Source: www.hope-academic.org.uk
Here are some of the resources we looked at as we bookmarked them to our Delicious links.
Free Technology for Teachers
Math Links You Might Have Missed
Mathcasts.org
Math 24 7
Algebra 1 Online
Modules
Please leave a comment with another favorite activity you would share with your students.
As we get ready for the students to come back this September, let’s take a look at some resources that are available to us.
English Language Listening Lab
Promoting Multiple Representations in Algebra
Foreign Language Voicethread Ning
Math Counts for All Learners
Examples:
Fractions Activity
Annenberg Videos
We’ll also review the UDL Guidelines as we look at the existing lessons you brought with you and work together to embed the UDL Framework.
Sometimes we need to go back to the beginning and review the WHY behind the tools and concepts we are using to help our students. We have spent hours looking at the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines and talking about the UDL Framework.
Today we are going to refocus ourselves on the Three Brain Networks. We’re going to redefine the Recognition, Strategic and Affective Networks and how you can customize your lessons to provide multiple alternatives for your students. We’ll be working on this as a group, but you can do this activity independently here.
We have to acknowledge that we don’t always have all the technology at our fingertips that we’d like to have. We know much of it is on the way, or listed on a purchase order somewhere, but until it is in our classrooms and installed correctly, how are we going to begin using all the methods that we’ve learned to use with our students?
Today we’re going to talk about a typical classroom with three computers and how to utilize those few computers and still attain the goal of multiple methods of representation from our students. We’re also going to work on improving a lesson that uses many UDL strategies in a direct instruction format. By working together to embed more of the elements of the UDL Framework, we can reach more of our students through our successful lessons.
Here are some of the resources we’ll be using today:
http://math247.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
http://thinkingblocks.com/
As we work together to increase our UDL activity database, we are going to continue to use Delicious to remain organized. The more familiar we are with the strategies we can use to remove the barriers that keep our students from meeting their learning objectives, the more likely we are going to be to determine what type of tool or material will help them in the classroom or at home. But if we don’t remain organized and familiar with the tools we review and feel comfortable with, we won’t be able to make them available to our students so that they can experience success.
Some of the resources we’re going to use today are:
Special Education Technology
http://www.setbc.org/setinfo/bcudl/resources.html
Thinking UDL
http://anitas.edublogs.org/
The BC UDL Learning Object Repository
http://setbc.ca/BCUDL/
We are going to spend some time today talking about how to manage your UDL classroom with all the choices you are making available and the technology you now have to maintain. Two questions to keep in mind as you peruse the resources are: Which techniques have worked for you in the past? and 2. Which techniques have backfired?
Here is a list of resources that we are going to review to help us establish some guidelines that we will use as a group.
Learners with Laptops
http://learnerswithlaptops.wikispaces.com/Technology+and+Classroom+Management
Classroom Management in Irving Independent School District
http://www.irvingisd.net/one2one/classroom_management.htm
Classroom Management: Strategies That Work
http://www.theteachersguide.com/ClassManagement.htm
We reviewed many concepts today, but most importantly we attempted to make sure that we are all on the same page. Here’s what we were hopefully able to accomplish as a group today:
1. Review of the UDL framework and how to embed the framework into your lesson plans
2. Understand the concepts of Universal Design for Learning and applications to mathematics
3. Develop action steps to integrate concepts into classroom
4. Free technology tools to develop UDL activities for your lessons
5. Breaking down the barriers – finding UDL solutions
Most of the resources that we used today are found using the tabs at the top of this blog or the links list at the bottom right. Which resource is going to be the most helpful to you in helping you break down the barriers in your math classroom? Please leave the answer in your comment.
Take a look back at the comments from your peers after we met last month. If I were to try to find a common theme, it were to be interactivity. What theme would you find from these comments?
To make sure that we are on the same page moving forward with embedding Universal Design for Learning in our classrooms, we need to make some decisions about our students.
Take a look at this keynote delivered by a young man from Dallas, Dalton Sherman. Listening and watching Dalton speak in front of thousands of educators made me think about the students and educators I work with and I’m hoping that it will open a discussion I’d like to have today about differentiation, engagement and accessibility.
(Thanks goes to Kevin Jarrett for originally blogging about the video last August.)
Dalton Sherman on YouTube
We will all spend some time today exploring the UDL Toolkit Wiki created and maintained by Karen Janowski and Joyce Valenza paying special attention to the page on math tools.
We’ve spent a lot of time working on our Toolkit today. You’ve reviewed a handful of tools that you may or may not want to use in your classroom. Please, before you leave, do one of the following:
1. Leave a comment here discussing which tool was your favorite, why and how specifically you see using it with your class.
2. Visit Ira Socol’s blog and read his post from April 9 called Not Getting to Universal Design. Please leave Ira a comment on his blog.
3. Visit my Delicious links and choose another tool tagged “UDL”. Leave a comment here letting us know which tool you selected. Be prepared to demonstrate the tool the next time we meet as a group.
We hope the theories behind Universal Design for Learning are all coming together for you and that you are excited to implement the strategies in your classrooms.
Where do we go from here? What skills are you working on with your students? We should always determine the skills before we determine which tool will help us remove barriers and provide flexibility in the classroom.
Comment on what your goal for yourself is for the next month. What skill are you working on?
