Reaching All Students at B40!
Posted on 10/22/2019
At Branciforte Middle School we are pioneering Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and have identified early adopter teachers in general and special education. UDL is a way of thinking about teaching and learning that helps give all students an equal opportunity to succeed. This approach offers flexibility in the ways students access material, engage with it and show what they know. Our piloting teachers, Wendy Thompson (Core) and Kaitlin Fasse (Resource Specialist) are participating in a UDL Professional Learning Community (PLC) with the support of a district level mentor (Naíma Leal). Their focus is on supporting and challenging our diverse learners by designing lessons that provide choices in how students gain information and show mastery. In addition, these teachers will be revamping their entire physical classroom environment to include flexible furniture to support student engagement, collaboration and choice. In the picture above Neva and Faith are showing off a self-assessment rubric they developed based some choices they had related to the day’s learning goals and success criteria. We are excited about this pilot and about these strategies becoming more widespread at B40. To learn more about UDL, check out this link: CAST