

In Ms. Engleman’s class at Early Discoveries there are currently 14 children in attendance. The program is designed for at-risk four year olds, so each of these students meet certain at-risk factors. This class consists of eight girls and six boys. When considering family life, eleven children have at least one military parent, three are non-military, and out of the 14 two children come from single parent homes. One of the students has been diagnosed with ADHD and two others, according to a doctor or psychologist, show ADHD behaviors. Finally, two of Ms. Engleman’s students have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for speech. All of these individual characteristics are important when considering how to approach instruction in the classroom because “the starting point for educators who apply UDL framework is to gather facts about the diverse learners in their classroom” (Thousand et al., 2007, p. 37).

This month, the curriculum goals include learning home addresses. To meet this goal, Ms. Engleman has developed differentiated activities to meet the needs of each student. Some students come already able to recite their address. For these students, the lesson will extend to writing the address to further solidify recognition. The students who don’t already know their address can practice verbal repetition until they memorize it and then move on to writing. Lastly, several students have a very difficult time remembering the house number along with the street name. To tackle this obstacle, these students will practice the street name and afterwards will add on the house number to the address until he/she can recite the address from memory.

Something else Ms. Engleman needs to take into consideration is a student’s learning style. In her class, some children respond really well to music; they are auditory learners. To appeal to these children a song could be developed to aid in the process of memorization. For the visual learners, it is important to incorporate addresses throughout the classroom. So, Ms. Engleman created center and bathroom tags with student addresses printed on them. In blocks, each student’s picture and address are taped to the blocks and the students are encouraged to “build a neighborhood.” In dramatic play and writing center there is an address book with all of the children’s photos and addresses. For the tactile/kinesthetic learner Ms. Engleman offers plastic letter and number magnets for the students to assemble his/her address. These students can also write their addresses in shaving cream to add to their sensory intake.

To explain evidence of learning, a particular classroom method must first be described. As a classroom management technique, students are given center tags to display which interest center they are playing in throughout center time. Before center time begins Ms. Engleman passes out center tags based on student knowledge of his/her address. During the first week addresses are introduced, Ms. Engleman simply has students repeat the address back to her. The second week she will ask the class “Who lives at insert address here?” For example, who lives at

123 Baker Lane

? Ms. Engleman can determine who is able to recall at least a part of his/her address; and for those who cannot, she will return to the week one method. The third week Ms. Engleman will ask each child to recite his or her address in order to receive a center tag. This determines who has memorized their address. For the students who are unable to recite it from memory, Ms. Engleman will return to the address recognition technique of week two.

In summary, differentiation requires adaptation to individual students’ learning needs. By taking learning styles into account, Ms. Engleman was able to provide students with a variety of ways in which they can learn their addresses. To effectively instruct a group of diverse students the instructional methods must include differentiation.

References:

Thousand, J., Villa, R. & Nevin, A. (2007). Differentiating instruction: Collaboratively planning and teaching for universally designed learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.