Article: Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age

Article 1: How do I incorporate universal design in my learning objectives?

Rose, D. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal Design for Learning. Chapter 5: Using UDL to set clear goals. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved September 14, 2007, from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter5.cfm

This chapter discusses the relationship between standards and student diversity in goal setting. Rose and Meyer suggest that the best standards are those that teach students how to learn instead of focusing on specific skills or knowledge. I agree with them completely on this front. I often feel our MLRs are too specific and limit teachers. I have noticed that the revised MLRs (I’ve looked mostly at social studies) are a little more broad and a little less fact-oriented. Hopefully, these changes will help teachers and students focus on the process of learning instead of specific information-driven goals.

I was very interested to read about the idea of brain networks. I studied psychology in college and was very interested in cognition. I am sure we looked at the idea of networks – but its been awhile and new findings have come out to support and flesh-out the network model. Teaching to one or more of the three networks (recognition, affective, and strategic) offers teachers the chance to tap into different realms of understanding with each unit and lesson. I see that determining which standard hooks up with each network may be a challenge. Crafting learning experiences to fit these networks may also be hard to do at first. The technology (E-Trekker) in this article would certainly be a helpful tool to get teachers started teaching to the networks and writing appropriate goals to meet the needs of all learners.

I think I am guilty of writing what Rose and Meyer call “fuzzy goals”. In fact, in conferences this week, I will probably be tempted to write some of these. It is a real challenge to write practical, research-based goals for 44 kids that we will be able to address and meet in a mere 8 or 9 months. Our district picked up the NWEA assessment program last year. This does help in goal setting as it identifies areas of strength and weakness for each student. That gets us started (keeping in mind that this is only one measure). However, the next steps of selecting a goal’s purpose and planning learning engagements is hard to do when every kid’s goals are so varied. A program like E-Trekker would be very helpful to organize this information and keep teachers and students on track for goal attainment.

In the end, I love what this article proposes for teaching and learning. I do see some areas that would need reform in order to do what Rose and Meyer propose…

1. We need more time. For planning. For training. With our students.

2. We need more technology to make this a manageable protocol.

3. We need school administration, teachers, parents, and students to buy in.

4. We need standards based on teaching kids to understand – not just be able to learn specific facts and/or skills.

I think we can do this. I think we will be doing this in the future. I hope our curriculum unit will be able to work toward these ends. We need to start writing goals that motivate kids – rather than sit unattended in a portfolio.