Thing 16- Differentiated Instruction & UDL
Differentiation:
For this module, I read all about key elements of Differentiation. There are so many ways to differentiate when creating lessons and units and I was surprised to see all the instances I already use. Differentiation looks like providing multiple, and several flexible methods of presenting information for students. Gicing students choices and options is another large component of Differentiation, and many lessons that I have created over my years of education have provided choices and flexible learning methods for my students. One of my favorite ways for providing flexibility and choice for my students is giving options when it comes to topics that students want to study. For example, I would give students option of types of projects they want to do such as completing a short essay, poster project, poem, power point, etc. Differentiation in the classroom is necessary if I wish for all students to be engaged and to make sure that each student has equal opportunity to succeed.
For this module, I read all about key elements of Differentiation. There are so many ways to differentiate when creating lessons and units and I was surprised to see all the instances I already use. Differentiation looks like providing multiple, and several flexible methods of presenting information for students. Gicing students choices and options is another large component of Differentiation, and many lessons that I have created over my years of education have provided choices and flexible learning methods for my students. One of my favorite ways for providing flexibility and choice for my students is giving options when it comes to topics that students want to study. For example, I would give students option of types of projects they want to do such as completing a short essay, poster project, poem, power point, etc. Differentiation in the classroom is necessary if I wish for all students to be engaged and to make sure that each student has equal opportunity to succeed.
Universal Design for Learning:
UDL (Universal Design for Learning) is defined an educational approach to teaching, learning, and assessment that guides teachers to reach all learners and teach all students by using flexible instructional materials, techniques, and strategies-including differentiation. A universally designed lesson, unit, or curriculum is should meet the needs of the greatest number of learners as possible, even if that means making time-consuming efforts to help students and changing curriculum and teaching plans if necessary.
UDL (Universal Design for Learning) is defined an educational approach to teaching, learning, and assessment that guides teachers to reach all learners and teach all students by using flexible instructional materials, techniques, and strategies-including differentiation. A universally designed lesson, unit, or curriculum is should meet the needs of the greatest number of learners as possible, even if that means making time-consuming efforts to help students and changing curriculum and teaching plans if necessary.
Another aspect in this module that I enjoyed learning about was free text-to-speech resources that allow you to copy and paste text into them in order to hear the printed text. VozMe is a great resource that takes a piece of text and turns it into an MP3 file. It even allows you to hear the reading different language or using a male or female voice. Converters like VozMe are not only beneficial for those with reading difficulties, but are helpful for those who prefer to listen rather than read. They also allow writers to hear their own work and listen for grammatical errors and comprehension fluency. This is a great resource that will be available for students in my classroom, and I would definitely have my students use it to hear their own writing and self edit their work, as well as if I wanted them to follow along to their own reading without me having to be in person to read to them. Below is a screenshot of the VozMe website that I used as well as a link to a recording that I made of a paragraph I wrote about learning assessments.