USING TECHNOLOGY TO TRANSFORM THE NATURE OF THE
CURRICULUM
A Professional Development Project for
English Language Arts (AND …?) at …
CENTRAL MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL
AGENDA:
1. Introductions
2. Goals for this evening
1. Understanding our Context – Learning for a New Century
2. Who is ILS and Why would we care?
3. Understanding Differentiation
4. Understanding Technology
5. Targeting Professional Development
6. A Plan …
ETL Newsletter
WHO IS
AND WHY WOULD ANYBODY CARE?
ILS Community of Practice
Write down as many ways as you
can to describe the learning
challenges your students bring
with them to their schooling – the
diversity among your learners you
encounter in your classes.
In your group, write in the centre a
summary of your groups analysis.
DIVERSITY
The Challenge(s)
The Opportunities
Motivation -
ESL
Not critical thinkers
ADHD
Lack a framework for their
thinking
Sequencing information
Worksheet kind of people
Managing information
Disinterested
Reading
Transferring creativity
Discouraged and defeatist
Not engaged
Accessing traditional
learning
Lack of empathy and
understanding different
points of
Organizing information
Lack learning strategies
10% IPP
Motivated, interested,
sense of humour
Time challenged
Need challenge
Outside engaged
worldy
Family (re-defining)
USING TECHNOLOGY TO TRANSFORM THE NATURE OF THE CURRICULUM
Differentiating Through Universal Design for Learning
What’s Driving the Agenda(s) …
1. Changing
Landscapes
Placing greater
demands for
21st Learners to
master
21st century
skills
2. Brain Research
New insights into the learning brain shed light on
learner differences and effective uses of technology.
3. Differentiation
Differentiation is essentially giving students multiple options
for learning. This includes how information is presented, how
students build concepts and how they choose to demonstrate
their understanding. As one can imagine, this dramatically
changes what we understand as the "traditional classroom."
4. The Role of Digital Media in Differentiating for
Instruction
• To help select the most suitable medium or use of multiple media
simultaneously
• To convert material from one medium to another on the fly
• To modify the appearance of information within one medium
• To delve more deeply or connect laterally to other concepts through links
• To communicate with many different people through networked
computers
Universal Design for Learning …
… argues the divergent needs of special
populations increases usability for everyone.
… argues for helping ALL learners achieve by
building in three kinds of flexibility:
• Representing information in multiple
formats and media
• Providing multiple pathways for action and
expression
• Providing multiple ways to engage connecting interest and motivation
Teaching Using UDL
Challenges us to rethink the nature of our work and provide the FLEXIBILITY
necessary to serve diverse needs.
Challenges us to re-think HOW we provide content in differentiated ways,
how we …
• Provide Individual supports
• Provide challenges differently and appropriately for each learner
• Set Goals
• Assess progress with effective and ongoing assessment
• Measure progress
• Adjust our work after evaluating the methods and tools being
deployed
Flexible Media - Content-Free and Content-Rich
Resources
Content-free resources. (productivity tools) - Are software applications, which are programs
developed to solve a particular problem or to perform a particular task or function and that allow
us to "access, retrieve, store, organize, manipulate, and present information by electronic means.
Content-free resources also include communication tools, which can be used to transmit, receive,
and transform data, content, and conversations and can be synchronous or asynchronous .
Content Rich Resources - Are resources that are high interest, relevant, informative, and
visually engaging and that make connections with and motivate and challenge the
learner. These resources that have a clear learning intention or support a learning
process (sometimes referred to as "learning objects") Content-rich resources can also
include discrete video and audio clips, images, animations, and text documents ("digital
assets"), which can be used individually or can be sequenced and combined by
teachers to support their learning intention.
Include interactive CD-ROMs, learning objects, digital assets, databases, and websites.
Flexible Media - Content-Free and Content-Rich Resources
SOME EXAMPLES:
SOME MORE EXAMPLES
Conclusions
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING…
The three UDL principles share one common
recommendation: to provide learners with a wider
variety of options.
Access to these options is tied directly to the use and
management of technology.
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING
• How are you assessing the needs of your
learners?
• In what ways are you meeting the diverse needs
of your learners?
• How do you know that you are being
successful?
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING … As a model to drive our
PD Agenda(s)
Challenges us to rethink the nature of our work and
provide the FLEXIBILITY necessary to serve
diverse needs.
…
Challenges us to re-think HOW we …
• Provide Individual supports
• Provide challenges differently and
appropriately for each learner
• Set Goals
• Assess progress with effective and
ongoing assessment
• Measure progress
• Adjust our work after evaluating the
methods and tools being deployed
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING …
…SOME Suggestions
•
Select the most suitable medium or use of multiple
media in simultaneous ways,
•
Allow for conversion of material from one medium to
another on the fly
•
Modify the appearance of information within one
medium
•
Provide opportunities to delve more deeply or connect
laterally to other concepts through links and
•
Allow for communicate with many different people
through networked computers.
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING …
… shifts our practices and our structures. It
challenges us to rethink the nature of our work,
building in inherent flexibility necessary to serve
diverse needs.
UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING …Some Resources:
CAST – http://www.cast.org
Centre for Leadership in Education –
http://www.centernet.org/udlproject.htm
UDL David Rose Column–
http://jset.unlv.edu/15.4/asseds/rose.html
HOW PEOPLE LEARN – http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/
HOW TO BEGIN LAYERED CURRICULUM –
http://help4teachers.com/how.htm
The purpose of this project is …
To explore the principles of Universal Design
for Learning through an expanded, action
research driven pilot project in ELA
classrooms at Central Memorial