UDL in Action at Worser Bay School

At Worser Bay School, we are embracing the principles of Universal Design for Learning so that we can give individuals equal opportunities to learn. It is about flexible pathways so that learning can be personalised, rather than a one size fits all solution. In the past we thought about the average student’s needs and taught as though all of these children had the same needs. In reality all children are unique and as teachers, we need to teach in different ways.

There are three main principles of UDL:

1. Representation - Students have many ways to gain knowledge and information through multiple ways of presentation
e.g. non readers can not access information when it is presented in writing.

2. Expression - Students need to express themselves so that they can reflect and assess themselves.
Children who can’t write can’t express themselves if they are asked to put pen to paper.

3. Engagement - Students who are engaged and motivated to learn are more resilient and problem solve to complete tasks. Kevin Honeycutt says that learning to love to learn hinges on engagement and so this factor is essential in good curriculum design.

No two students are alike or learn in the same way therefore we have to teach students to think for themselves. There are greater opportunities for collaborative learning!

We worked in teams to prepare presentations about the strands of UDL across the school. 

Active Demonstrating and UDL: Thursday Admin

Check in with Active Demonstrating goals: Goals and Reflection
Last year, we did a "Thinglink" to show UDL around the classroom. How have we moved on? What have we put in place for our learners? 

On Monday, you will do a 5 minute presentation per group to show how we are embedding strands of UDL in our spaces. Your group will take on one of the strands. You will have time to prepare for this during the session... 

Questions to consider: 

How are we doing this now? 

How are we reducing the barriers for our learners?
What are we doing in our spaces to ensure that we are planning for all of our students? Give examples.
What are our next steps? Literacy/ Maths/ Inquiry?

 You also need to read the 2 readings for Monday and give a short summary to a small group. 

Carl, Nicola, Hayley, Susie:
Provide multiple means of Engagement

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING IN CURRICULUM PLANNING AND LESSON DESIGN by Lynne Silcock (Core Ed)

To Help Students Learn, Engage the Emotions BY JESSICA LAHEY "It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about,” says the neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang." To Help Students Learn, Engage the Emotions.


Gillian, Shona, Anna, Suz:

Provide multiple means of Representation

Katie Novak: Million Dollar Question- what does UDL look like?

TAKING A FRESH LOOK AT YOUR LEARNING SPACE by Lynne Silcock (Core Ed)

Scott, Ximena, Gabrielle, John:
Provide multiple means of Action and Expression

This is the future of education and it will change everything. We need to let students express themselves in ways that work for them… Sometimes we hold them back if we don’t give students a choice. Making ideas into reality at MIT's 'Future Factory'

UNPACKING UDL, DIFFERENTIATION AND ADAPTATION

Ideas during the session: 

Planning for Matariki 2018

Here is some information from the Admin meeting - Some background information for each of the 9 stars. Some Te Wanaga ō Aotearoa and some general stuff off KCC.

Date of celebrations at Worser Bay to be confirmed.

Well Being Meeting

Gabrielle

Practising gratitude by sharing 1 thing we are grateful for for the Whanau day
With appreciative inquiry lens, what’s something we can build on to improve process for next time?
All share both - post-its

Gillian

5 min Start off with getting back into our learn it, live it, teach it, embed it spectrum .. discuss if we have made any movement? Even a small step? If so, how? If not, why not? What next?

(30 min) In thinking about the powerful plan and some of the work we can do with kids to be proactive before needing a plan I thought maybe we could touch on some of the mindfulness stuff?

Stand Up Meeting

Questions: No right answers just get people thinking

Ask people to think about what mindfulness means to them?
How it can help?

Where it fits in the flourish model?
What are some Mindfulness activities/practices you are doing already?

Is mindfulness for everyone? Why or why not?
Moved to Autahi
Watched Just Breathe

Suz lead discussion of I am Powerful plan

Audience, Purpose and Motivation for Writing

Prior to the session we read:
Alison Davis, Effective Writing
Chapter 8, Celebrating and responding to writing

The key ideas: 

• Having a clear purpose and audience for writing is highly motivating for students, and involving them in determining this is an effective way to build motivation. 
• Students can learn a lot about writing through investigating their own and other's writing.
• Maintenance of skills and strategies for writing is an important aspect of everyday class practice.
• Allowing students a choice in writing activities provides an incentive for involvement and an interest in writing. 
• There are a wide range of possibilities in the creation and celebration of writing. 

We used the ECG template to discuss the reading in groups. 

Senior Team 

Junior Team:

We asked why write? 




We used Coggle to make a list of our students and attach them to an audience that might work for them.

Exploring Active Demonstrating- Inspired by Murray Gadd

Breathing exercise by Gabrielle from the Focus 5 resources

We started off by John telling a story. He asked what we need to include in our writing e.g. punctuation, hooking reader in etc. "What are best words? Make a note of those… Let’s start writing."

Shared Writing- led by John

Shared writing led by Anna

Shared writing led by Carl

We set goals with a focus on active demonstrating. We will check in on these in two weeks. Active Demonstrating Goals

Triples is coming up in next week. We will be following the same format as last time. 

RECAP:

Purpose of Triples :

• Raise the writing achievement for all students.
• Share and critically reflect on our teaching of writing - identifying areas of strength and areas of improvement.
• Reflect, support, challenge, question, feedback, analyse, learn from each other.
• Leave the Triples session with clear actions to implement and improve student outcomes.    We will be coming back to these.

This TIME

Your lesson for observation will be with the same group that you taught the last time. 

It is also another opportunity to add feedback and progression to your Teaching as Inquiry. We are trying to align our TAI, PPG etc 

If your TAI is focused on improving feedback -  it would be good to see how feedback is being given and used by your group.       

Planning Template      

Teacher Inquiry Check In: Thursday 17th May

We started the session with a Kahoot quiz about Formative Assessment. If you missed the session or would like to take the quiz again, you can Click Here.

We discussed where we are at with our Teacher Inquiries in small groups. We all shared our next steps. 

We will be celebrating our inquiries in Week 9. We are all learning from each other!