Oct 31 2007
UDL, Math, Science and the “Real World”
I loved in our UDL institute today when a participant said, “I let the students do the science lab before” they read the chapter or learn the concepts. That’s excellent - I love it!
Tonight, I’m exploring ways to help math teachers make connections to the principles of Universal Design for Learning. Much of the information and research I’m finding leads me to the Affective Network or the “why” of learning. Whenever I am planning a lesson I ask myself, “Is this work relevant and meaningful?”
I thought of the affective network when I reflected on my own high school experience, math class in particular and my own apathy toward math education. I was one of those kids who thought, “I won’t need this in the real world.” It wasn’t until later in my life when I started racing sailboats that I began to appreciate the the power of mathematical concepts and challenges in the real world!
In recent studies and polls, researchers report that kids want more interaction with technology. Students say, and parents agree that they want their kids to interact and learn math and science concepts through real-world problem solving, collaboration with professionals in the field and through multimedia simulations and interactive explorations.
I think it is important to allow students choice in the way they interact with the learning and allow students to use as many examples from their real lives as possible. I taught middle school students how to create graphs with Microsoft Excel. My part in the lesson was primarily helping the students learn to use the software. During the overview of the software features and functions, we created a class graph to display our favorite bands and musicians. Something as simple as allowing the students to bring their interests (in this lesson favorite bands) into the classroom helped keep the kids motivated and engaged in learning math concepts - through the use of technology.
- Here’s just one group talking about technology integration: www.tomorrow.org
UDL Lesson Planning:
Are you wondering, What is the UDL Approach to Lesson Planning? Here is a case study at TES (Teaching Every Student, part of the CAST website): Teaching Probability in a middle school classroom with Ms. Randall. Jump right to the section where she compares the traditional approach of lesson design and the UDL approach. Here she’s using the digital spinner as part of the lesson.
Math and Scientific investigations come out of a human want to solve problems - problems that exist in the real world - where real people are living and being and doing and building and exploring and testing out new stuff with new (and old) tools, every day in all different kinds of ways. Providing students with novel problems to solve is a principle of Universal Design for Learning in the Strategic Network, or the “How” of learning.
Some people simply get and love math - my aunt is a chemist - she loves math. It is that simple for her. I am not a sequential learner. I am nonlinear in my thinking and math was a struggle for me. I had math anxiety, math apathy, even math contention.
What can we as teachers do for those students who don’t naturally get or love math, or any subject that we teach!? How can Universal Design for Learning help us reach ALL students?
I too have always had math anxiety. I did not start to love math until I taught from the Everyday Math from the University of Chicago. My district abandoned this series, but my philosophy of math was forever changed. I try to implement many methods for decreasing math anxiety and confusion in my class. I use the poems of Sara Holbrook to teach my students to write a poem entitled, ‘I am Zero You Need Me’ to teach students the importance of Zero. We have performed the poem Smart by Shel Silverstein to get the idea of the value of money. We made puppets to represent landmarks in data sets i.e. mode, median, etc. We have created raps about translations, rotations, and reflections. I am not familiar with every aspect of UDL; however, I imagine that it involves purposefully designing work that meets the needs of the greatest number of students. This seems to incorporate the work that I have done with The Schlechty Center called Working on the Work. I think it means to be reflective about our teaching practices and design meaningful, engaging work for students.