Things to Consider: ULD Lesson plans

When creating UDL lesson plan that are able to provide all student the chance to access and fully understand curriculum teachers must consider the three principles of UDL; Multiple Means of Representation, Multiple Means of Engagement and Multiple Means of Expression.

Fortunately, Cast.org has provided a great checklist for teachers to self-reflect on their lesson plans as it pertains to the UDL principles. Here is a sample of the checklist.

I was able to recently reflect on one of my lessons using the UDL checklist. It helped me to see my strenghts and weaknesses when incorporating multiple means of expression, representation and engagement into my lessons.

I felt that I was strongest at providing multiple means of engagement by providing choices of materials to use, using movement and songs as a way for students to fully understand and remember content, and providing multiple stations with different activites as way for students to learn new content.

My second strongest area was allowing students multiple means of engagement by allowing students to have autonomy at self-guided stations, varying demands on students through prompts and scaffolds, providing choices on materials so students can relate to materials and fostering collaboration and community through student jobs as well as helping facilitate personal coping skills through direct instruction on social skills/replacement behaviors.

I would say that my biggest weaknesses are providing multiple means of representation for curriculum content. I need to remember there are numerous ways to provide audio information, guide students on using background information and making connections to their schema, and providing adaptive and alternative tools to access curriculum. I mainly think that this is because I am still not sure what technology and tools are available to use, as well as in which context to use them. I am hoping my course in Assistive Technology at Cabrini College will help to provide multiple ways of using assistive tools.  Another weakness I have is in creating rubrics and tools to aid in assessing students learning. I need to help my students set their own goals and then come back to self assess their learning and their behavior. This always comes as an after thought for me, as I rely heavily on formative data and anecdotes/notes I make at the end of the lessons.