Learn Lead Grow

Providing Multiple Means of Engagement If you are a teacher in the era of accountability, then you know what pressure feels like. In Pennsylvania, this week has been devoted to our PSSA test for most students in elementary, middle and high school. We are pressured to get students from point A to point B. Many educators feel pressured and feel that creativity has been extinguished from their lesson plans. Yet we can give students opportunities to be creative, by giving opportunities for students to make choices. WE need to get from point A to point B, but how you get there could be a choice. Let's be real, this cannot happen all of the time, but it can help students learn better. Think about a mall. If you were to enter a mall, you may have a choice, to walk through the automatic doors or manually open a door. You may enter the mall and have a choice, take the steps or use a ramp. As you are walking through the mall, you realize that you want to visit your favori

Principle 1 of Universal Design for Learning states that all students need "Multiple Means of Representation" in learning. One emphasis of Principal 1 is providing students with options for perception. To get all students from point A to point B, we may have to offer different options to achieve the same objective. Some students are more visual. Some students are more auditory. Some students are more tactile. Using the Internet to conduct research is becoming an everyday norm in our classrooms today. Where do most of us turn? Google. Google offers many unique tools to customize the display of information and is very UDL friendly. Reading Levels : For example, if you are simply conducting a search for " Abe Lincoln ," use the Advanced Search options to filter results by reading level. Simply choose "Annotate Results by Reading Level" and you will see a breakdown according to reading level. Wonder Wheel and Time Line : For your visual learners, you ma

Did you realize that Google allows you to search according to reading level? Neither did I. Here is a great link from Tammy's Tech Tip of the Week on how to do so: http://web.me.com/tammy.w/TipOfWeek/TammyWTechTipOfWeek/Entries/2011/1/20_Tip_97_-_Google_Search_by_Reading_Level.html