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Universal Design for Learning

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This week I will begin by looking at an article that analyzes the effectiveness of professional development when looking at increasing the likelihood of educators to implement the Universal Design for Learning framework in their classrooms. The article is titled. "Professional development with universal design for learning: supporting teachers as learners to increase the implementation of UDL." The article examines how professional development (PD) grounded in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework can support teachers in improving their practice and increasing UDL implementation in their classrooms. They specifically study a week-long Summer Institute PD intervention, designed around features that prior research identifies as effective for teacher professional learning (e.g., content focus, active learning, modelling, feedback/reflection). Teachers who attended the PD Institute showed greater improvement in their UDL implementation scores compared to those who di...
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AI Tools: A Review of Magic School

This week I explored the website, Magic School, an AI tool specifically designed to support teachers an students, writing lesson plans, creating tailored activities, and many more! To begin I generated a math lesson plans for 1st grade students. The Lesson Plan is linked below. https://app.magicschool.ai/tools/lesson-plan-generator?share=dc69ed97-4163-4ae8-8f0a-800c27a202b7 I used the following standards: ISTE Standard: Empowered Learner - Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Oklahoma Academic Standards: Math: 1.N.1 Count, compare, and represent whole numbers up to 100, with an emphasis on grouping in terms of tens and ones. 1.N.1.1 Recognize numbers to 20 without counting (subitize) the quantity of structured arrangements. Lesson Plan Review: At first glance, the lesson plan provides good bones for a lesson plan. It connects well with the Oklahoma...
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Supporting Students in their Learning

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This week we are looking at how people learn and as educators what we can do to support lifelong learning. We look at Chapter 5 of How People Learn II, as well as an article by Mark Gura, and finally the relevance of these two texts against our ISTE Standards.  References: Gura, M. (2020, May 28). Fostering student creativity [Editorial]. EdTech Digest. https://edtechdigest.com/2020/05/28/the-arts-creativity-technology-2020-a-guide-for-educators-parents/ International Society for Technology in Education. (2017). ISTE standards for educators: Educator standard indicators and implementation examples (1st ed.). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dZiE7xVG9k86CGRS8AIxunGXzOn_MgwA/view National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24783
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Authentic Intellectual Work

 Authentic Intellectual work is essentially engaging students in their own learning. That is, instead of telling them about a subject or experience, we let them experience it for themselves. We know that human beings of all ages learn best when we get to interact with what we are learning. Once we get to experience something, it has a much deeper meaning to us than if someone simply tells us about it. Traditionally in classrooms, students are receiving information, maybe providing commentary or feedback, but not experiencing it on their own. We tell them about plants and butterflies, we show them pictures, but that is nothing compared to the learning experience they receive when we give them a net, let them catch a butterfly, and observe it for themselves.  According to Authentic Instruction and Assessment, "Combining results from several studies, research indicated that students who experienced higher levels of instruction and assessment that promoted authentic intellectual w...
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 My name is Emily Mayfield and I live in Oklahoma with my husband and children. We live in Oklahoma City and I am currently a 1st Grade Teacher at a Classical School. I am also an instructional coach for teachers and often support our district with guidance and resources in math. I am passionate about Early Childhood Education and hope to some day be a curriculum specialist and instructional coach supporting early learners as well as Educators to help create a learning environment that is developmentally appropriate and sparks a love of learning!  In first grade, we spend a lot of time in math focusing on conceptual understanding of Addition and Subtraction within 10. The Oklahoma Academic Standard states, "1.N.2 Solve addition and subtraction problems with sums and minuends of up to 10 in real-world and mathematical contexts" (Oklahoma State Department of Education [OSDE], 2022). Educational technology tools can be a great way for students to practice these skills. The ISTE ...
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