What is UDL?

Universal Design for Learning is meant to create the most inclusive type of lesson that gives students various ways to demonstrate that they understand the content wholly. UDL accomplishes this by following its three principles:
1. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement (the “why” of learning).
2. Provide Multiple Means of Representation (the “what” of learning).
3. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression (the “how” of learning).

My UDL Lesson Plan: Citations for Indiana 8th Graders

Using Indiana State Standard 8.W.5, I created a UDL lesson plan surrounding teaching 8th graders how to create a works cited page. This invovled a mix of digital and physical resources in the classroom for them to pick from. I provided five topics of choice: pop culture, music, sports, criminal investigations, and technology. From there, we used the sources they found or my example sources to create a Works Cited page in MLA 8th edition using Google Citations as well as going over how to create citations on paper by hand.

These were our content objectives (I Can Statements)

I can make a Works Cited Page in MLA.
I can insert a citation using parentheses and a period outside parentheses.
I can find credible sources for my works cited page.
I can give credit and say where I got my information from to back myself up.

These were our language objectives (I Can Statements)

I can explain what a Works Cited Page is.
I can explain why it’s important to have a Works Cited page and use citations at the end of the sentence.
I can explain/break down what the difference parts of a reference are.

It was clear that I had to adapt my lesson once actually teaching it. There was too much work for the students to get thought, and my handing out the assignments at the beginning of the class period stressed them out. I taught the lesson three times, and 3rd hour was when everything went right. I was able to pull off a UDL lesson plan because I lessened their workload, I stopped by every table to make sure they understood what they were doing within their Google Doc to create the citation, and I used my big kid voice. In the classroom, I struggle a lot with talking at a loud enough volume that the kids can understand me, and my face mask doesn't help the issue. But, being quiet is an accessibility issue; they won't learn anything if they cannot hear.

I created the lesson with my ENL students and Special Needs students in mind, but I hadn't accounted for overall attitude towards work. Initally, I was going to give my lesson on a Red Day, where I would have seen the Pre-AP students and the sheltered instruction Special Needs students that my mentor teacher has. However, due to a few factors, we had to switch to my UDL lesson happening on a Green Day. Just the makeup and personalities of kids you have in your classroom has such a huge impact on how to execute your lesson. 2nd period, I flopped hard. It was too much work, and I overwhelmed the kids.

A few quotes I remember from that period was that my lesson sucked, my outfit was ugly, and my last name sounded funny. The material wasn't hard, but I had given them too much at once. The videos with captions, the worksheets, the demostration on the board. It was overwhelming and they shut me down. In the passing period between 2nd and 3rd period, I was thinking hard about what to do, and my mentor teacher said that he was going to record 3rd period since it seemed like I had realized that I needed to change some things. I did switch gears.

The next period was not a sheltered instruction class, and it was a small class. I was able to cut the worksheets out and go table to table to ensure that every kid was following along. By the end of the class period, everyone had submitted a complete Works Cited page based on one of the topics they picked. It was amazing. There was even some time left over for kids to go back to the worksheets I had printed out and gain extra credit. After they had finished their work, I had students coming up to me and telling me that they truly enjoyed my lesson.

7th period, the last period of the day, is only sixty minutes compared to the ninety minutes I had with the previous classes. And, it is a sheltered instruction language immersion class. With the time constraits and the ENL co-teacher never showing up, I flopped again but not as hard. My Spanish was shaky, but I was understandable; I just couldn't reach every table in the same way I could in the small class. All class periods had access to my powerpoint, the handouts, the captioned (Spanish and English) videos, and the topics/example articles to do outside of class, and they had time to finish up outside of class, but it was truly shocking to see just how much class size and class type affected my ability to get through everything. There was one girl in that class who was really sweet. She came up to me after the bell rang and told me that I was going great despite it all.

I want to tweak this, so I can resuse it in the future. There is something here in the lesson that is good, it's just going to take some practice to fine tune it.