In this lesson plan I incorporate many
principles of UDL. There are varied means of representing information, multiple
means of action and expression, and also multiple means of engagement. Information
is presented to students through multiple representations: there is a power
point presentation (showing original images of the texts and giving students a
sense of what they looked like in their original context), a video (combining
audio and visuals, as well as providing a historical narrative), and images as
well as documents (there is also a glossary following the documents). These
various methods of representation allow students’ to use their individual
strengths, while also providing them with challenges. For example, one student might
do really well with reading and analyzing historical documents, but struggles
with learning from and interpreting images or video. Multiple means of action
and expression are available through the concept mapping tool that we will use
as a class, discussion, and creative writing. The creative writing activity “Write
your own Declaration of Independence” establishes authenticity and
individuality to come through in the lesson. The group work throughout the
lesson allows for collaboration and communication. Putting the students into
pairs or small groups invites collaboration, but also enables students to take
on individual roles – perhaps one student is confident in their writing skills
so they take on the role of the ‘writer,’ another student in the group is good
at public speaking and so takes on the role of the group’s presenter, and the
third group member might have the best understanding of the various sources and
provides leadership and facilitates discussion.
All of these various methods are included to create
a dynamic and interesting lesson, and to provide students with individualized
means to learn and express their knowledge.
2. How do
you see the use of technology connecting with the content focus?
I think the technology I chose to use matches
the content focus well. My learning goals in this lesson were for the students
to understand the colonists’ motivations and arguments for separation from
Britain, and to analyze the documents and make evidence-based hypotheses
explaining these motivations. The introduction video highlights the difficulty
the colonists faced when deciding to separate, and also the emotion and
humanity of the Founding Fathers. It is a stirring, emotional, and engaging
video and I think that it will help the students look at these documents in a
new light, as well as understand the high stakes that were placed on the
question of independence. The presentation does not contain a lot of content,
it’s true, but I think that having the visual of what these documents looked
like in their initial printings is important. The larger, colored version of
the engraving might also be easier for the students to see and analyze, as the
smaller version in their document packets is a bit blurred. Finally, the
mindmup concept mapping website is a great way to visually map out all of the
student hypotheses that they will generate after reading each document. Mapping
out their ideas on the chalkboard would take up too much space, and it would be
more difficult to show the interconnection between their ideas. The website
makes maps that are streamlined and easy-to-read. They are also easy to
manipulate, which is essential as I will be adding to it, editing, and deleting
items as the class progresses. This technology will help students brainstorm,
compare hypotheses, and see the connections between ideas in a way that
non-digital technology could not.
3. How do
you see the use of technology connecting with the pedagogical approach you’ve
selected?
I think the technology connected well with its
respective LAT. For ‘view presentation’ I have a presentation of slides that
show the central question that the students will investigate and images of the
texts that they are working with. For ‘view images’ I included both an
introductory video and an image that they will use as a source. Then the
students and I will work together to ‘develop a knowledge web’ using the
concept mapping technology. As I said in the answer above, the concept mapping
site manages to hold a great deal of information and present it in an orderly,
clear display. It is easy for students to read what others included, come up
with new ideas or build off of another’s response, because it is easily
visible.
4. How do
the content, pedagogy and technology all “fit” together in the lesson?
I thought of the content I wanted to teach
first. This lesson plan is based on one I produced for my methods class, so the
learning goals/objectives were already in place. My next step was figuring out how
to best teach my students the learning goal and how to interact with the texts,
while also being engaging and interesting. For example, I knew that I wanted
the students to theorize and try to answer our historical question, and that
led me to selecting the ‘developing a knowledge web’ LAT. I decided that
producing a web of the complexity and size that I hoped the students would
develop would require some sort of technology. So I really tried to consider
the LAT and the technology and how they would help students accomplish my
learning goals and objectives. I think I managed to incorporate technology in a
way that makes sense and does not distract from the point of the lesson.
5. What is
the relative advantage of the technology(ies) used in the lesson?
Certainly one of the advantages of using
technology is that allowed me to give my students different visual
representations of the material. The video serves to give background, create an
emotional connection to the material, and includes dynamic audio and video. Using
images of the engraving shows a larger, clearer image, making it easier to
analyze. The images of the documents help students gain a perspective of the
past and the effort that went into making these documents. Finally, the concept
mapping website has several advantages in this lesson: it’s fast, efficient,
easy to use, shows a great deal of information, shows the connections between
ideas, and helps students visually understand how their ideas relate to our
central historical question.
6. What was your
overall experience like designing this lesson using the Learning Activity Types
approach to technology integration planning? In other words, how, if at all,
did this process help you to zero in on appropriate and effective technologies
to approach the lesson?
As I mentioned
previously, I already had the idea for the learning goals and objectives from a
lesson plan I made earlier. That gave me a good place to start. After that I
used the LAT chart and typology to organize my ideas on what I would like to
have students do during the lesson. I knew I wanted to start off with an
interesting video to hook them in, and that I wanted to incorporate discussion
(in small groups and as a class), so that was easily determined. After that,
however, there were so many choices that it made making a decision rather
difficult. This is not a criticism, however. I am glad that there are so many
choices to consider – it means that I can use this in the future to avoid
boxing myself into a set of three go-to LATs.
I returned to my
learning goals and had to decide how I wanted students to hypothesize and
answer our historical question. I had decided on incorporating discussion, but
I also thought that using something visual would help students theorize freely,
pay attention and remember what other students had said, and then be able to
return to those ideas after reading the next document. Once I looked at the
LATs again, it seemed clear that developing a knowledge web would work well
with this lesson.
Overall I think using
this LAT approach to lesson planning was useful. It helped me understand
different categories of activities and how/where I might want to fit those into
class and how they would help me achieve my learning goals for the lesson. I
also liked that the LAT provided various ways of learning and communicating
learning, and then even more examples of ways to integrate technology into that
LAT. It was systematic and is definitely something I will use in the future.
