It is the teacher's responsibility to diminish any barriers that are in the way of a child's learning. The Curriculum Barriers Tools on the CAST website can help you analyze barriers for individual students in the curriculum, materials and methods of instruction. As I was completing the tutorial, a student I taught during my first grade student teaching experience came into mind and how this tool can help manage her barriers.
Giavanna is a student who understands the material and is able to response the correct answer while participating in class; however she struggled with finishing her work on time and concentrating on on activity. She had a difficult time completing her work and consistently started a new activity without finishing a previous one. I had to constantly remind her of her tasks and keep her focused on her work. During a change of seats, I suggested to my cooperating teacher that Giavanna be seated closer to the front and with students who would be less distracting for her. This seemed to us, as the teachers, to keep an eye on her, but she still managed to get distracted during independent work. She did not keep up with the class and was always at least one task behind the rest of the students.
After completing the tutorial, I learned that is tool can be very useful in identifying a student's weaknesses and problem-areas to help form solutions. As this will be my responsibility as a classroom teacher, the tool can help me assess ways to make changes to my instruction to help a student.
The next blog will discuss how UDL can improve my lesson plans as a teacher!
No comments:
Post a Comment