University of Indianapolis

Comment

Comment by John Somers on September 10, 2012 at 10:07pm

We had very wonderful component of GBL in our class this summer when we played three games designed with UDL principles from Filament Games. Thank you Filament Games for your expert design principles and sharing your work with my graduate students.

Comment by Rolanda Hardin on June 7, 2012 at 11:32pm

Ready for the journey...

Comment by Timothy Patrick Merrill on June 5, 2012 at 6:05pm

I look forward to learning about the principles and concepts of UDL and incorporating them into my curriculum design.

Comment by Ashley Knight on April 23, 2012 at 12:22pm

I really liked the principles Nair develped in his article. I strongly believe these principles could be implemented to help Nair's new concept of a school. These principles are key in successfully helping a school. Nair stated the following principles in his article,

"(1) personalized; (2) safe and secure; (3) inquiry-based; (4) student-directed; (5) collaborative; (6) interdisciplinary; (7) rigorous and hands-on; (8) embodying a culture of excellence and high expectations; (9) environmentally conscious; (10) offering strong connections to the local community and business; (11) globally networked; and (12) setting the stage for lifelong learning."

 

I strongly believe all 12 of these principles play a vital role into a school. These principles allow students to explore their own understandings and particpate in their learning. I believe these principles also be can be seen when UDL is implemented into a curriculum, which is why I believe Nair could easily implement UDL into his new concept of a school idea. This approach will be the best way to help all individual students rather than students as a whole. As a future teacher, I believe I could incorporate these principles into my lessons to best help my students. I believe if my teachers would have implemented these principles while I was in school (elementary, middle, high) then I would have a better understanding of some concepts, such as math. I believe this principles can really benefit every student within a classroom and help them to better understand things. They can all play a role in aiding students comprehensions. This is a new way to look at a school and how Nair believes a school should evolve into.

Comment by Wade McClurg on April 23, 2012 at 12:16pm

"Let’s hope that scientific evidence, along with the economic imperative for change, will set us on a new path—one in which we break down the metaphorical and real walls that keep our children trapped in boxes. To get there, we first need to free ourselves from the mental box that limits our thinking about the real meaning and purpose of education."

-Nair

I have learned a lot from Junior Block and from taking this online course about Universal Design for Learning.  I think one way to help "break down the walls that keep our children trapped in boxes" is to incorporate UDL into the classroom everyday.  Every new developing teacher and teacher that has been in the classroom for 30+ years needs to incorporate UDL into the classroom.  UDL enables your students to get more engaged into learning by providing multiple means of representation, clearly understand what is being taught by providing multiple means of action and expression, show multiple ways to prove that they understand the concept being taught through multiple means of expression.  UDL will get teachers away from the traditional ways of teaching mathematics by just doing the SCA, and instead giving them very rich and concrete building tasks for them to complete through the use of manipulatives and technology.  All students are different and they all learn better in different ways, and the incorporation of UDL will help you (the teacher) find the ways your students learn best.

Comment by Wade McClurg on April 23, 2012 at 12:04pm

"The classroom is a relic, left over from the Industrial Revolution."

-Nair

This quote means that the classroom is old-fashioned or out of date.  Since the Industrial Revolution a lot of technological advancements in the world have occurred.  Thanks to the Industrial Revolution technology has improved significantly, because it was the kickstart to new beginnings.  

"Classroom-based education lags far behind when measured against its ability to deliver the creative and agile workforce that the 21st century demands. This is already evidenced by our nation’s shortage of high-tech and other skilled workers—a trend that is projected to grow in coming years."

-Nair

Since the Industrial Revolution we have relied on scientific advancements to further our country's development in the work force.  Classroom-based education  in the U.S. needs to get up to par with the top countries in the world today.  If we want our children to be better prepared with what the work force is going to require in the 21st century then we must incorporate more technology into the classroom to enhance learning.  Technology keeps improving in today's society and taking over jobs, and since the economy is not the greatest, then people must be better educated to get a job.  If teachers become more flexible and offer a variety of ways for students to learn the state standards in a new and fun way with the use of technology and scientific-based research then we will be going in a new direction.  The new direction that he is talking about in this article may not be the answer, but we will never know if we don't try.  And if we keep doing what we are doing in the classroom then we will continue to lag behind some countries in education. 

Comment by Ashley Knight on April 23, 2012 at 11:53am

I agree with Prakash Nair  conception of a a new school. School systems these days put a lot of focus on the broad aspect of students leaners. Many teachers today only focus on the overall understanding of their students as a whole, rather than as individual students. Nair stated,

"Each student “constructs” knowledge based on his or her own past experiences. Because of this, the research demands a personalized education model to maximize individual student achievement. Classrooms, on the other hand, are based on the erroneous assumption that efficient delivery of content is the same as effective learning."

This idea shows how teachers need to implement UDL practices into their classroom to help individual student achievement. Teachers need to focus on each individual student and what he/she needs to succeed, rather than focusing on the class as a whole. I beleive this is how Nair views creating a new conception of a classroom. Students need to be provided with multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression to help demonstrate their understandings with in the classroom. I believe implementing these three UDL principles will strongly help support Nair's new classroom concept idea. I strongly beleive that there needs to be a change in our school systems. Our school systems are really old and not up to par with today's society. Students need to be able to explore their own understandings rather than being told exactly how to do something. We should no longer teacher students the "old fashion" ways of things and allow students to explore their own understandings by being hands-on and problem solving.

Comment by Wade McClurg on April 23, 2012 at 11:48am

I really like Nair's article when he talks about the classroom of tomorrow concept.  I think we need to be more open-minded when it comes to children learning in the classroom.  If the state standards could be more structured towards scientific research like he talks about in the article, then our students could be more ready for what the 21st century has to offer and is going to bring. Right now students construct their own knowledge based on their own background knowledge, instead I like his ideas on creating knowledge for them through the use of variety, flexibly, and comfortability to help the teachers teach better and the students learn better.

Comment by Jill Bowen on April 22, 2012 at 8:09pm

This whole thought process intrigues me. It makes me wonder if it could really work and how it could work at my school and if our teachers would really be willing to make some of these changes. It also makes me wonder how our students, parents, and community would respond. Nair listed some non-classroom-based examples of schools so I decided to check out their websites to learn gather information. The communities, parents, and students all seem very supportive of these schools. There is a lot of project-based learning occurring. Students are working individually and collaboratively. The students are getting out of the classroom and using their environment and community as their classroom.

I stumbled across this video, “Classrooms for the Future” and it helps give a better visual and idea of what classrooms might look like if we make some changes.

Comment by Jill Bowen on April 21, 2012 at 9:54pm

I do think that the new classroom would have many students involved, but I also see many students still not wanting to work and put forth effort. It is an idea that could be played around with, but I do not see it working in every school. I did like that Nair was not completely ruling out classrooms because I think there are still times when classrooms do work well. For those students who are not quite ready to jump into projects and getting out into this new classroom, a regular classroom may best serve his needs. I also see many teachers not liking the new classroom concept and not wanting to change. They will want to see data that it works and can be beneficial before they start making too many changes.
    Nair does bring up a good point about how “success” is defined and what are we really educating our students for? What do we expect our students to do? What do we expect our students to become? We have made many advances in technology, but the US is behind in producing tech savvy workers. Is it time to do some rethinking? Would this new conception of school really make a difference?

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