Additional Resources

In addition to finding new websites from my course, I'm going to add some great resources that I have found on my own.  There's nothing better than having a collection of user friendly teacher websites.  Here are a couple with descriptions about them.

www.learnzillion.com
This website is great because there are a whole bunch of lessons and videos for teachers to use.  The videos are graphics that are short clips for students to have a quick glimpse as to what is going to be taught that day.  They state the objective and a summary for each video.  I have used this many times.

Here's a sample of what the website looks like.

www.classdojo.com
This website is great for classroom management.  It uses silly looking monsters as the avatar for each student.  You can set the awards and negative points for each class.  Parents can use their email to link to the site and go on periodically to check on their child's progress.  They can also email the teacher right on the site.

Here's a sample of the website

www.commoncoresheets.com
This website is for printing out math worksheets that are linked to the common core.  Even if your district has a specific math program, it's great supplemental work or homework.  You can even create test according to the standard or grade level.

Reflections of Resources

There are a couple of websites that I reviewed to see if they are beneficial to me.

www.cast.org
This website is great if you would like to find where you up coming events and presentations are located and their times.  There are also online courses that are offered.  This is all about the Universal Design for Learning.

www.udlcenter.org./aboutudl/udlguidelines
This website is a great resource for gathering information about UDL Checkpoints.  Each Checkpoint is on this website and it gives a list of resources and examples.  If you are struggling on how you could incorporate any points from the Checkpoints, this website is the one that will guide you ways to help the students in your classroom.

http://ada.osu.edu/resources/fastfacts/Universal-Design-FF.pdf
This website goes into detail about the Universal Design for Learning.  It states the definition, who benefits, the principals, implementation, and common teaching methods.  I feel the examples that they have in the implementation section are great ways to incorporate the UDL strategies into your everyday teaching.

Strongest UDL Checkpoints

UDL represents Universal Design for Learning.

When it comes to UDL Checkpoints, I feel I'm strongest when it comes to helping students by visuals.  I use videos, schedules, examples, and anchor charts.  I am a visual learner so it is easy for me to have many things around the room that the students can find the information themselves because it is posted.  I do feel that I used a lot of the UDL Checkpoints throughout my day and year in the classroom.  They become routine if you start them right in the beginning of the year and practice them every day.

There are 3 points to the UDL Checkpoints.  In section 1(Multiple Means of Representation), I would say that I am comfortable with activating background knowledge and allowing for auditorial and visual ways of showing and explaining the lessons.  Section 2 (Multiple Means for Action and Expression) I demonstrate strength with scaffolding and setting goals.  Section 3 (Multiple Means of Engagement) is the section that I felt I was successful in using when I was in a general education setting but now that I am working mostly in small group or one-on-one, I'm struggling with this section.

I feel like I have come a long way with UDL because of another class that I took at Cabrini University.  The class made me more aware of the things I could be doing to make sure I reach all students when I am teaching.

Due to the fast paced curriculum that I encountered while teaching in Philadelphia, I needed to work on pacing for the type of students that I was teaching but I had to keep up with the curriculum instead.  This did not allow for the timing that the student's needed in order to grasp the concepts that were being taught.  Another factor that relates to the pacing is finding time to allow for different ways to allow the students to respond.  My default is to use call and respond but that is not always helpful for the students.

Wikispaces

After viewing http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com, I found one website that I feel will be useful to me.  Padlet is a collaboration website that allows you to upload videos and pictures onto a site in order to share them.  I love finding new ways to use presentations, especially since it's something different than PowerPoint.  I saw it used once and realized that it was something that I wanted to remember to use in the future.

I have not used wikispaces in my classroom but it is something that I would check into more to see if it is something that I could integrate and use in class.