Overall, I was pleased with how this lesson played out.  I actually did some adjusting in the order of the instruction and the activities as I taught it in the 3 different periods throughout the day.  These adjustments were reflected as I wrote up the final UDL lesson plan to turn in for this class.  

Students responded very well to this lesson.  They liked the multiple means of engagement as they handled the tiles, drew them out, and thought about what they should be called.  They worked well in pairs and participated in the whole group discussion.  As far as multiple means of action and expression, students did well verbalizing what they were seeing with the tiles and being able to choose different expressions to model with their tiles.

I felt the multiple representations were the strongest part of this lesson in terms of being helpful to students.  Allowing students to use a physical object and then to draw these out was helpful in laying a strong foundation for students to build on when we moved to the more abstract symbolic representations.  Several time during this lesson and in the lessons following.  I was able to say, “Can we add an “x” term to and “x2“ term?” and students were able to easily see that these are different size tiles, so it does not make sense to try to combine them.  

 

For this specific class, because of the point at which students are in their programs (a few sophomores, mainly juniors, and a few seniors) the level of understanding of how individual teaching philosophies affect daily practice in the classroom are varied.  In reflection, the “Multiple Means of Representation” was perhaps the weakest area of the lesson. I would like to see my sophomores go deeper with the content (they tended to have the most basic responses), but they have also not had the time and classroom experience that the upper classmen have had at this point.  This is not necessarily an issue of ability, but more technical sophistication that comes with more exposure to working in k-12 classrooms. 

In regard to what went well, the Multiple Means of Expression were what the candidates enjoyed the most because they had a lot of choice and freedom in the way(s) in which they presented the information.  I appreciate the new ways that the UDL format helped me look at my lesson planning procedures, and I am most excited to see how this will look in k-12 classrooms as my students start to implement it. lM���dD$.

 

I am glad your UDL lesson went well with your university level students.  It is nice to see that even though implementing UDL at the college level may not look exactly the same as with elementary or secondary students, the general principles and ideas can still be applied.  Students at any level will enjoy having choices given in how they respond or express what they learn.  And at any level, it is important to find multiple ways to make content engaging to students as well as make sure there are multiple ways they can engage and interact with the content being covered in the lesson.  

 

Sincerely, Cary

Cary,

It was exciting to read your reflection and see just how well this lesson went in the implementation phase with actual students.  I know that many of these strategies you were already using prior to the UDL training, but it is nice to see how they fit so masterfully within the UDL framework.  Often students struggle with higher levels of math because they do not have the direct application that they were used to seeing in lower levels.  However, using Bruner’s model to help students move through the stages (enactive, iconic, symbolic), also gives them multiple means of representation in this instance, and really helps to solidify their learning. 

It sounds like you were also able to hear and see evidence of student understanding as they quickly saw that an x term and an x2 term are different sizes, so they cannot combine. Your classroom sounds like a fun and engaging learning environment, and I am looking forward to reading through your next lesson plan. ,2.34,��$�