Maria Bacigalupo
Curry College
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Instructional climate
◦ What’s in your wallet?
◦ Partner introductions
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Speaker introduction
◦ Q: Who may remain for Part II?
What if?
Why?
Parts I and II
Part I
How?
What?
Part II
Part I
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Why universally design?
◦ Civil Engineers: Research to avoid accidents
 Intersections
 Road ends here
◦ Health and Safety Committee: mishaps
◦ I’m not a teacher, I’m a professor
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What if we universally designed?
◦ We repaired the pavement
◦ Took responsibility for intersections of learning
◦ Checked to see if they learned what we thought we
taught
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Why?
◦ Competition is an American value
◦ But so is pluralism, diversity, the American dream
◦ Integrity: Stephen L. Carter (Yale)
 Doing the research to determine right from wrong
 Taking a stand, even at personal cost
 Making that stand known…speaking it
◦ Obligation to prepare students: Informed citizens
 Basing votes on considered research
 Take a stand
 Write, speak or act about it
◦ What if? We became more transparent
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about what we teach
how we teach it
How it is aligned to overarching goals
How successful we are
◦ What if? More curriculum was transparent?
◦ What if? We made outcomes transparent?
◦ What if? Our success rates were transparent?
 Akin to disclosing hospital infection rates
◦ What if? We took responsibility for intersections of
learning?
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What if? More students succeeded?
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More disabled students
More bi-lingual students
More students from lower SES backgrounds
More minority students
More women
More adult students
More average and gifted students with varying learning
styles
Everyone in the class “got it” better?
Woohoo!
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Aligned Curriculum
Universal Design for Instruction (UDI)
◦ Shaw; McGuire (U Conn)
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Differentiated Instruction (DI)
◦ Tomlinson
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Once I thought teaching professors about
how to accommodate all (as in each and
every) student with a different disability made
sense
BUT: the teacher professors connect most
primarily to their field of study
Our field of study (disabilities) is not theirs
ADD
Reading
Math
Writing
Language disorders
Non-verbal LD
Organizational/Executive Function
Blind
Deaf
Physical disabilities
etc
Co-existing:
Depression
Substance abuse
OCD
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Too much to ask
Too much to expect
BUT
◦ What if we could design curriculum that
accommodated a large range of learners?
◦ That could work!
◦ BUT
◦ We need a simple framework for understanding
 on which to hang ideas
 There are two: U Conn and Tomlinson
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9 Principles of Universal Design
Pp120-121 (handout)
By Scott, McGuire and Shaw
© 2001
Arose out of disabilities movement
“UD” – Architecture
◦ Need no further adaptations
◦ Happy side-effect – beneficial to many non”disabled”
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Constraint: not complete framework for
understanding
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Differentiated Instruction (DI)
◦ Emerged from gifted education
◦ ©1999
Content
Process
Product
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What we teach
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Content
Books
Lecture notes
Films
Overarching goals
Explicit curriculum
Implicit curriculum (hidden curriculum)
 Values
 Collateral skills
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Often left out of higher education classrooms
Time to process understandings
Embedded assessment
Time to determine if they learned what you
thought you taught!
Biology professor
Whistling cartoon
Homework (but ungraded): making it high
stakes makes it “product” or summative
assessment
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For a fair selection… (handout)
Summative assessment
Exams
Papers
Projects
Rubrics – help with communication about
teaching and learning (handouts)
◦ Professors
◦ Students
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Instructional environment
Building Classroom Culture
◦ Eliot Aronson – jigsaw
◦ Tribes: a way of learning and being together
 What’s in your wallet?
 Partner introductions
Readiness
Interests
Learning
Styles
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I yam what I yam (Popeye)
Start me where I yam
Give me access to the curriculum
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Literary tea party
A choice of content books
A choice of articles
A choice of submitting drafts of papers
Challenge me!
◦ Bloom (handout)
◦ Objectives (handout)
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Self-explanatory
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Let Mgt majors do one project
Let Ed majors do another
Let CJ majors do a third
All relevant to the coursework and their field of
study
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Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences (handout)
Bernice McCarthy (Why, what, how, what if)
Gregorc
◦ concrete v abstract
◦ random v sequential
Content
Process
Product
Readiness
Readiness
Readiness
Interests
Interests
Interests
Learning
Styles
Learning
Styles
Learning
Styles
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To multitude of ideas
Jigsaw –
◦ ah! Principle 7, 8 and 9 (U Conn), and
◦ Content and Process by readiness and interests
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Literary tea party
◦ Ah! Principle 1
◦ Content by readiness and interests, maybe learning
styles
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Improves communication (across disciplines)
about teaching and learning
◦ Inclusive and universal principles
◦ Classroom environment
◦ 3 elements of teaching and 3 elements of inclusion for
ALL learners
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Content
Process
Product
Readiness
Interests
Learning styles
◦ Challenges students to proficient and above level of
performance
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How: Curriculum and Instruction Organizer
What if: to start: Introductory level courses
had C&I Organizers with the curriculum aims
of the department made explicit.
◦ How it aligns to the mission(s)(Dept and college)
◦ Articulated course outcomes
◦ Articulated challenge level (Intro? Reinforced?
Mastery?)
◦ Potential processes, embedded assessments, and
products to use
◦ Articulated classroom climate departmental
expectations/hopes