UDL to Solve Problems Project Jessica Miller

I. Background Everyday, 6 th Grade Health and PE Class. Total of 25 students, 14 girls and 11 boys. Seven students have IEPs and two students have 504 plans. My current challenge in my class is only five students raise their hand to answer questions in Health. When I call on other students to encourage them to participate they either shake their head no, act very shy, or say they don’t know. Barriers that are present are the students do not pay attention in class and display a general lack of enthusiasm in Health class.

II. Problem Solved My solution to my participation problem is using the hand held active expression devices. Each student is assigned a number at the beginning of the year and receives that active expression device when they enter into class each day. Each time I asked the students a question they simply text or choose an answer on the device depending on the type of question asked, as opposed to individual students raising their hands to be called on.

Representation Checkpoint 1.2 Offer alternatives for auditory information 1.3 Offer alternatives for visual information – During a class discussion on healthy relationships the teacher will create a relationship flip chart with discussion questions and pictures on relationships. The teacher will also verbally ask questions for the students to respond to on the active expression devices as the discussions unfold.

Action and Expression Checkpoint 6.2 Support planning and strategy development 6.3 Facilitate managing information and resources – Teacher will use the “stop and think” strategy to allow students time to think about their answers before texting them into the active expression devices. This time allows the student to think, plan, and check their resources they may have received about the topic. This also allows student to scaffold. For example, have some students write down three main ideas about the topic before texting into the device.

Engagement Checkpoint 7.3 Minimize threats and distractions – Allowing the students to use the active expression devices allows every student the opportunity to participate without being individually called upon. The devices are numbered randomly, so even when students answers are being displayed on the board they will not know who answered what.

Engagement Checkpoint Continued 9.1 Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation – During some classes the teachers could involve competition into the lesson. For example during a review the day before a test the teacher asked students review questions with either text or multiple choices responses. The student who answered the question the fastest and correct earns a reward. – The teacher also assigns each student a numbered device. This allows the teacher to know which students are answering questions and participating and who are not.