The Lesson

For this activity, I have chosen a second-grade social studies lesson on the physical features of Africa from the Baltimore County Public School (BCPS) curriculum. The instructional goal is for students to identify physical features and geographical characteristics in order to place them on a map of Africa.  I teach this lesson during a unit on Africa and my students are a diverse group of minorities in a Title One elementary school.  The lesson utilizes images, text, and video through a Powerpoint presentation that students can work through to gain knowledge about the different physical features of Africa.  These features include deserts, mountains, lakes, valleys rivers plains and sand dunes.

I have chosen this lesson because the lesson does not provide multiple means for engagement and representation.  The lesson’s provisions for engagement are minimal at best, and the representation requires students to cut and paste images of four physical features as well as four brief descriptions of the features onto a map of Africa.  The lack of modality choice could affect the level of engagement of many students and their ability to show their understanding during the assessment.  Additionally, I feel that students may be able to make much deeper connections with additional means of representation during the lesson.

The Technology Integrated,  UDL Checkpoints  Enhanced, and Classroom Implications

This lesson appears to be severely deficient in the use of UDL principles.  In thinking about the technologies that I would like to implement to improve the UDL qualities of this lesson, I have tried to select technologies that would easily integrate with the software utilized by BCPS.  I feel that these technologies would greatly increase the effectiveness of the lesson, and each helps to enhance more than one UDL checkpoint.

Microsoft’s Immersive Reader

The first technology that I would implement is Microsoft’s Immersive Reader.  Because the lesson is in Powerpoint, Immersive Reader can provide text-to-speech for all text within the presentation. Text-to-speech feature will help support UDL Checkpoint 2.3 – Support decoding of text, mathematical notation, and symbols by supporting the decoding and comprehension of the text with a humanistic voice that does not sound robotic.  Immersive Reader can also translate the text into several languages.  This feature will improve Checkpoint 2.4 – Promote understanding across languages by making the key information available to English language learners through electronic means.

Once I become proficient in its use and imbed it into the lesson, I could teach students how to use its simple interface or set it up for them so that they have access to its features.  Immersive Reader could also be used for many other lessons throughout the school year.

Every year, I can expect to have students that are emergent readers.  This typically means ELL students, students with developmental delay or students with intellectual disabilities.  The ability to provide text to speech and language translation for these students does not just help them comprehend what they are tasked with learning.  It helps to create a much safer environment for them by reducing the stress of comprehending what they are not yet capable of understanding.  This, in turn, will help promote a positive learning environment where they can learn at their pace, with the proper accommodations to help them succeed.

Creately Visual Tools

I would also implement Creately in order to build a KWL chart with students.  With Creately,  which has nineteen types of smart digital graphic organizers, this can be done collaboratively or led by the teacher and will help improve the implementation of three UDL checkpoints.  By adding the objective for the lesson to the chart’s topic, the KWL chart can be left on the classroom digital display to help the students revisit the learning goal throughout the lesson.

KWL charts are advanced organizers that give an option for representation in order to anchor instruction by connecting and activating related prior knowledge. This will help improve Checkpoint 3.3 – Guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation.   Checkpoint 3.4 – Maximize transfer and generalization is also enhanced by providing a connection between new knowledge and information learned previously as well as an organizer for students to reference.

Using Creately to create a KWL chart will as aid in providing multiple means of action and expression by improving Checkpoint 6.1 – Guide appropriate goal-setting.  This is accomplished because the KWL chart will help students see a method and the results of setting goals.  This checkpoint is further enhanced by adding the lesson objective to the chart, mentioned above, to keep it posted for students to reference.

A KWL chart is a very powerful tool that supports the constructivist theory of learning.  By activating prior knowledge, then connecting it to the new information being presented, students are able to create personal meaning by associating the two.  KWL charts are also a great way for the teacher to observe student understanding in an informal and nonthreatening way, thus promoting a safe learning environment.  Using Creately to utilize this effective instrument can serve another purpose when the teacher adds the objective to the topic bar as well.  Leaving the chart displayed on the classroom display will help students remember the purpose and the goal of the lesson.  As a sixth year second grade teacher, I fully understand how easy it is for them to forget.