Assessing My Pre- Lesson

In my last blog post, I talked about the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial website. As a reminder, this website encourages teachers to think about the students in their classroom and look at their lessons to make sure that the methods and materials they chose to use do not create a barrier for any students in their room.

In this blog post, I am going to be reflecting on a lesson that I created for my kindergardeners. I am going to pay close attention to the UDL guidelines that I included in my lesson and the guidelines that I left out. I am also going to make use of the UDL Template to make sure I do not have any barriers for the students in my room, if I taught this lesson again.

A Brief Outline Of My Lesson

•  I began by incorporating a KWL chart. I asked the students to name some things that they already knew about trees, and what things they wanted to learn about trees. 
• Next, I handed the students a blank journal. I told the students that this was going to be their tree journal and everything they learned about trees was going to go inside of it. On the cover, I asked the students to write their name and draw a picture of what they thought a tree looked like.
• After this, I took the class outside to their playground. Once on the playground, we took the time to stop and look at a few trees. While at each tree, we took some time to observe. I asked the students some prompting observation questions, and gave each child the opportunity to respond to the prompt.
• After some time for observations, and noticing some similarities and differences between the trees on our playground, I moved onto the parts of the tree. While standing next a tree, I began to point out the parts of the tree. As I pointed to the parts of the tree, I explained what they were (roots, trunk, branches and leaves), their functions and how the parts of the tree are related.
• Next, we went back inside. Once inside, we looked back at our KWL chart. I asked the students to raise their hand and share one thing they learned about trees that they did not know before.

The UDL guidelines I included:

• Perception
• Language
• Comprehension
• Physical Actions
• Executive Functions
• Effort and Persistence

The areas of UDL that I did not include:

• Expressive skills and fluency
• Interest
• Self-regulation

I used the UDL Template (see below) to asses a student in my class who I am going to refer to as John. 

            Curriculum Barriers            Blank Template 

Materials and Methods	Student Qualities	Potential Barriers/Missed Opportunities
Writing name on journal.	John- Perception difficulties.	John' s writing has a tendency to be all over the place. Although I have provided him with a pencil grip, John may also benefit from the use of Wiki Stix's to help him see where to write his name.
Drawing a tree	John- Fine motor problems and perception difficulties.	John is currently receiving O.T. to help with his fine motor problems. Drawing may be too challenging and not engage him enough. Additionally, with his perception difficulties, John may not be able to visually see where to put his tree on the cover. (He may draw it small in the corner, if at all).

Wiki Stix

I was actually very pleasantly surprised about how many of the UDL guidelines I included without even realizing it. I was able to additionally use the UDL guidelines to implement the areas I had not previously included into my lesson. I used the UDL Template (seen above) to help me use the lesson I created and adjust it to make sure a struggling student in my room did not have any barrier to learning!