https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf en-us 2020-07-11 01:13:45 UTC 2020-07-11 23:54:56 UTC hello@padlet.com foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652173263 Alright, Mary, let's talk about your first year of teaching. In a sense, you kind of straddled the line between in-service and pre-service, right?]]> 2020-07-11 04:16:25 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652173263 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652173603 Yes! And what an experience that has been! Starting my career backwards by beginning in ELL education, rather than content teaching in Social Studies, and very much figuring it out as I went along.]]> 2020-07-11 04:17:38 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652173603 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652175321 Now that you've had the chance to reflect on the year, what are some of the things you've learned about Education in general, or about yourself as an Educator?]]> 2020-07-11 04:23:44 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652175321 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652180645 Perhaps more than anything, this year has been an opportunity to hone my value set and decide how I want to act on those values as a professional. When you're an ELL Educator, at least in my experience, your perspective really shifts. My #1 consideration in every instance is, "Are the necessary systems in place so that this child can learn?," rather than, "How can I best teach this lesson?," and I think it's surprising how much that differentiates my role from that of content teaching. In some ways, I think my role is the essence of TPACK: aligning assistive technologies with content-specific ELL-oriented SIOP pedagogy.]]> 2020-07-11 04:42:35 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652180645 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652180891 When you say "necessary systems," what exactly does that mean?]]> 2020-07-11 04:43:32 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652180891 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652183951 Good question. So, really that means that I have to know each student's individual situation and context and be able to diagnose their needs in any given content. It goes far beyond handing a child a Spanish-version textbook, for example, and hoping for the best. Regardless if I'm directly servicing a student in class or if I'm helping find solutions from a distance for a content teacher with ELL students, I'm trying to eliminate as many barriers to learning as possible either through modifying content/assignments or through providing tools that make it easier for ELL students to interpret resources and represent knowledge. In my current 1:1 context, therefore, much of the accommodation I perform takes place through assistive technology tools. ]]> 2020-07-11 04:56:15 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652183951 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652184471 What are some of the tools or solutions you relied on this past year? What are some strategies you plan to incorporate into your teaching in the future?]]> 2020-07-11 04:58:24 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652184471 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652187495 Sometimes ELL supports can be as simple as a text-to-speech Chrome extension, Closed Captioning/slower playback on a video, or having them install thesaurus.com in their bookmark bar: assistive technologies that lessen the barriers to learning. Sometimes they're a lot more complicated, like rebuilding an assignment so that it's less text-heavy and relies less on the written word for knowledge representation. It's really genuinely shocking when you see the difference between ELLs in active, social learning and ELLs that are struggling to get by in a direct instruction environment where the reading, writing, speaking, and listening is beyond their capacity. Because of both my first-hand experiences and the research I've seen, I've become a PBL and UDL advocate. I'm not sure there are better options in terms of accessibility and equity. ]]> 2020-07-11 05:11:21 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652187495 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652187876 Can you speak a little more to the relationship between PBL, UDL, and accessibility? For starters, what is PBL and UDL?]]> 2020-07-11 05:13:07 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652187876 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652194975 Absolutely. Project/problem-based learning is the act of replacing direct-instruction (think, lecture-style) with a long-frame activity in which inquiry is the instruction. Students are still learning the necessary content, but they're learning it by finding it rather than being given it, and then creating an artifact--flexible by nature--to represent their new knowledge. In my thinking, PBL is a part of the overall Universal Design for Learning, which can take shape in a lot of different ways. UDL comes down to having a curriculum structure that is purposefully flexible in order to naturally accommodate the most students possible, without the need for modification. UDL is the automatic sliding door of Education: the task (be it learning or opening a door) does not need to be modified to accommodate certain people or needs. It is equally as accessible to all. In the ELL context, UDL takes away the modification piece. In a UDL classroom, I no longer need to be present to modify an assignment for an ELL student because the assignment is already structured in such a way as to accommodate every student equally. 

I would be remiss if I didn't also mention how media literacy fits in to complete the trifecta. If we know that a technology-enabled, ELL-scaffolded UDL/PBL classroom eschews complex reproduction of reading, writing, speaking, and listening for the sake of achievement in favor of other informational mediums, then it follows that media literacy is both an integrated component and result of those strategies. If students are using multiple media to both consume and produce knowledge and through PBL evaluate their own work, they increase their critical sensibility of media through their own authorship. ]]> 2020-07-11 05:43:27 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652194975 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652196174 It sounds like PBL and UDL would be intriguing to every educator. But, I don't think PBL and UDL are actually happening in every classroom. Are these strategies hard to implement or...?]]> 2020-07-11 05:49:15 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652196174 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652203434 I think it depends on your perspective. On one hand, PBL and UDL can seem like it's necessary to scrap the entire system and start over: everything that we know as traditional teaching for the last several generations goes out the window and we completely rework our instruction, to move away from reproduction of knowledge to the production or construction of knowledge. And while I don't disagree that PBL and UDL both require pretty significant perspective shifts to implement them as your new classroom norm, I think PBL and UDL become a lot more palatable when you take a step back and think about what's important to you as an educator. If we're not at least trying to serve all students equally, what are we even doing? 

So, no, I wouldn't say that PBL and UDL are easy. As an ELL Educator who will be transitioning to Social Studies content teaching next year, I know what it's like to try to retrain your brain. Although as an ELL teacher I can observe and suggest what strategies I know are right, it's a lot harder to actually to do that yourself. In the PBL WQ I'm currently working on, I've taken great pains to create an authentic problem with a flexible product, to disseminate information in both audio and visual formats, and to scaffold the inquiry process through carefully selected sources in a variety of formats, but I know it's not perfect, because this is the first time I've done this. Like my students, I'm learning and innovating at the same time. It will always be hard, but it will also always be worth it. ]]> 2020-07-11 06:20:13 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652203434 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652218104 Switching gears a little bit, can you speak to the issue of the Digital Divide as it affects ELL students? How would your role be different if you weren't in a suburban 1:1 district?]]> 2020-07-11 07:29:09 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652218104 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652220588 This is tough because my immediate response is always that districts need to figure out ways to become 1:1 on a suitably connected network, but I know that's my suburban, middle-class privilege speaking. Realistically, I know that without our 1:1 system, most if not all of my students would be relying on a shared smart phone for their connectivity, and the idea of them doing what's currently asked of them via a tiny screen, hoping that their parents will be home so they can use their phone is abominable. It would be better for them to not be connected at all than to endure the struggle of the poorly connected schools in Without a Net. In communities where poor connectivity is the norm, I think teachers face the additional challenge of needing to know what students' home-technology is like before implementing grandiose technology plans at school. In that sense, knowledge of your community's Digital Divide is a necessary part of UDL: if your students don't have connectivity, yet your curriculum requires it, you will not achieve UDL regardless of how perfectly it has been planned according to other factors. 

One of my biggest regrets so far is that I did not realize until our district shut down in mid-March that some of my students didn't have wi-fi at home. I hadn't given that any consideration. Fortunately, my district was able to deliver hotspots to families who needed them in order to maintain online learning this spring, but I know that was rare across the country. I hope to not make that same mistake again. ]]> 2020-07-11 07:45:46 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652220588 foremanm2 https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652231120 Final thoughts?]]> 2020-07-11 08:46:43 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652231120 foremanmarye https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652236241 One of the things that stuck out to me this year was how critical it is as a teacher to maintain a sense of studenthood and personhood. As I struggle with my grad school work and forsake the perpetual discomfort and vulnerability of being a student, I try to imagine what it's like to be a public K-12 student (one that doesn't have the privileges of being a teacher's kid like I did, but empathy only goes so far). I reflect on my own K-12 experience, how it got me here today, and I think about how incredibly ironic it is that when given the freedom discuss the strengths of flexible-format PBL and visually-literate UDL in any format I choose, I would choose formal writing 100 out of 100 times for myself. My own internal groans, when I push myself to create a product in a multi-media format that discusses the benefits of multi-media formats for students, highly inform my understanding of the distinction between students and teachers, or lack thereof. I've learned that, in reality, each role is inseparable from the other; that in each moment students and teachers, as they are traditionally defined, are performing a duality of roles. As I continue on in my career, my challenge will be to embrace the vulnerability that comes with each, and use that vulnerability to maintain empathy for those whom I lead. ]]> 2020-07-11 09:16:57 UTC https://padlet.com/foremanmarye/qnpg4z17hhoor6nf/wish/652236241