Learning for All, The Journey Begins

New hair cuts, fresh school supplies, remnants of golden tans (or in my case, the fading aftermath of a sunburn) that hint at the adventures and care-free fun for which summer vacation is renowned.  The first day of school.  As students excitedly chat in the hallways while searching for their new homeroom for that year, as they filter one by one into classrooms, the myriad of emotions that go hand in hand with that first day are evident.  As an educator, I am certainly not exempt from that mix of nerves, butterflies and excitement each year.  I worry about starting the year off on the right foot with my students.  I worry about being able to impart all of the crucial first day information in the allotted period of time before they are scurrying back out the door to their next class.  But most of all, I am excited to meet the new group of young people with which I will be spending the next 195 school days.  Each first day of school brings me an ever diversifying group of students, all arriving with different talents, abilities, weaknesses and interests.  It is my responsibility for those 195 days to provide each of those individuals with the opportunity to grow and learn.

The business of learning and growing is far from a "one size fits all" process.  Ergo, the business of teaching cannot be a "one size fits all" process.  This point was at the heart of our exploration of Todd Rose's The Myth of the Average.  As our students arrive year after year, with an increasingly variable range of abilities, backgrounds and experiences, it is paramount that we diversify our methods of engagement and instruction if we are to truly provide a genuine learning experience for all in our classrooms. As Todd Rose explained in great detail, we can no longer afford not to do this: we are currently losing too many of our bright and creative minds; the stakes are too high.    

Todd Rose at TEDx Sonoma County

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eBmyttcfU4

Through researching the Universal Design for Learning this week, I was further reminded of the importance of continuing to find fresh, new ways to approach eliciting the interest and excitement for learning in my students.  There is a certain comfort in broaching subjects from familiar angles, and in familiar ways.  But how effective or relevant is it to continue down the same path in the same topics year after year?  How many students are lost along the way because this particular path is too arduous to traverse?  How many are lost because they find this particular path to be too well-beaten and venture off-course?  How many never commence the journey as the proposition of the trek was unappealing?  It seems as though the solution to having all arrive at the destination is to provide multiple choices so that  the students can select the route that best suits their travelling ability and preference.  Stimulating the desire to start that journey does not always have to be a complicated matter.  Our introduction to Chomp was a great demonstration of a simple solution to capturing attention and peaking interest in a fun and engaging way.  It not only incorporated a playful element, but also showed just how easy it can be to integrate technology to hook our tech- savvy 21st century students.

More about UDL:  http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html#.VwxIZZwrKt8













As we progress into the 21st century, the role of technology is becoming increasingly prominent in all aspects of life.  Education is not an exception to this progression.  With its lightning-paced evolution, keeping current on technology can be an overwhelming prospect for educators.  Finding simple ways to incorporate effective technology into our daily working routines is of the utmost importance.  Showbie is an example of how technology can function to benefit educators by providing a space to organize and track information and assignments while eliminating the perpetual problem of lost papers and hauling around stacks of assignments to mark.  After all, isn't that the ultimate goal of technology: to fill a need, save time or make a process easier?  As a self-professed mid-adopter of technology, I have, to date, merely begun wandering down the vast network of  paths that technology can provide in my practice and classroom: my journey into 21st century learning has only recently commenced.  But I am excited to see what lies further ahead.