Curriculum Barriers Tutorial

In my last blog post, I talked about guided notes. Since many teachers choose to introduce new information through lectures, guided notes was a helpful tool to help lectures be meaningful to both the teacher and the students.
  In this blog post I am going to be talking about the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial website. The purpose of the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial is to take a teacher step-by-step through a daily lesson.

Why Is This Website So Great?

The website makes you think about the struggling students in your classroom and list all of the materials and methods a you would use during a specific lesson. With those materials and methods in mind, this website has you think about the qualities of those students (ex: low vision) and how the materials or methods a teacher decided to use may be a barrier for those students.

How You Can Use This Website To Help In The Classroom Or At Home

 With the help of the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial, if you as an educator, or a reader, were interested in using guided notes in your classroom, or with your child at home, you could decide whether this teacher method would be a good choice for your classroom, or if it would be a barrier for students in your classroom. For example, if you have a student who struggles with writing, using the guided note method may be a barrier for them.



This website really got me thinking about all the different materials and methods I used to teach my kindergartners. As I planned each lesson, I thought about differentiation, and how I could meet the needs of all learners in my classroom, and I always hoped that,  at the end of the day, each of my students left the room understanding what I taught. With the help of the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial, I would be able to thoroughly analyze the materials and methods I am using to make sure that there are no barriers or missed opportunities for any student in my classroom! The Curriculum Barriers Tutorial website even provides teachers with a Curriculum Barriers Template (seen below) to offer the them "structured support for analyzing potential barriers and missed opportunities in your own curriculum, within the context of your goals and your particular students" (CAST).

Curriculum Barriers            Blank Template

Grade:                        Teacher:               .                Subject:                        Standard:                         

Goal:   

Materials and Methods	Student Qualities	Potential Barriers/Missed Opportunities

CAST. "Curriculum Barriers Tutorial". Retrieved from: http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/tools/curriculumbarrierstutorial.cfm.