Universal Design for Learning

This week’s essential question centers on young people’s relationships with both media/information and communication technologies, and on the role of media in our students’ lives. A pundit wrote that our students today live in a rich, colorful world of multimedia – and then they go to school. There is a lot of truth in that, but I do think we are making progress as educators to become more open to the possibilities and the uses of technology in our classrooms and libraries. That will require us to transcend our generational digital differences in order to embrace ideas and tools out of our comfort zone. Making that leap will take some guidance and a lot of motivation on the part of educators and librarians. I have been exploring some excellent resources to help with the guidance part of it – and I am highly motivated to learn more!

Universal Design for Learning is the practice of providing multiple methods of "representation, engagement and expression" for all students to maximize their learning. Once again Joyce Valenza, along with Karen Janowski, hit a homerun with their wikispace - udtechtoolkit - a free technology toolkit for Universal Design for Learning in all classrooms. This wiki is a goldmine of information and links to even more information! For example, I found the link to the digital text of the book, Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning by David H. Rose & Anne Meyer (ASCD, 2002). Chapter 1 has a section covering brain research and new technologies. The point is made that recent brain studies show that the brain does not have just one overall learning capacity, but instead has multiple areas for learning. You can easily see the importance of that to educators who understand the power of technology in the classroom – new methods of teaching and for students to show what they’ve learned gives greater flexibility – more options for engaging the students in their work. What might not be so obvious is the implication for school librarians. While libraries and print text are historically linked (!) our libraries today are so much more than simply print text. New technology has offered new ways to connect our students with the stories, the authors, the ideas. Readers who fail the quiz on an assigned reading because they struggle with print may understand the story perfectly when they listen to the audio book. An author’s website may draw them in to the story line of a series. A web tour of locations in the story may bring the story alive by giving them needed background information to understand the context. I know many teachers who believe that the only way a student should study literature is through the traditional print based materials in the textbook or in the book they hand out in class. I disagree totally with that approach. I believe we would be withholding knowledge and depriving the students of the excitement of connecting with the story if we do not use all the tools and media available.

We have been talking about learning styles at our school, and about helping our students identify their own learning style, as well as helping teachers identify their own teaching style – they might not match up! The V.A.R.K. website has a very useful assessment tool – a questionnaire - for determining your predominant learning style. There are other assessment tools online, but V.A.R.K. goes a step beyond by providing help sheets. Each is tailored to the kind of learning style – for example Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic (hence the name VARK). Each provides insight into 3 aspects of the learning style: best methods for taking in information, best methods for processing or learning that information, and best methods for sharing what you’ve learned.

These resources – the Universal Design for Learning technology toolkit, the digital book (Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age), and the V.A.R.K website provide so much useful information and insight to get us on the right track for helping our students both in the classroom and in the library.

My CAS focus is on finding ways to help teachers and librarians overcome barriers to successful collaboration – I see a lot of material here to explore and use. I am especially interested in the applications in the school library for connecting readers through the use of technology and digital applications. I am excited to have multiple ways to help students find out about new books, or learn about the author, the setting, the characters or gain background knowledge to increase their understanding. In our library a GSLIS practicum student last semester presented the Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award title book talks by using a Google Earth tour of the locations. We observed that more students stayed focused on the talks, asked questions and made notes of titles they wanted to read than in other class presentations. Presentations to five classrooms using this multimedia approach generated over 200 individual title requests from those students for the books on the reading list! The English teachers are giving extra credit for each title they read from the list, and the students are reading books they have chosen. The students are completing more book reports and my circulation has increased – those books are seldom on the shelves. There will be many more multimedia projects in the future for my library, for sure!