Representations, Engagement, and Expression: Potentials of Cognitive Apprenticeship for Creating Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Brown, Collins, and Guguid (1989) proposed a cognitive apprenticeship theory of learning which placed activity at the center of any knowledge acquisition process. Learning, according to this theory, is a process in which an individual is enculturated into “authentic practices through activity and social interaction” (Brown, et al., p.37). Learning is situated in activities that resemble those undertaken by professionals in relevant domain areas. These activities allow students to understand what conceptual tools the professionals employ to solve problems and how they collaborate and interact with each other in their profession. Like apprentices in a trade, novice learners move from peripheral participation to full participation through observing, imitating, taking on responsibilities within their zones of proximal development, collaborating with peers, and gradually applying knowledge in increasingly complex fashion. Learning is situated in the interaction between activities, tools (physical or conceptual), and cultural practices.

For example, children learn to eat with Chopsticks in China through parents’ modeling and coaching the use of chopsticks in the daily authentic activity of eating meals. A child struggles with this task initially but continues to get feedback from adults. The cultural practice of eating with chopsticks is not limited to home or performed in isolation, but is ubiquitous in the Chinese society. The child is immersed in this activity in an ongoing and inclusive process regardless of the adeptness with which he or she manipulates chopsticks. The child starts as a novice and becomes an expert at the end of the apprenticeship.  

The cognitive apprenticeship theory, when translated into classroom instructional practices, can support universal design for learning. As we know, UDL is based on three overarching principles: multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement. In what ways is this theory aligned with the three principles and how can it support UDL in a diverse classroom? The table below lists some alignment between UDL principles and guidelines with cognitive apprenticeship applications:

For more detailed look at the UDL principles and places they correlate with cognitive apprenticeship theory, you could read the UDL guideline 2.0 and the checkpoints under each principle’s guidelines.

References:

Brown, J. S., Collins, A. & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

CAST (2011). UDL guidelines – Version 2.0: Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines

Gee, J. (2009). A Situated sociocultural approach to literacy and technology. Retrieved from http://jamespaulgee.com/node/6

Flipped Classroom

Flipping the classroom: Hopes that the internet can improve teaching may at last be bearing fruit (http://www.economist.com/node/21529062)

Electronic education Sep 17th 2011 | LOS ALTOS

What is in a flipped classroom? This article introduces some of the pros and cons of flipping the classroom. 

Here are some quotes from the article and my thoughts:


How it works: 

• "This reversal of the traditional teaching methods—with lecturing done outside class time and tutoring (or “homework”) during it—is what Mr Khan calls “the flip”."
• "Children (or adults, for that matter) need no longer feel ashamed when they have to review part or all of a lecture several times. So they can advance at their own pace."

It is fascinating to see how teachers can potentially free up themselves to help individual students.But lectures and whole-class reviews are still important time for teachers to check on students' understanding or misconceptions, allow students to share different ways to problem solve, and help reinforce the knowledge learned for some students. 


Another concern is: how would schools facing severe budget constraints handle the flipped classroom without technologies available for such tech-supported individualized instruction? How can students, without access to right technologies, watch lectures online outside of classroom? 

Interactive aspect of learning 

• "As a tool, KhanAcademy individualises teaching and makes it interactive and fun. Maths “is social now,” says Kami Thordarson, as the 10-year-olds in the 5th-grade class she teaches at Santa Rita Elementary School huddle round their laptops to solve arithmetic problems as though they were trading baseball cards or marbles."

The flipped classroom still needs social element to enable students to interact with and learn from each other. Learning is a social activity. According to Vygotsky, "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals."

I wonder whether the online lectures are designed based on sound pedagogical principles. How can the lectures be evaluated and peer-reviewed? In what ways are they accessible to all learners (students with learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, physical and sensory disabilities, ELL learners, etc.)? 

Subject matters and teach to the test?

• "The system has its detractors. First, it may not be much use beyond “numerate” subjects such as maths and the sciences;...Even in these subjects KhanAcademy implicitly reinforces the “sit-and-get” philosophy of teaching, thinks Frank Noschese, a high-school physics teacher in New York. That is, it still “teaches to the test”, without necessarily engaging pupils more deeply."

I don't totally agree that students cannot access great lectures online in websites other than KhanAcademy. I am not as worried about other subject matters as "teach to the test." The real concern is how students can practice higher-order thinking vs. lower-order functions as illustrated in the flipped classroom example in this article, unless schools and teachers are aware of the potential of teaching to the test and make a great point using KhanAcademy with a lot of discretion. 

Culture of competition

• "KhanAcademy’s deliberate “gamification” of learning—all those cute and addictive “meteorite badges”—may have the “disastrous consequence” of making pupils mechanically repeat lower-level exercises to win awards, rather than formulating questions and applying concepts."

Some doses of competition is not necessarily bad for students, as long as they are always appropriately challenged and given opportunities to be innately motivated to learn for knowledge mastery. 

The Value of Teachers

• The article raised the issue of how teachers can be evaluated fairly on the basis of exam results or classroom observation (given that some pupils are from educated families, others from poor areas, and so on). The unions are doing their best to ensure that evaluations have no consequences in staffing.
• The article proposes that the flipped model has the potential to make it easier for schools to evaluate teachers. "You can follow the progress of each child—where she started, how she progressed, where she got stuck and “unstuck” (as Ms Thordarson likes to put it). You can also view the progress of the entire class. And you could aggregate the information of all the classes taught by one teacher, of an entire school or even district, with data covering a whole year."
• Opponent voice: "Dennis van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labour union in America with 3.2m members, goes ballistic at this suggestion. “Don’t demean the profession” by implying that you can rate teachers with numbers, he says. Besides, this sort of thing would introduce destructive competition into a culture that should be collaborative, he adds (without explaining why data-driven evaluations have not destroyed collaboration in other industries)."
• Proponent: "Mr Khan, the teachers and Mr Gates all insist that the opposite is the case. It can liberate a good teacher to become even better. Of course, it can also make it easy for a bad teacher to cop out."

Knowing where the students are in performance certainly is a big help to teachers. But can all knowledge be evaluated through numbers? Of course not. Therefore, it still behooves on schools to adopt comprehensive teacher evaluation system, flipped classroom or not. 

Teaching.Learning

Teachers structure the learning environments but children structure the activities...  

Do you know how many classrooms are NOT taught by highly qualified teachers?

Excerpt from Illinois state plan on highly qualified teachers:

Read the entire doc:
ISBE Highly Qualified Teachers_State Plan

Google Related Research Feature

I found a good and simple Google search feature that could be potentially useful to teachers and students:
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/google-related-searches
The above website introduces quite nicely.
I did a search with the key phrase "Lusitania ww1."  I also clicked on "more search tools" on the left of the Google search screen. The result is that I get the following related key phrases to search for similar content on Google search:

Related searches for Lusitania ww1:

1. sussex pledge
2. zimmerman note
3. zimmerman telegram
4. treaty of versailles
5. unrestricted submarine warfare

1. lusitania ship
2. lusitania sinking
3. lusitania
4. lusitania world war one
5. lusitania ww2   

Besides the above, I also got a list of websites related to this topic: 

Google Docs in the Classroom

Google Docs in the Classroom
Strategies and tips for effectively integrating Google Docs with teaching and learning developed by Tom Barrett

One of the barriers against effective use of assistive technology is that students do not want to appear different from the rest of the class. If you are the only person using a tool, that tool might set you apart from your peers. One solution is to educate parents about assistive technology so that the said student could practice basic skills and access course content at home. Parents could play a very important role in helping their children do catching-up work at home with the support of assistive technologies.

Occupational Therapy and UDL

I chanced upon this article. Maybe you'd be interested in what the OTs have to say about UDL in this short article: http://www.udlcenter.org/sites/udlcenter.org/files/UDL.pdf

Teaching Keyboarding, More Than Just Typing

An article from Education World about keyboarding training for students: 

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech072.shtml

Free online touch typing tutorials & practice lessons: http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/

http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/cjh/appliedtech/Business/Keyboarding/

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html

http://www.keyboardingonline.com/ 

Judge for yourself what you could do for your students to train their keyboarding skills...

What "bell ringers" do you use?

An ideal audience would stand in ovation to the performer at the end of a show, or at least this is true in the dreams of all performers. Teachers sometimes feel like performers too and perhaps the dream of their students lingering long after class to talk about what they have learned spur on a lot of teachers to get better at their trade. The reality is, no sooner does the bell ring to signal the end of a class than the students pack up and leave the classroom.

What about at the beginning of the class? Are teachers quick enough to get the students to settle down when the bell rings to signal the beginning of a class? The pitfall for many teachers is that there is no plan or no good plan at that time to get their students immediately hooked on matters related to learning, if not to the content of the class. The result is a loss of precious instructional time and cropping-up of behavior issues in class. A bell ringer activity is a teaching tool to keep students engaged in thinking and learning. It could be used at the beginning or end of a class period. A good bell ringer activity can be guided by the three overarching principles of UDL: multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement.

A bell ringer activity should serve several important purposes such as:

• gauge students' background knowledge
• help students make connections with what they learned in last class
• make a topic fun to learn 
• allow students different pathways to experience successful moments
• cue students to apply certain social and classroom rules for the next scores of minutes
• tap into students' creativity 
• assess students' learning 

A bell ringer should be meaningful, purposeful, and fun. It should not be simple copying act from a board. 

What's your idea for an effective bell ringer? How may your knowledge of technology influence your design of bell ringer activities in your classroom? How may the UDL framework help guide your design of such activities in your lessons? 

Some Internet resources related to bell ringers:
http://tuesdayswithkaren.blogspot.com/2009/09/bellringers.html
http://www.teachhub.com/exit-slips-effective-bell-ringer-activities
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-methods-tips/85130-bell-ringer-activities-for-your-classroom/
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson122.shtml

Some free webinars for you to consider...

AbleNet Online Professional Development Sessions:
http://www.ablenetinc.com/emails/Newsletters_2012/AN-Univ-April2012x2.html
AbleNet Online Professional Development

BubCap Pro for iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone

I find this low-tech tool from RJCooper's website:
http://rjcooper.com/bubcap


The Problem: Autistic, young, difficult, cognitively 'early' individuals press their i-device's Home button and exit the app you want them in.
The Solution: Cover your Home button with a special BubCap Pro that I have tested and adapted.  BubCaps are small aluminum 'tab's (the manufacturer actually makes a variety for different purposes, but the aluminim "Pro" model is the only one I've found all-around success with).  They self-adhere to the cover your Home button.  The Home button cannot be pressed directly now, by anyone!  It works great! :)  Problem solved!

A Picture of Two Hands Putting a Self-Adhesive Pad on the Apple iPad Home Button

What, it costs about 12 USD?... Find out if it is worth it!

Two critical things to do & remember each day as a teacher

Can't help but recommend this article from TECH&LEARNING

When I speak to teachers and parents of students and ask them if they are doing work that is meaningful, relevant, and worthy of the world, I often get puzzled looks or disappointing answers. Sometimes this is because there is a belief that we’re only preparing students for work worthy of the world. Actually doing is reserved for adults. Other times it’s because some believe that teaching their subject content is worthy in and of itself.  

I generally get a variety of answers.  An answer might be something like...
"Sure I am. My kids dissect virtual frogs in science class."

Or

"My kids turn in response to literature essays." 
Yawn.

A worse answer will be, something like...
"Sure I am.  My kids are going to be very well prepared for their standardized tests."

The answer some people think I want to hear might go something like this...
“Oh, yes I am! I use Smartboards and I have my kids come up and tap it.”  
Ugh!

For those who know I think Smartboards are dumb, they may say something like this...
“We are using technology to publish student work.”

Good start but when I ask where the work is published and what is happening as a result of the work? 
I often get answers like...
“It’s published on our website, blog, wiki, or maybe YouTube.”

Okay.
That’s nice, but if it’s meaningful and worthy of the world how are adults supporting students in getting this work out from just reaching a school audience and into the world? Publishing it to your school or class is nice, but it’s not the world. It doesn’t help young people feel like they matter. It doesn’t help them understand how they have the power to change the world.  Publishing something and doing nothing is usually not empowering students to do as much as they can.
Unfortunately, in this age of accountability, many have lost sight of what really matters. In many schools it no longer matters what students, teachers or leaders are doing to change the world. What matters today is how well you help students fill in bubbles.

And, frankly...

That's a skill that doesn’t matter! 

It's time to get back to the basics and by that I don’t mean reading, writing, and rithmetic.  I mean, the basics of why we decided to do this work. We didn’t enter this field to help kids fill in tiny bubbles.  We want our work to matter. We want to make a great impact on the lives of children. We know students won’t remember their favorite teachers or best times in school from the teachers who talked, textbooked, and tested. They will remember their teacher who told them they mattered. They won’t fondly remember the one who lied and answered that "you need to know this and take these tests to be prepared for the world." They will remember the teacher who told them they can change the world today.

How can you become that teacher?  By doing and remembering two important things.

Here they are:
Every day educators must remember two things.
1) We are not teaching subjects. We are teaching children.
2) Children are more than test scores.

Every day educators must do two things.
1) Be aware of how you are supporting your children in doing work that is worthy of the world.
2) Ensure each child knows that they matter.

What does this really mean?  Well, I’m bringing to you the two best people in the world that I know of to explain what I’m talking about. 

Kiran Bir Sethi - Kids take charge
Watch this video to learn what happens when we empower kids to take charge and do work worthy of the world.

More videos of teachers can be found here: TECH&Learning (Teachers Matter)
or www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=4119

Angela Maiers - You Matter
Angela Maiers empowers youth to figure out why they and their peers matter. This reading and videos show how.  

Source: TECH&LEARNING 
http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=4119

UDL and Common Core FAQs

More about UDL and Common Core Standards -- from National UDL Taskforce
http://www.udlcenter.org/advocacy/faq_guides/common_core
Exerpt: 


UDL is included in the section of the Common Core Standards called “application to students with disabilities”. In this section the authors referred to the definition laid out in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (PL 110-135).The reference to UDL in this section may give the impression that UDL is just for students with disabilities. However, UDL not only applies to students with disabilities, it applies to all other learners as well...


There are many ways in which the Common Core Standards align to the UDL framework. Curricula (goals, methods, materials, and assessments) designed using UDL put an emphasis on creating effective, flexible goals, and the Common Core Standards provide an important framework for thinking about what goals will be most effective.


UDL emphasizes that an effective goal must be flexible enough to allow learners multiple ways to successfully meet it. To do this, the standard must not embed the means (the how) with the goal (the what). What do we mean by this? One good example is from the Mathematics standards: “apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division and of fractions to multiply and divide rational numbers.” (Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, Grade 7, The Number System, 7.NS, item 2, p.48) This standard is flexible enough that all learners can meet this goal because it does not specify how it must be done...

A timeline of CAST--from special learners to all learners

I came across a timeline of CAST on its website. This is quite interesting to read because it reveals the history of the organization and how it grows along with the emergence of universal design concept in architecture and shifts its focus from serving diverse learners to all learners. You can also get a sense of how UDL ideas interplay with emerging technologies and federal laws. The timeline shows that CAST has played an active role in advocating for all learners all these years by partnering up with various research and software development agencies to produce free or low-cost software that can benefit all learners.
http://www.cast.org/about/timeline/index.html

How can videos be used for constructive learning?

Are you one of those educators who gives videos thumb-up when it comes to using them in your classrooms? There are many websites nowadays that provide an assortment of videos for educational use, such as TeacherTube, streaming videos at Discovery Education, Khan Academy, WatchKnowLearn (Jane mentioned it in tonight's class I taught), to name a few. What are some effective ways of using these great Internet resources? How can videos be used for constructive learning? Traditionally, films and videos have been shown to students in a passive manner and sometimes as a Friday treat. In that sense, not much effort is made to help students retain information, engage in dialogues leading to deep thinking, and use the content for extended learning.

I believe the following questions can be a quick guide for planning use of videos in classrooms:

• What is my goal of using the video?
• introduction of a new concept?
• visualization?
• background knowledge?
• additional informational resource?
• provocation of ideas?
• different perspective?
• first-hand account or resources (primary sources)?
• dramatization? 
• emotional and/or cultural connections? 
• modeling of behaviors?
• other? 
• What is the set-up of video viewing experience? 
• small groups?
• whole class? 
• independent self-paced viewing? 
• What comes before, during, and after video/films? 
• How can my students be best engaged in the video activity? 
• What is the "sinew", "tendon", and "muscle" of the whole activity in which video is embedded? 
• What "hooks" do I need to use to get students' interested in/prepared for the video? Worksheets? Think-sheets? Questions? Key vocabularies? 
• Establish a focus for viewing videos. Consider having different students watch for different things. 
• Where should I pause during video watching (especially if it is a long one)? How can I segment it strategically so that all viewers can take in information effectively without tuning off? 
• Review the video content and have discussions after watching. 
• Reflect on the video immediately after watching. 
• Assign follow-up activities.
• How is it used in conjunction with other resources? 
• Make connections between video and other types of resources
• Have students compare and contrast information gleaned from these resources

Edutopia has a page of information on how to use educational videos. 

http://www.edutopia.org/youtube-educational-videos-classroom

UDL and Research Basis

What are the research bases for UDL? This is a complicated question to answer that would go beyond this one post. The following two videos would hopefully be helpful to you. 

Variability Matters--A presentation given by Todd Rose from CAST

David Rose on UDL 5-Part Series (View the rest on YouTube)

UDL and Common Core Standards

A good question came up last week: is Common Core Standards supportive of universal design for learning?

Well, the Center for Special Special Technology (CAST) came up with recommendations for the Standards to emphasize UDL as a way of encouraging implementation that supports all learners while the Standards were drafted back in 2010. CAST has argued that, without an explicit reminder of the need for those implementing the Standards to take all learners into consideration from the outset via UDL, teachers might create lessons that pose barriers for diverse learners. For example, CAST pointed out that terms like "write" and "draw" in the standards may be taken literally when "compose" and "create" are meant and that the Standards should be clear that "write" includes the possibility of using a variety of composition tools and methods to compose text and express content knowledge. More details of CAST's recommendations and rationales can be found here: http://www.cast.org/library/statements/standards/index.html

Regardless of the results (Common Core Standards did not explicitly use the language of UDL), it is important to note the implications UDL can have for teachers who are the directly involved in implementing the standards and designing inclusive lessons. The purpose of UDL is not so that teachers teach according to a prescribed approach. UDL is a pedagogical framework that guides teachers to think inclusively the following structural aspects of curriculum and lessons from the inception of the process: how do I create goal and objective statements that can be accessible to all learners? What potential barriers to learning should I anticipate, given my knowledge about my students? What do I know about content and pedagogy that I can use to help construct meaningful, engaging, and well-sequenced lessons? What tools and activities allow me as a teacher to assess students on an ongoing basis? What tools and activities allow my students to demonstrate what they learn? What features of my lessons allow my students some degrees of autonomy in learning? How can they be motivated in the entire learning process? etc.