Universal Design For Learning And Differentiated Instruction Analysis

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The job of a teacher is to facilitate learning for all students equally. In order to be considered an effective teacher they must be prepared, know their subject inside and out, and they must make knowledge equally accessible to students with disabilities as well as for students without disabilities. How can one person make learning accessible for all students when there is only one teacher and many children who all need various levels of help and teaching/learning strategies? This paper will discuss two leading ways studies have found to help reach all students academically, the Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction, while also touching briefly on modifications versus accommodations. The first framework, the Universal …show more content…
A teacher using DI would follow the principles of ongoing assessments throughout the lesson and flexible grouping using both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups depending on the assignment/project at hand. In order to effectively group students a teacher must really know each child individually on a basis of the students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles. The main instructional elements of DI include the content (knowledge and skills needed to master the topic), the process (the activities used to master the content), and the product (the method students use to demonstrate learning) (dfhjsakfhjsad). When discussing frameworks for learning, one cannot fully understand them without first understanding the difference between modifications and accommodations. Accommodations do not change the learning expectations or requirements; whereas, modifications change both of these. Both UDL and DI depend on accommodations to ways the information is expressed, ways of presenting responses, the setting, and or the timing/scheduling …show more content…
Studies have shown that it takes 4 to 5 years make the shift from a traditional classroom to a differentiated classroom, an immense time commitment (fdshajk). Each year the educator must relearn their students in extreme detail, meaning that the level of dedication and time commitment needed in order for a teacher to have any hopes of becoming effective is astounding. Teachers must additionally be creative with their lessons, assignments, and assessments. This creativity does not come naturally to many educators so they must have access to trainings and support that many schools cannot provide for their teachers. Personally, I have participated in many training exercises and have implemented DI into all of my lesson plans and I still find it often shrouded in mystery; whereas, just the little bit I was exposed to about UDL explained the framework in a clear-cut manner. I had never heard of UDL before this class, but it appears to be much more detailed and explicit in its goals and strategies so therefore it would be easier to

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