ED 640

A friend and colleague shared this cartoon with me this week, which I think is so pertinent to what I've learned this semester in grad school. Throughout this semester, I've learned about various methods used by teachers to both engage students and enrich their experiences in the STEM classroom. However, I have also been made aware of the various limitations my students face. Those limitations could be related to a child's cognitive or physical abilities, or could be attributed to the child's level of interest in the material being taught. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a pedagogy that strives to reach all students by offering them multiple means of expression, representation, and engagement. Teachers can provide a variety of methods for students to gain knowledge, show what they know, and interact with the subject matter. Even though STEM tends to be a high-interest subject and technology tends to be a great equalizer in the classroom, I can still use the ...

Two weeks ago, my colleagues and I embarked on our yearly overnight trip for Outdoor School with our sixty 7th graders. Although this was my fourth time chaperoning the field trip, I feel like every time I go, I learn something new about myself, and my students. In reflecting on this event and my recent studies in grad school, I couldn't help but be reminded of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for evaluating teacher performance. Which aspects of the field trip had I been the most successful at, and which needed improvement? I knew that since our field trip was not traditional classroom teaching, that there would not be direct matches between every aspect of the Framework and my experience, but I thought it might be a good exercise to evaluate what I did do that happened to follow the Framework. 1e. Designing Coherent Instruction Teachers should carefully plan engaging and challenging instructional activities that conform to the prescribed standards. "The sequence o...