One important principle of UDL is heightening the salience of goals and objectives. What better way to do that than to actually post them on the board every day? It’s simple, but effective.
Professional development takes time and money, but there are some teaching strategies that do not require extensive training and that will help you now. One such strategy is to familiarize yourself with the Common Core standards and post relevant standards on the board each day. Responsiveness to standards is important because standardized tests are designed to measure knowledge and skills outlined the standards and prior research has demonstrated that teachers who are responsive to standardization have students who perform better than expected on standardized tests.
So, there’s your new year’s resolution. Read about the Common Core at corestandards.org and post the standards on the board every day. Take it a step further and spend a minute at the beginning of each day to explain why the specific standards are important. This practice increase student engagement because it answers the question, “Why are we learning this?”
These simple practices are a step in the right direction for UDL implementation and student achievement!
