Reflections (Doran)
Reflection #1
At the core of UDL is the premise that often the curriculum is disabled (and disabling!). It is not flexible; it often poses barriers, and consequently prevents rather than supports optimal learning experiences. Do you agree or disagree with this view? Why or why not?
Reflection #2
What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of this approach?
Reflection #3
How can using a variety of materials and methods reach more of the learners within your classroom? What are the benefits of doing so? What are the challenges?
Reflection #4
What barriers are inherent in traditional assessments? What are the challenges in offering varied options for assessment?
Reflection #5
Given the realities of our modern age and the demands of our children’s future, is it really okay to allow teachers to choose whether or not they incorporate modern technologies into their instruction?
Reflection #6
TBA
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of this approach?
I believe there are going to be more weaknesses in the curriculum. If we focus on the weaknesses of the curriculum than we will most likely touch areas that are difficult for the students. Ultimately, there are always challenges for any curriculum no matter how you present the topic because the curriculum is developed by humans and we are not going to make anything perfect. We as teachers have to focus on the students and make sure everyone is being reached.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Reflection2 – I think the benefit at looking for weakness in the curriculum is that you are anticipating pitfalls ahead of time so that you can figure out an approach to help those who would otherwise struggle. It’s similar to pre-assessing your curriculum so that you know what you need and don’t as well as where to focus more of your time. The challenge could be that we make assumptions that this topic should be easy and have no pitfalls and we could be wrong. That’s why pre-assessing can be useful.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Reflection 2; One benefit to analyzing the curriculum for strengths & weaknesses rather than focusing on students’ strengths & weaknesses is that all students are different and learn differently. If you look at the curriculum as a whole and “fix” what needs to be, it’s beneficial for ALL students. Also, you may not be able to pick out every student’s exact strength or weakness. What you think may be a strength may be seen differently by them. This approach may be challenging because it really depends on who is analyzing the curricululm. Again, where one person sees as a weak area, may be seen as a strength to others. I also think it’s hard for any curriculum to change because many feel like it’s “starting over” and that they need time to learn/experience it.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:13 pm
#2- Question: What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of this approach?
Some of the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses, rather than focusing on the student’s own strengths and weaknesses, make it possible to tweak and modify the curriculum as needed. If you evaluate the curriculum, you can eliminate barriers that may come about and you can focus on how the curriculum can best be used. Focusing on each student’s strengths and weaknesses is too time consuming. I feel that if we spend more time on the curriculum, we will be able to be more successful in delivering information to each student.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Reflection 2
Adjusting the curriculum will create a gateway to reach all learners. This ensures that all learners will have the chance to learn with their modality, strengths and preferences as opposed to adjusting to the learners which may then exclude some learners. Instruction must be driven by the goal with regards to the content. The benefits are then that what is good for one often benefits all. Challenges are that educators cannot do all things all the time so adjustments must be well thought out. Another challenge would be choosing too many or not enough adjustments where learning needs are not met.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Reflection #2
The benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses helps when wanting to get away from the one size fits all mentality. The attention should be on the individual needs of our students, not on how well we will score on tests written by people that have no relationship with the students.
We are now focusing on if students actually meeeting the standards of your content. The amount of time it takes to continually reassess students on meeting the standards that they miss is sometimes a bit overwhelming. For me this is a work in progress. Planning, analyzing and modify the curriculum is time consuming. The focus needs to be on what the students have or have not learned.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses imagines a set of goals. We want to work within time constraints tha we anticipate, student abilities and weaknesses that we expect to see, and topics we would like to cover. This is about initial planning and speaks to long term preparedness.
Such planning has to recognize that there will be unexpected changes in schedule, unanticipated highs and lows in student effort and ability, and corresponding adjustments called for in terms of topic choice, calendering, and methodologies.
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Judy, you raise some excellent points. Your comments remind me of DI and providing different levels of assignments for students. I find scaffolding can be so important for learners on the margins.
Linda
May 22nd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of this approach?
For me, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum is very much helpful/beneficial to every educator wherever you are in the world because it will allow the teachers to modify and streamline his /her lesson to cater the needs of every student. It will able every educator to look into the barriers and be able to use appropriate tools and media as well as build flexibility of the materials to be able to effectively individualize instruction to fit the child’s needs and be able to attain success.Of course, this will not be an easy task to do….but not impossible to..
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Yes, the curriculum is often disabling, especially when it uses content that is culturally biased, gender biased, and not age appropriate. Moreover, I believe the use of strict pacing guides, where the teacher is not permitted to use his/her own judgment to re-teach or opt out of instruction is even more impeding. Ideally, I would appreciate the curriculum designers to be actual teachers that are currently teaching that actual grade level and subject that they are designing. These designers should also be familiar with the various poverty levels, the students’ digital access, and parental support of the students that reside in the community.
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Reflection 2:
a) What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses?
b) What are the challenges of this approach?
a) The benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses is important. Educators need to begin instruction with the end in mind. That is, they have to know what they want the students need to know and be able to do to demonstrate mastery of the curriculum. If a curriculum is designed well, it will guide the instructor to help create various opportunities for his/her students to learn the course material. Best Practices say that the opportunities that the teacher creates should be designed with the students’ learning strengths and weaknesses in mind. This will provide rich experiences for the students to extend the learning or to scaffold the learning. Using this approach makes sure the teachers grade the students on mastery of the curriculum rather than on whether or not he/she likes the student or not or on effort.
b) The challenge of this approach is to make the set curriculum come to life for the students. And, this gets more challenging when you look at each individual’s abilities, preferences, and interests rather than looking at the class as one entity and teaching one lesson one way.