Universal Design
Meeting the needs of all my students is something that is on my mind every single day. At least one of my classes is usually co-taught with a special education teacher, where several students have IEPs that require an inclusion setting. This is usually my favorite block because I LOVE collaborating with a special education teacher and value their insight so much, and I always learn a lot through them and through the students we teach together, both with IEPs and without. It’s also not uncommon for me to have many English Language Learners (ELLs) within the three classes I teach. Additionally, students have Social Emotional Learning (SEL) needs that vary, and all students have different strengths and needs in general! Although it can sometimes feel like we are never fully and completely giving every single student exactly what they need, the approach of Universal Design certainly helps to get as close as possible. Planning from a perspective of Universal Design means making intentional teacher choices that really benefit all students, even if only a few students “need” them or are required to have them due to their IEP or 504. Examples of this might be: various ways to show understanding, the chance to make corrections to improve a score, tests that are not timed for anyone, lots of visuals, access to word banks for all students, etc.
Universal Design goes hand in hand with accessibility. Accessibility means our students are able to be reached and taught in ways that are equitable to them, which might look completely different from one student to the next, especially when we consider students who have a disability. Using Universal Design when planning and teaching is a great foundation for accessibility, but some things still need to be modified or adapted from there. I think I do a pretty good job with accessibility in my classroom, yet there is still a lot of room for improvement! I find myself to be strong at accessibility in tasks that don’t involve technology, such as writing work, small group mini lessons, a group project that’s more paper based, etc. Being a pretty veteran teacher has allowed me to have a lot of experience in this area and practice on ways I can make them accessible to students with varying needs. However, with digital accessibility specifically, I think in that area, I am falling a little short. Over the past couple of years, I’ve started so many different resources or programs online after being introduced to them during remote learning, or switched previous classroom tasks that were not technology based, to being technology based. Technology can be a wonderful way to provide MORE accessibility, but if the teacher is unfamiliar with all the different features or components of the program/resource being used, then it could actually be making things more complex for students. I think this is somewhat of the situation I am in right now, so I am working on being committed to really becoming an expert of the features of things I do use digitally in the classroom, so I can use those things to my advantage on increasing student accessibility via technology.
I love this visual that relates to accessibility.
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| Image Source: https://achievebrowncounty.org/ |
Tips Through Tweets
As I continue to work on accessibility in the classroom in general, and especially digital accessibility, I decided to turn to Twitter. I’ve really enjoyed using Twitter professionally lately, so I wanted to keep myself accountable to make that habit stick! Throughout the past few days, I’ve been sharing accessibility tips on Twitter, finding new accounts to follow, and retweeting powerful accessibility statistics, and will continue to do that for several more days, at least! Twitter has been a great easy and sustainable way for me to take in new information in small but highly effective doses. Below are some screenshots of Tweets that I’ve shared, or found really eye-opening, and have retweeted.
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| Image Source: personal photo from Twitter |
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| Image Source: personal photo from Twitter |
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| Image Source: personal photo from Twitter |
Make sure to check out my Twitter account at @heyitsmsschuler to see more posts about accessibility!
Hey Katherine - nice job on your tweets! Glad you're finding Twitter a valuable place to share ideas. I have never seen tennis balls on the bottom of desks before, so that's a new one for me! Like you, I have had special education co-teachers in my classroom and in my experience it's either an amazing collaborative experience, or the co-teacher is very hands off and wants to only focus on the students with IEPs. I've always loved co-teachers that dove into the content with me and students could not tell who was the primary teacher and who was the special education teacher. I do not have anyone assigned to me this school year, but it was great last year to have a co-teacher during remote learning and it was great for students to have access to both of us to help them navigate the struggles of remote learning and technology issues.
ReplyDeleteIn my brief time as a special education teacher, I co-taught with teachers who saw me as someone who would just get in the way and another who saw me as a paraprofessional. So, it's great to hear that there are teachers out there who believe in the co-taught philosophy and get excited about it. I did have one very positive co-teaching experience, although I was technically the "lead" teacher in an instructional classroom paired with an ESL teacher. She was great. She had a lot of experience in teaching and offered lots of support. Hopefully, I will find more such teammates. It would be great to find gen ed teachers who are already familiar with UDL and understand the need for accessibility for students.
ReplyDeleteYour tweets are fantastic! What a fun way to get important content across and share the work of others at the same time. Thanks, too, for the graphic from the Giving Tree. This is one I haven't seen.
ReplyDeleteHi Katherine,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post! You really highlighted the benefits of UDL and how it is for ALL students. I love the Giving Tree picture you posted about accessibility. It is spot on! Also, your Retweet about what most disabilities look like is so accurate. People always think that a disability has to be physical, but most of the time, it's not. It's great to see you are benefiting from Twitter as a wonderful PLN.