Universal Design for Learning

 Universal Design for Learning is focusing on making the curriculum more accessible for all students. There are 3 domains that are focused on with there being objectives being broken down in each to give more specific information about how to achieve the goal of each domain. The three domains are engagement, representation, and action and expression. Engagement is focused of increase students' buy-in to learning therefore ensuring they gain more from a lesson. The representation domain is all about making sure that cultural differences and physical and academic disabilities do not impede the learner's ability to understand what is being taught. Action and expression are what we also think of different learning styles. It is presenting information in different ways so that all learners can access the lesson. 

Being a former special education teacher this type of thinking is very familiar to me. Try to encooperate many of these ideas in my teaching in the library now. One thing I always try to do when setting expectations for a lesson is to go over the directions orally and have them written out with a visual next to it as well. For the younger students they even do hand motions for some of the rules. Another thing I do is I algin my lessons with what is being taught in the classroom and I try to build background knowledge based on what they are going to be learning in class. I like to find and teach vocabulary with in the text that I use in the library so that all students understand what is being read. When using technology I teach my students how to use accessibility tools such as speech to text and Google voice text so that they are able to access resources independently. 

When looking at the different domains and what I could add to my curriculum starting tomorrow is offering students different ways to present their learning. Often I just ask questions at the end of my lesson to see if students are understanding but I could allow the to write a short exit ticket or even act out what they have learned. We do a lot of activates in the library where students design and build something to complete a challenge. Not all students are successful so I would like to teach goal building and how to break things down into small steps. I believe this will help with their executive functioning skills and allow them to be more successful on the challenges. Also I need to allow for time for redesign when failure happens so that students are able to correct their thinking and find a solution to the problem. 

One objective that I was interested in being able to implement but are not sure where to start is with assistive technology so that students don't just have to only use a mouse or keyboard. In the UDL Guidelines it talks about using switches and alternate keyboards or keyboard commands to increase access to technology. I am not sure how to go about finding those resources or how to use them. I would also like to learn how to add captioning to videos that I create for the library and our school news. 

In order to implement the UDL strategies that I need assistance with I believe the first resource that I would need is the Assistive Technology department. I believe that they could help me with finding alternative keyboards and know the different commands that can help provide more access. I found a great article from the University of Washington about how to caption videos for free using a few different tools that can help me achieve that goal. I also would need to learn more about different assistive technology software that are out there. The University of Michigan has a great resource with a list of all kinds of assistive technology and software and how each one is used and for whom it would best fit. I have linked both of these resources below. The last resource I think it is important to talk about is CAST.org website that publishes the UDL guidelines. I think it is important to go back and refer to the guidelines and also see if there are any new learning as they revise the guidelines regularly. 

University of Washington Captioning Article 

University of Michigan Software & Assistive Technology

UDL: Offer alternatives for auditory information. (2018, January 12). Udlguidelines.Cast.Org. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/representation/perception/alternatives-auditory