GMST513 - Assessment in MST

Traditionally curricula have been planned for an imaginary "average". This has resulted in inflexible curricula that have not met the needs of most students. In this paper, Meo discusses how to integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into the curriculum planning process to include all students from the start.

An in-depth look at higher-order thinking skills including importance of, teaching strategies, and assessments.

This site is valuable as an introduction to UDL.

This website had some examples of UDL based lessons. I found them to be interested and a good template for creating your own UDL lessons.

Thanks Nicki. This site has many useful lessons. I can see ways to use the butterfly lessons with the programs I conduct now.

This article makes a nice connection between STEM and UDL. It nine pages but an easy read. Some of the information is very basic but could be helpful for some.

I thought this would be especially interesting for the math and science people. Student feedback is essential in understanding how a teacher's mode of instruction enhances or hinders their learning.

I agree with you Jess. The more data you have in order to better teach the class, the better results you are going to get with your students.

I enjoyed reading this article, particularly the information in table 1, where the students were asked to respond to the class activities by using the Likert Scale.

This article follow 57 students from 4 different middle school over the course of a school year. The students completed work that was both traditional and UDL based. The article is kind of long but I found it to be pretty interesting.

NO. Finally someone in support of the standards!

I actually really enjoyed this website! I do not think standards are necessarily a bad thing as long as they are specific enough for teachers to understand what is expected. I think like we have talked about, PLC are a great way to determine what exactly the standards mean to teachers in a particular school and to teach based around that. I see the standards as guidelines for lessons. Although I am not quite teaching yet and may be missing something, I do not see the standards as THAT bad. The only bad thing is that the standards dictate what is on the state exams and those are bad. This article was interesting to read to see how specfic schools are using their standards to do good in the school.

I am not actually teaching yet either and I often wonder if I am missing something because I also do not feel negatively about the standards. I feel like standards are helpful and it is what we do with those standards as teachers that really make a difference.

Includes: State Standards, Goals, Methods, Materials, Assessment, Curriculum Content Resources, English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Lesson Ideas, Suggested Software Tools, Internet Browser Software, Free TTS Software, Software and Internet Classroom Tools, Universal Design for Learning, Related Books and Articles

This site has a lot of concrete information, examples, and lesson ideas for practicing UDL. It's a quick, 'at-your-fingers' guide.

I've been using this site off and on for a while now and I've found that it's a great reference when developing material and ideas for the classroom. I'm glad you posted it because it was a nice reminder of just how useful the site really can be! The 'goal' section relates closely with this assessment course too!

Exactly what it says on the tin! A quick and simple explanation of what self-regulated learning is and some ways to begin addressing it in your classroom!

Interesting! I like that it has the strategies part. Although written for adult learners, this really relates to all learners!

"Self-regulated learning strategies are research-based instructional techniques to help learners monitor and manage their own learning skills and habits. When paired with strategy instruction and metacogntive processes, instructors have a powerful learning toolkit to share with learners."... I really like the monitor and manage ideas of this article, M&M's???

An interesting perspective on UDL, these seminars align with CCSS and UDL!

This is a PDF I found last year and I really enjoyed reading it! Click on the first link on this Google search for the file.

Give examples in various subjects

Its a good start for developing some of your own activities. Seeing how different levels of thinking can be aimed for in these examples will definitely help me later to write my own!

This is a great resource and can you get you jump started on ideas that be used in a classroom right away.

If you have maybe 10-15 minutes, look through these slides. There are many, but I think you will find some value in the information and the links off of the slides! Some of the information may not be relevant but I enjoyed most of it!

This article is quite lengthy but well worth the read. It's talks about the past, present and future use of technology in education and how teachers can use technology to reach learners 'in the margins' (UDL). If anything, at least read the conclusion!

Wow! I definitely want to take the time to sit down and read the entire article! We so often leave behind those children that are in the margins.

I read this article in September and it just made me think about how far creativity in math can go

This article and video was actually interesting to read and watch. I am all about somehow finding a way to express and encourage creativity in any class but especially math class. I however do not see a wrong answer with a good reason behind it as creative. Maybe the reason was creative but then they are taught that they do not really need to know the material as long as they are creative with their explanation. This is a little weird to me. I am all about making mistakes and showing that mistakes and being wrong are NOT bad. However, the mistakes must be used in order to help fix the misunderstanding or else the student is not learning the material. Having a creative mistake and creative reasoning behind that mistake is great and all, but at the end of the day the teacher must find ways to solve this misconception so that the student knows the correct information.

Easy guide to mastering the 3 principles of UDL

I am a big fan of the wheel. It does a great job of providing examples and explaing the three principals in a format that is not too overwhelming. I will be using this as a reference tool.

After reading chapter 7, I wanted to see how exactly to include creativity in a math class. This article shows that the beginning of having creativity in a classroom is for students to know that making mistakes and being wrong is ok! This article gives details on how to begin to set creativity as a learn target in math.

"It seems to me that very few children are being taught to love maths or to get excited about it. There's a widespread perception that maths is simply a set of methods that must be learned in order to be able to cope with life after school." I see this a lot in my resource room, my students hate math because most of their material is taught as a process or procedure to get a solution instead of relating it to situations they will be faced with. I think this is where the creativity piece must come in; generating the "ah, aha and haha", and even the "oh", words in the classroom through challenging activities means students are truly starting to understand the mathematics. Students don't want to take risks because they are afraid of getting the answer wrong, but this is the part of learning in math that many students need the most -- they learn best from their mistakes.

My favorite line in this article is, "If maths is to be a creative subject then we have to regard it as a subject where it is OK to get things WRONG." Many times I have heard students say that in math you are either wrong or right and there is no in between. Some students say this is why they like math others say this is why they hate it. Those that like this process are usually good at math or following formulas and directions. What I think both of these groups of students need to realize is math is what is happening between the wrong and the right answer. The teacher should provide them with opportunities to discover math processes using their creativity and building upon their mistakes.

The article examines how the universal design for learning (UDL), an educational framework, can be used to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) instruction in special education. According to the authors, the UDL principles can make STEM curricular materials more accessible and improve the educational experiences of students with varying learning needs. Information is provided on the aspects of instruction that constitute UDL such as clear goals, learner variability plans, and flexible teaching methods.

This article seems to very clearly tell how UDL is related to STEM and how it really needs to be implemented in the STEM (or STEAM) curriculum. It seems like a good article to start with in understanding the use of UDL in the classroom.

"Students with disabilities rarely enter the STEM workforce, even though many are highly capable of making valuable contributions" The whole reason UDL was initially started was to target students with disabilities and ensure they were meeting learning targets as well. I think, unfortunately, this statistic is true but if UDL were successfully implemented in more STEM classrooms in middle and high schools we would see more students with disabilities entering the STEM workforce with confidence.

Here is another resource I used for DI in a past class. I like the examples it shared. It got me thinking about what else I could do.

I really liked the answer to Question 8 - How can I provide choice in activities and assignments? It's a quick, simple list of choices students can pick from depending on how they learn best. This really helps target the multiple means of presentation principle of UDL