UDL Reflections

UDL was just another acronym to me up until a few weeks ago.and I had a very vague understanding of what it was. I have learned that just like many other facets of life, learning is individualized and idiosyncratic. Straying from a one size fits all approach and incorporating UDL is the only way to meet the needs of every student.

The CAST website has some very helpful tools and resources that are teacher friendly and will aid you in the process of differentiating you lessons to make them more flexible and accessible to all students.  Here are some of my favorite resources that helped acclimate me to UDL and its applications.

http://www.CAST.org- This website is a good place to start because it gives you a better understanding of what UDL is and why it is necessary.


http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/- There are some fun activities here and one in particular that has you pick an activity, identify the background skills and interests of individuals, and identify strengths and challenges of individuals. This helps you understand what each individual brings to the table, recognize individual strengths and challenges, and that students do not fall into broad categories.

 http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples- This is useful in selecting examples and resources that show each of the UDL checkpoints. This gives teachers ways to implement UDL, and all products listed are free.

http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/tools/classprofiletutorial.cfm-This is a useful tutorial that shows how to create a learning profile by considering each individual student with respect to the three brain networks. 

 

http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/tk_introduction.cfm?tk_id=21- Here is a toolkit that helps with planning for all learners. It applies UDL to planning and developing curricula in ways that access, participation, and progress for all learners. 

Now knowing about all the helpful tools and resources that are available and free, I will utilize them moving forward.  I will frequent the UDL principles for different ways and examples to implement UDL in the classroom across all three networks. 

Resources Below 
 
http://www.CAST.org
 http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/
  http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples
 http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/tools/classprofiletutorial.cfm
 http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/tk_introduction.cfm?tk_id=21

 Pictures found at

  http://einstructionaldesign.wikispaces.com/file/view/udl_group--4.png/358512937/udl_group--4.png