Combining Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction Through Technology Integration

The fundamental nature of the recognition, strategic, and affective networks form a framework we can use to analyze our students' individual strengths and weaknesses and understand their individual differences (Meyer, Rose, & Meyer, 2002). Although I cannot peer into the inner workings of every student’s brain, I can use what educators have gained from brain research to adjust how I am teaching to be sure I am appealing to all three groups of the brain network by making sure multiple demonstrations, expression, and engagement opportunities for students are provided. By avoiding categorizing students into what type of learner they are and instead varying how we teach by adjusting lessons that appeal to the three groups of the brain network, teachers are reaping the benefits of understanding the learning brain (Laureate Education, 2009).

As teachers, understanding the pattern of strengths and weaknesses within a learner's recognition networks can help us individualize the kind of challenge and support we provide, thus maximizing every student's opportunity to learn (Meyer, Rose, & Meyer, 2002). By recognizing the individual differences of students, teachers can appeal to each student’s individual differences.
To determine students’ interests, learning styles, intelligence preferences, and learning profiles, I plan to use a variety of resources I obtained from colleagues, the internet, and resources from this course. These resources include interest inventories, multiple intelligences sites, and my own brief survey. I plan to use these resources towards the beginning of the year to give me an idea of how my students may prefer to learn best. This will help me gear lessons towards student interests, preferences, and needs to motivate learning while addressing student diversity.

Making use of the multiple intelligences in the classroom enhances students’ opportunities for learning and gives them(students) more options for how they learn (Smith & Throne, 2007). Multimedia, MI (Multiple Intelligences) Way is a site designed for both students and teachers. I plan to use this site to facilitate students with selection of a product idea that will serve as a communication tool for processing and sharing any information they have gathered or are currently studying. It helps them analyze what type of learning strengths they possess, yet also provides the teacher with a printable graph to record the intelligences in the class. I plan to use the interactive whiteboard and explain all of the intelligences to the students using this site. I would have students decide what type of learner/martian they feel they are most like. I would explain to the students the ideas mentioned on this site as possible ways they may show their understanding of our unit story. We would complete a product as a class that appeals to certain intelligences and also integrates the use of technology to serve as a model. Technology easily complements activities based on multiple intelligences and allows teachers to support students with distinct learning profiles (Smith & Throne, 2007). Finally, I would guide and encourage students through a scaffolding approach to integrate the use of technology and complete their own products for other content we learn throughout the year using their preferred style of learning.

Differentiated Instruction (DI) theory is founded on the premise that instructors not only recognize the importance of adjusting tactics to better suit ever-changing classroom dynamics, but they also follow through with those modifications (Smith & Throne, 2007). I plan to use tiered lesson plans that offer at least 3 different levels for the students.

The Tiered Curriculum Project is a site created by the Indiana Department of Education and offers sample lessons that integrate differentiated lessons by readiness, interest, and learning styles for grades kindergarten through twelfth grade in math, science, and language arts. I will use the site examples as my guide to designing tiered lessons that will address the achievement gaps I am seeing in phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, and fluency. In addition, I plan to utilize sites that will reinforce student’s varying levels of abilities. In differentiated classrooms, teachers begin where students are, not the front of a curriculum guide. They accept and build upon the premise that learners differ in important ways. Thus, they also accept and act on the premise that teachers must be ready to engage students in instruction through different learning modalities, by appealing to differing interests, and by using varied rates of instruction along with varied degrees of complexity. In differentiated classrooms, teachers ensure that a student competes against himself as he grows and develops more than he competes against other students (Tomlinson, Differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners, 1999).

The resources I obtained from cohorts in the Differentiation Station social network for my most recent Walden University course were invaluable. A group of my cohorts and I developed a social network using Ning. I plan to evaluate, use, and share fellow students’ projects on how to use technology and Universal Design for Learning from Week Four’s application. I thought the way other teachers in the course presented the information was creative and useful and I would like to modify my own project to include the ideas that they expressed and possibly use their projects to educate fellow teachers within my district. Another component we shared on the Ning network that I have already used in the classroom included web resources for Week Five’s application. For Week Five we conducted research and located resources for using technology to differentiate instruction by readiness, interest, and learning profile. After we conducted the research, we shared the sites we found on our social network. By sharing these sites I was able to add more resources to my bag of tricks to implementing both DI and technology integration. My group came up with different resources that I may have never found on my own.

Works Cited
Laureate Education. (2009). Brain Research and UDL.

Meyer, Rose, D. H., & Meyer, A. (2002). Chapter 2: What Brain Research Tells Us About Learner Differences. Retrieved January 25, 2010, from CAST Teaching Every
Student: http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes

Smith, G., & Throne, S. (2007). Differentiating instruction with technology in K-5 classrooms. Belmont: International Society for Technology in Education.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). Differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.