Final Reflection 10/28/10

Throughout this course, I have gained a large variety of support and resources to improve myself as an educator. I intend on implementing several ideas learned from my social network into my classroom strategies. I also plan on making some immediate adjustments to my current instructional practices to customize my instruction as a result of my learning in this course. I am constantly looking to improve myself as an educator. This course has really given my some ideas to improve the way I currently operate in my classroom.

Working with my social network has been great! Together, we learned and discussed new ideas about UDL and DI. We discussed strategies to be used to support each individual learners readiness, interest, and learning profile. We created a list of quality resources to use when planning lessons and assessments to meet the expectations of UDL and DI. We actually created our own web page to help display our learning for two weeks of our course. We reviewed the importance of using UDL and DI in our classrooms. We spent time discussing the CAST web site. Together, we explored and found tools such as objective builder and lesson plan builder to be used with our classroom planning. All in all, it has been a pretty productive network. I hope to continue this network even after our course work has finished.

This course has already helped me develop new ways to incorporate UDL and DI into my classroom. The word that rings a bell is "Flexibility". Carol Ann Tomlinson has driven home the point that I need to be more flexible in the way I approach my objective, lesson, and assessment planning. I need to provide options in every aspect of my classroom. Students will thrive, if I just work with them to better undertsand their readiness, interests, and abilities. The biggest idea I have taken away from this course and Carol Ann Tomlinson is that there is no one way to differentiate. Every teacher can use UDL and DI differentely and be successful. I look to continue adding choices to my classroom activities. I plan on working closer with our instructional coach to improve the way I differentiate in my classroom. I recently created a tiered assignment and have began to include options in my daily homework activities.

This course has really empowered me with ideas and collaborative networks to support my use of UDL and DI in my classroom. I look forward to bettering my classroom by allowing more choices and flexibility into my all around activities. My whole mission is to provide an atmosphere of choices that allow everyone an opportunity to in the best way possible.