Post- Lesson Reflection

In my last blog post I talked about how I used the Curriculum Barriers Tutorial website to help me see which UDL areas I had covered and if I had any barriers to learning for any students in my classroom in a lesson I had written. With the help of this website, I learned that in my last blog I had not included,  the UDL areas of expressive skills and fluency, interest and self-regulation. I had also noticed that I had created some barriers for a student of mine, "John", who is currently receiving O.T. because he has difficulty with writing and perceiving where his writing and drawings go on a page.

How Did I Change My Lesson? 

1) Expressive Skills and Fluency - The students are allowed to use media, such as "Kids Work" to help them draw what they think a tree looks like. This change also benefited John.

2) Interest- I decided that I wanted my students to understand why it was important for them to learn about trees. I let the children know that it is the trees that provide us with oxygen that help us breathe! This real world connection would really help the students become more engaged.

3) Self Regulation- To make sure that the students were comprehending what I was teaching them, I decided to add a self-assessment so that the students could let me know if they needed more clarification or not.

The UDL template was also really helpful for me to think more about my struggling students, like John . Using the UDL template, I was able to alter my lesson so that there would be no barriers for John! This is such an important tool to use because as educators, we want to make sure that the content we are teaching is being taught in a way that all students will be able to access it !!!!