UDL part 1

PEC of step.11

(note the size of the PEC

in comparison to my small

carnie hand)

Pec Board

The set of instructions that I chose to highlight for my UDL project are taken directly from my job. Which just to remind everyone is at a private school for autistic students. The school uses an ABA approach to teaching, well at least theoretically, and the pupil to student ratio is 1:1.

One of the children that I work with makes a salad everyday as part of his adaptive living skills curriculum. The method that was implemented to teach him this task was a PEC board that uses small digital pictures organized horizontally in the sequential order of the task. This method works wonderfully until he gets to step. 11, which he hasn't been able to master or move on from for about 6 weeks now.

Step.11- Turn on water & rinse vegetables for 10 seconds while moving colander from side to side. (This is the written set of instructions that I follow on my task analysis sheet when assessing his performance).

Step.11 (which student uses)- Digital picture still (about size of matchbook) depicting a colander filled with salad, running under water. However, because it is a still photograph, it cannot show the desired action of moving the colander from side to side.

Interview with Dr. Richard Keller

In terms of comparing the two different formats, I found the "points to consider" portion of the word document easier to read and more clearly organized. Perhaps it was due to the bold letters and the color of the text. On the other hand, the PDF format had the "access devices" portion of the information more clearly organized. Mostly due to the fact that it wasn't floating about in a white background. As such, all of these different factors made me realize just how important visual representations are in learning. In addition, I also thought about how I could incorporate sound and student participation into the document.
Dr. Keller's insight was extremely fascinating. I was really moved with his sense of pride. I guess I never really thought about some of things he brought up. Particularly his story about not wanting to use the cane and sometimes pretending to be drunk on the subway in order to hide his blindness. It reminded me about this one particular student that I worked with, who hated it when his para helped him in class. I always got the sense that he might be embarrassed because he was the only who had a para in a classroom of thirty students. And after hearing Dr. Keller's story, perhaps he was embarrassed.
This story also segues into the difference between using the terms assistive vs. adaptive technology. In someways, I felt that Dr. Keller was alluding to the fact that the term assistive technology had a negative connotation attached to it, not as extreme as calling him a cripple but negative and degrading nonetheless.
Finally, Dr. Keller's assertion that just because a teacher throws a piece of adaptive technology at a student that would benefit them, doesn't mean that they would necessarily want to use it. This idea made me realize how important it is to take into account yours students feelings when making a decision about their education. Because if you don't consider this, you might actually cause a lot more harm than you'll ever know. I hate to sound so dramatic, but growing up in a "white town" as one the few minorities in it, I still vividly remember a lot instances when my feelings or culture were not taken into account.

Chapter 3: Why We Need Flexible Instructional Media

In my mind, digital media is essentially progressive teaching. Not only would be a valuable and revolutionary tool in a special needs environment but in general education one as well. Mostly due to the fact that it incorporates and touches upon the three different brain networks that that one uses to learn. Therefore, this would undoubtedly benefit all the different types of learners that a teacher encounters in a classroom. In addition, the most interesting passage that I found in the article was the idea that “new media opens new doors to diverse learners. Digital capacity to combine and transform text, speech, and images leads to a more diversified palette for communication-one that accommodate the varied strengths and weaknesses of each medium and every brain.

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School

The comparison that is made between experts and novices made a lot of sense to me and I found it extremely interesting. However, I found the article to be redundant at first because I was thinking to myself, experts are more knowledgeable than novices, tell something I don’t know. But after continuing to read on, I found that my initial impressions were a general belief that many people had of experts, which is that it “is someone who knows all the answers.” When in fact what differentiates an expert learner from a novice learner is how they notice, “organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment. Be that as it may, the most poignant piece of information that I found in the reading was that “expertise in area does not guarantee that one can effectively teach others about that area. Expert teachers know the kinds of difficulties that students are likely to face, and they know how to tap into their students’ existing knowledge in order to make new information meaningful plus assess their students’ progress…. Expert teachers have acquired pedagogical content knowledge and not just content knowledge.”

2001: An online course odyssey

The program that I am in, is multiple and severe disabilities. I graduated in May from NYU, with a degree in early childhood/special education. I have student taught in two inclusion classrooms and one self-contained classroom. In addition, I currently work 35 hours a week in a private school for autistic children.

I have never taken an online course before, but I think its actually rather exciting in a science fiction type of way. I hope by the end of the course, that I have a solid grasp and foundation on how to implement technology into all facets of my teaching.

What I bring the table is determination! Not an unrealistic "I want to save the world" determination, but one that steers me to gain the most from studies. In the hopes of being the best prepared and knowledgeable teacher that I can be. Not only for my benefit, but more importantly for the benefit of the students and families that I will work with in the future.