UDL in Indiana

Yes, Universal Design for Learning exists in Indiana, too. I'm glad I found it and don't have to pioneer it here myself! It is the PATINS (Promoting Achievement through Technology and INstruction for all Students) Project, and it provides a library of materials, Internet resources, and other technological resources to Indiana's schools.

The best part is that it currently has a UDL pilot program, wherein 8 schools are selected per year to receive UDL support materials and training for three years. For each of the six semesters they are in the program, the schools report data about their students' progress back to PATINS. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

Explore for yourself: http://www.patinsproject.com/index.htm

A Poem By Emily Dickinson

I found this as I was sorting through material from my high school senior English class. It captured my attention as quite profound now that I've been through Mind, Brain, and Education.

632
The Brain--is wider than the sky--
For--put them side by side--
The one the other will contain
With ease--and You--beside--

The Brain is deeper than the sea--
For--hold them--Blue to Blue--
The one the other will absorb--
As sponges--Buckets--do--

The Brain is just the weight of God--
For--Heft them--Pound for Pound--
And they will differ--if they do--
As syllable from Sound--

More Video!

Herry Monster:

YouTube Videos

Well, I really just need a space to post these videos because I'm using them for Tina Grotzer's class. They're for my unit on listening to television songs for kindergartners.

Bear in the Big Blue House:




I'll give more on UDL wrap-up next time.

Individual Differences Go To Work

The Fort Wayne Center for Learning is a place where I am applying for a job after I graduate. I just found this video on their website today. It's a little cheesy, but it shows one place (even in lowly Indiana!) where individual differences are catered to specifically.


Hopefully, I'll be doing something like what these instructors do someday, although ideally in a whole classroom.

Issues with Images

I found last week's class demos so neat, I had to peruse further. I especially enjoyed the Image Detective resource, which provides strategic scaffolding in looking at images. It reminded me of Thinking Reader for art. I guess that would make it "Thinking Viewer," or something like that. However, this site and others we looked at in class also brought up a question for me about balancing cognitive accessibility with guidance. With a strategic guide for looking, how do we know the strategy given isn't the creator's interpretation?

This is not so much of an issue with text or books. It's easier for words to "speak for themselves" (excuse the pun). But art--art is sensitive to interpretation. This is a difficult question. I know Tina Grotzer must have grappled with this a little as she made the Art Works for Schools curriculum with Project Zero. Perhaps that would give insight to how to approach art openly and give scaffolds.

Quick Dyslexia Tidbit

My brother sent me the link to this article. Fascinating that the neurobiology for dyslexia may be quite different depending on what language you are dyslexic in. This short snip is about a study that compares English speakers and Chinese speakers. Does this have an implication for how to universally design interventions in different cultures?

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/08/dyslexia-language-print.html

The Rats of NIMAS

Okay, so the play on words here is supposed to be the "rats of NIMH," a children's movie which came from a book, I believe; but I don't mean to compare the hard working people on NIMAS and NIMAC to unsanitary rodents. On the contrary, I was just exploring CAST's NIMAS website, and I am impressed by what they are doing.

I feel like I finally have at least a rudimentary handle on how NIMAS is played out. Some helpful definitions:

• NIMAS: National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard
• NIMAC: National Instructional Materials Access Center
  

And here's how it all works:

CAST has been appointed by the national government to run two NIMAS-related organizations: NIMAS Development Center and NIMAS Technical Assistance Center

The NIMAS Development Center sponsors these committees:

• NIMAS Standards Board
• NIMAS Advisory Council (which handles state-level implementation)
• AIM Consortium (group of 15 states devoted to improving instruction for K-12 students with disabilities)

Each of these met in Florida in January. In looking at the notes from the Standards Board meeting, I was struck by how new some of this is! The AIM Consortium was just created in the fall. I was also wondering why I hadn't heard of any of this before, since NIMAS started in 2004...

UDL Theory vs. UDL Practice

I figure it's about time for another post. I've been solidifying my goals in my CAST internship--deciding on my research questions before break, developing an observation protocol for data collection--and I've run into the challenge. The hardest part for me has been trying to connect theory to practice. Hardly surprising, but difficult nonetheless.

I found that this last week, I had put a lot of thought into the design of my observations, to focus it on what Universal Design supports the students use, how often they use them and if it affects the quality of their work. However, when I started observing, I went into a sort of "research mode." I'm pretty good at watching people objectively, but I was losing the heart of why I was observing.

Because my work is developing a case study, I should be focusing on the individuals' needs and characteristics. I had stopped thinking about Universal Design and had begun thinking "science." But my mentor reminded me that I can think about my subjects as people--it's okay to interact with them if need be!

Music-In-Education

Hey, check this out and its implications for Universal Design! (Being a music person, I find great potential for this...)

And this guy directs the Research Center and is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory:

• Larry Scripp — 617.585.1364 | larry@music-in-education.org
  Executive Director; Editor, Journal for Music-In-Education

Darius Part II

So I couldn't stop right there, but I wanted to expand more on the education point. I am also impressed by the curriculum created out of Darius Goes West. It uses the same entry points/awareness ideas I mentioned earlier.

Know About It

What do others think about this curriculum?

Darius Comes East

I'm glad I went to the screening of Darius Goes West on Tuesday. I was inspired, moved, and of course most importantly of all, prompted to think about education. ;-)

First, the movie actually made me think about accessibility--which does have important implications for education. Connecting back to my thoughts on Kerry's blog, I was amazed at another aspect of accessibility I easily take for granted. Kerry had posted about accessibility for the deaf on the T, but Darius's message about mobility access makes a more salient point. The guys in the film rated their "sample" of places in the U.S. as 65% accessible. That means 35% of locations are not. Can we be satisfied with that?

Second, I was honored to meet (well, see and say hi to) Darius, and I was inspired by his perspective. The programs that he and Logan and the foundations backing their cause have created changed my thinking about raising awareness and capturing attention. The way to get someone to think about a problem (like Duchenne Muscluar Dystrophy) is to put it in front of them--in whatever way engages their affect. Give them a blinding discrepant situation! And then I realized that putting the message right at the audience's fingertips was a great way to improve my blog.

So I'm going to do that. Here's what I want you to see.

Here's the movie trailer:


Darius and Logan on NBC:

A young boy's road trip on wheels

btw: Logan--well done. I have great admiration for you.

UDL Editions and My Internship

Let me tell you why I am SO EXCITED about the upcoming BookBuilder assignment. Not only does it rekindle inspirations I had as a child using book-creating software, it provides yet one more link between class and online literacy tools I am exploring in "the field."

As some of my Universal Design classmates may know, I am doing an FEP internship with CAST right now. The research project/program I am working with is called ICON (Improving Comprehension ONline). If you click the link in text or from my list of links on the right of the blog, you can see what the program is all about.

Why am I telling you to do this? You might start to see some similarities between ICON and the program David showed us on Monday--UDL Editions.

When I saw UDL Editions Monday night, I had a major feeling of deja vu. The two programs share many of the same features, with the same goals for improving reading strategies and the reading experience in general. But--UDL Editions seemed more polished and presentable (a la Google), so even though I suspected they were related, I also suspected UDL Editions might even be a step further in structuring Universal Design reading tools.

Talking with Seoin Lim (her blog) after class confirmed this. Both programs feature:

• spoken text capability
• scaffolded reading strategy points
• reading coaches (cartoons who give suggestions: also appear in BookBuilder)
  
• translation to Spanish
• underlined vocabulary words
• glossary
• access to background information

I could probably go on. I would like to create another blog, linked to this one, to tell about my experiences in my internship connected more closely with Universal Design. Look for that link soon.

I just love using Universal Design in reading. It seems to lend itself well to that area of instruction. I know CAST has multiple projects in a variety of subject areas. I keep wondering, though: What can similar UDL programs in science or history or math or car repair look like?
Any thoughts?

Auditory, Meet Motor: Let's Talk Mirror Neurons

So today, I got to have lunch with (and listen to a talk by) Amir Lahav, a neuro-researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Besides being a pretty cool and easy-going guy, his work and interest in sound's connection to learning through mirror neuron activation is fascinating.

After subjecting nonmusicians to 5 piano lessons, one of his studies found that listening to the music they learned to play activated their motor areas. Music they didn't know how to play did not do this. Ok, so this is something maybe we've seen before; not that new.

But what about the other way around? Can we benefit motorically from listening? Here's the cool part: Lahav found that those who learned piano music and then had 5 sessions of just listening to the music they learned to play performed better in sequence, timing (rhythm), and dynamics on a pop quiz than people who learned piano and listened to nature sounds.

Mirror neurons react and learn from auditory input. Imagine this implication for education: if you teach a movement with sound, or teach sound with a movement, listening becomes that much more helpful in performance. And teaching in multiple modalities would also strengthen the learning. The importance of listening continues to amaze me.

PS: But so does the importance of movement. In his concluding comments, Lahav said there is something strong and intuitive about learning through movement: "We move before we talk." We understand much through simulation, both physical and mental.

I've finished my first synthesizing thoughts in my post about Universal Design and T543...check out the comment.

Second Inter-class Connections

I think I will continue to see connections between Applying Cognitive Science to Learning and Instruction and Universal Design. Where I've been influenced most lately is in developing the proposal for my major project in the aforementioned class. As I mentioned in the video post, my project for Applying Cog. Science is a set of lessons for kindergartners. My goal is to teach them listening skills.

My original inspiration came from the Learning Through Listening readings for Week 3. However, I was quite inspired by David's lecture (and his singing) on Monday night, and it helped me form more completely my goals and vision for the lessons I am creating. I realized that although I planned to incorporate technology as a teaching tool in my project, a big part of my purpose for the children is to help them learn--and discern--the messages through different media. I am choosing to focus on spoken language and music in particular.

So, thank you, David, for your inspiring performance! Please, if anyone has any other comments about Monday's lecture, feel free to post.

Video from YouTube

I'm trying out my new skills in adding videos. This video from YouTube captures both Universal Design and lessons and curricula for young children (which is what I'm trying to create for T543!) It's a Universal Design lesson in fractions and art for kindergartners.

First Inter-class Connections

I will post more on this later, but for now, I want to note that I have started seeing Universal Design connections in my other classes, especially Tina Grotzer's Applying Cognitive Science to Learning and Instruction. I saw plenty of crossover between UDL and the Teaching for Understanding framework. As I said, more to come...

Connections to CAST

Just a quick update here. As I said in my brief bio on the right-hand side, I am getting an internship set up on a CAST project. I have had a chance to browse the software that is being tested, and I'm enjoying it so far. It's giving me a chance to think about Universal Design in action! I wanted to connect my blog to CAST and the project's (called Project ICON) blog.

For those who may not be familiar with CAST, it is the Center for Applied Special Technology, and David Rose is one of the principal thinkers driving its work. It's going to be a great place for me to apply Universal Design. The links to CAST are now on the right under "Links."

Origin of Individual Differences

Here is an opportunity to synthesize some recent discussion topics in HT100 with Universal Design. The class has been talking about genetics and neurobiology and their relation to the origin of individual differences. (Heavy stuff, right? You're telling me!) One conclusion I think the class has reached is that genetic expression and environment interact in such a complex, bidirectional manner that individual differences are bound to arise, even in identical twins. Guest speakers Elena Grigorenko and Charles Nelson had in depth explanations on this account.

On a related note, we've explored the idea of defining a disability. The debate is whether there are clear categories where a disability boundary is defined, or whether all differences in functioning are defined along a continuum. In other words, is it continuous and quantifiable or is it discrete and qualitatively defined? The UDL perspective, of course, would be in favor of a continuum of abilities and disabilities overlapping one another.

Another of our HT100 readings, Pennington, argues for the continuous definition as well (2006). He explains that "disabilities" such as dyslexia and ADHD are the result of a multiple deficit model in which liability for a disorder is probabilistic; that is, it comes from multiple risk and protective factors. No single factor causes a disorder to arise. That is the dilemma when gene and environmental interactions take place...

Now to apply these ideas to a function like reading, remember that reading involves various tasks. Processing syntax and processing semantics are not the same. These different tasks activate different brain areas. However, the activation level for each depends on: a) the brain's developmental level (how much those genes have been expressed!), and b) the level of experience that brain has, both with reading and with content. How's that for educational implication?

Cool links 'n things

I thought I would explore in my resources related to classes for some material I think is relevant to the blog. My goal is to integrate some of the most germane content from all my other classes to UDL. Let's start with a website...

Harvard's Usable Knowledge website is a resource I never looked at before, but I found out how great it is! Learning and Development and Teaching and Curriculum are especially relevant, I think.

Ciao

A New Blog

What is Universal Design for Learning? What does it have to do with school and instruction? How does it incorporate technologies like blogs? These are all questions I hope to be able to explain with expertise when this class, T 560, is done. I am excited about sharing ideas about Universal Design with classmates, and ultimately, with the world.
This blog is the instrument for exploring my musings, ideas, and insights during the course of this semester. Classmates are welcome to contribute links, comments, or other media to this blog. In this collaborative system, everyone will (hopefully!) learn from each other as well as through technology. Not only am I in the pursuit of Universal Design, then; I am embarking on an endeavor in blogging. I think it will be a fun ride.