During my Master’s program, I was introduced to an up-and-coming teaching approach called UDL (Universal Design for Learning). This concept began in architecture, while designing infrastructure for people with disabilities. During this process, they discovered that those with disabilities were not the only people assisted by the designs. For example, when cut curbs were created, they were meant to aid people who are in wheelchairs cross the street. It was soon revealed that the smoother walkways also assisted those pushing strollers or delivery carts. So, while it helps support those with special needs, it was indeed universally successful. Fast forward to today- this same concept is being applied to education, with a technological twist. A Great Schools article by Nancy Firchow sums up the idea of UDL this way:

 ”UDL uses computer technology to create an educational environment that allows all students, including those with learning disabilities, to succeed in general education classrooms with minimal use of assistive technology (AT).”

It is guided by three principles,

• Multiple methods of presentation
• Multiple options for participation
• Multiple means of expression

While this is an extensive, pedogogy reforming approach to education, it is also a fantastic way to support every student in your classroom. It appears especially applicable to the ever-daunting Research Paper. With the guidance in UDL, students of all skill levels, reading proficiencies, mental/physical disabilities, and cultural backgrounds could access and manipulate the information required to perform grade level tasks. The catch here: teachers need to modify end goals to allow for the three principles. While a written product is the desired end result, those with difficulty in writing would have a built in support system. I have only scratched the surface of UDL, so please feel free to explore the following websites for an abundance of additional information.

http://www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Faculty/Strategies/Universal/

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/2490

I always try to be a reflective teacher and learn as much from my failures, as my successes. When the time came to start my third graders writing biographies, I thought back to the disaster that was last year’s assignments. I had previously taught biographies by having each student chose a famous person they idolized. It seemed like a reasonable idea. They would have ownership in choosing the subject of their assignment and they could sharpen their research skills in the same process. My frustration came when I started reading rough drafts. They were complete plagiarisms of the books and articles from which the students’ reports came! I take this sort of thing seriously and decided to have a stern talk with my 8-year-olds about “stealing words” from published works. However, my lecture seemed to fall on deaf ears, as they were a bit too young to understand the concept. We did, however, practice writing sentences in our own words.

Fast forwarding to this year, I was certainly not going to make the same mistake twice. After a few days of pondering, I decided upon a different strategy of research: the interview. The students were still going to write biographies about people they looked up to. They were still going to have (some) choice in who the subject of their paper would be. The difference this year would be solely in how they gathered information. I created a sign up sheet on a piece of chart paper, onto which I had written names of our school’s administrative and support teams. It included people like the principal, assistant principals, guidance counselor, music teacher, P.E. teachers, and Art teacher. Read The Full Story…