Educators deserve better education
If our systems have any chance of supporting students with remote learning, they have to use the principles of Universal Design to ensure that every student, regardless of variability, has equal opportunities to learn.
Let’s be honest. Our vision statements, that strive for success for all, are out of reach if we continue to design systems and instruction the way we have always designed them.
In a time of Emergency Online Learning, the founding principles of UDL (Multiple Means of Representation, Engagement, and Action and Expression) provide solutions that are critical in an online environment.
Even though our conventional use of using UDL to design lesson plans has changed, there are guiding questions that educators use when designing conventional instruction that are still applicable and, perhaps, more critical in the online environment. Here are Guiding Questions to build out an (online or in-person) UDL Lesson Plan
Simple Tools for Surviving Virtual Meetings By Sarah Kyriazis When the pandemic hit, like most of us who work in offices or classrooms, I grabbed the essential things I thought I would need in the case we wouldn’t be back for weeks. My first priority was my coffee machine and my extra pods, I then packed some books (that I haven’t had a chance to read), an extra device, my colorful felt tip pens, and the last bottle of hand sanitizer. On my way out the door I thought, what else do I need? I popped into our office’s supply
I often am asked the question, “Why UDL?” and my answer is simple. We are preparing students for their future. We are not preparing them for our past. The way that we have been teaching students for decades will no longer meet their needs because we are preparing them for jobs that don’t even exist yet and technology that is replaced daily. In this new world, we have to teach our students how to be thinkers, love challenge, and commit to innovation. We can not do this when we, as educators, are in charge of their learning. When I first