[Prompt: How might you incorporate principles of UDL into your own classroom?]
Based on the overview of Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, it's apparent that there are 3 different components - Recognition, Strategic, and Affective networks. Therefore, I think it makes the most sense to approach each of these individually in my classroom.
Recognition deals with how a student gathers facts in order to learn, with variations such as auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners. In my future math or science classroom, I think it will be very beneficial for all of my students if the learning takes place both visually on the SmartBoard, whiteboard, projector, and handouts as well as aurally through videos, lectures, and demonstrations. I will reach the kinesthetic learners by providing avenues for movement through group activities that take kids around the classroom (like a carousel or graffiti activity) and hands-on tasks through laboratory assignments and projects where they're doing and creating. This component also deals with students who might have a "learning disability" such as being deaf, blind, or physically handicapped; all of those students would be given accommodations on a need by need basis.
The strategic component deals with performing and planning tasks. This can be approached by giving students different opportunities to tackle the assignments. It might not be feasible for a choice in every activity, but there will be opportunities to choose and other times I will give them variations. This could be done by having the students work in groups and some groups solving math problems the "conventional" way, while others attempt to solve it with a different approach. The groups could then switch for the next problem(s) so that everyone is getting a chance to work with their preferred method at some point. This will also help students be introduced to learning styles that are novel for them.
Finally, the affective portion has to do with the emotional and motivational aspects of learning. This is probably one of the most difficult areas that new and veteran teachers deal with. From a behavior management perspective, I recently saw an idea on Pinterest that uses CandyLand to motivate classes to display and maintain positive behavior by encouraging competition between the class periods. This is definitely something I would like to incorporate into my classroom, and the blog posting about it can be found here. Other things I would like to use is to break my grading policies into academic and nonacademic factions to help students focus on content mastery instead of just "plugging and chugging" their way through homework and classwork to get a good grade. I think if they're individually seeing their progress they will be more inspired to work hard.
Overall, I think UDL is a great principle and necessary in my future classroom. Some things might be a bit daunting to include up front, but it's certainly something I want to work towards during my first year of teaching and beyond.
