Notes by Wendy Verrei-Berenback
Background on UDL (learning sciences)
Applications
Teaching Practice
Disappointing and odd semester – We are All Human
- Tried new things – did not work out real well teaching
- Neurological issues – changed the way he looked at things
Broad Setting
National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard
- Standard for digital source files
Increase availability and timely delivery of print mater in accessible formats to blind and other students w. print disabilities in elementary and secondary schools
Print disabilities – is important language to include – watershed moment
Outcome: Digital xml versions of every textbook published after 2006
Every textbook in schools (schools must provide these texts free of charge)
Higher Education Commission has been charged by Congress to study same issue at the higher ed level
CAST, Skip Stahl – will lead this commission (not official)
What are the difference between learning dis. and a print disability – fundamental shift that is harbinger of things to come
Difference is that starts to define disability in a different way – the disability is defined in the
Interaction between the individual and their environment – the disability is never decontextualize
Everyone is disabled in some situation in their lifetime -when they are interacting w. the environments they encounter.
Print – the environment is a part of what will define whether or not you are disabled
in a print environment many are disabled that they are not disabled in other environments
Learning conditions are disabling
Collocations of print and disability
Will we see curriculum-based disability? – there is not enough oxygen in this curriculum for this kid
- The curriculum is part of the problem – focus there first, not the kid
- Who has a print disability? Only those have access to NIMAS benefits
The law does NOT define print disability; vague can be better. Let case law define this over time. Organic view. Over definition can hurt yourself
Four groups are covered in NIMAS (based on a 1931 law, U.s.c. 135a)
- Blind people
- Visual disabilities
- Physical limitation (learning disabilities are a part of this group) – certified by a “competent authority” (WHO IS THAT?)
- Reading disability resulting from organic dysfunction – certified by a “competent authority” (WHO IS THAT?)
What works and does not work with this definition
Three advances in 70+ years,
advances in our understanding of learning, disability, and technology and media
20 years exploitation of evidence for how brain learns
- Studying the brain WHILE it is learning, not after – what kind of changes are we seeing in the neurological system
Science was determined: all learning abilities and disabilities are “organic”
- Can examine glucose burns in students doing tasks: (researcher says noun, student says verb)
- Naive
- Practiced
- Novel (new words, slight change to task)
- Brain changes as it learns the task – brain gets efficient after practice w. the task, less glucose burn
More expertise – brain becomes more active in left
More novel – brain more active in right
Task is treated differently over time
Glucose burn is a nice marker of learning – it is becoming a different brain, wire and sculpt itself
Brain does not change under these conditions – you already know how to do this; OR if the task is too hard
Need the zone of proximal development – just right; not too hard, not too easy
How to do this w. a lot of people in an environment w. students w different background knowledge
- People are different – they do not learn a like – it is individualistic
Neuroscience slides of glucose brains are AVERAGES
Individual slides show variability
Brain also changes in over time – developmental phase and what you use situational
Reading emotions – teenagers uses amygdala, adults use pre-frontal cortex
- Teen agers is processing information w. a different part of the brain than adults
- teenagers use the best they can w. what they have
Last five years – watch the brain change as a result of experience
Example: study taxi drivers in England, looking at hippocampus
Taxi drivers – bigger hippocampus than “average” (spatial location)
Experience as ADULTS are changing our brains
Reverse can happen – if you (significant) stress over a sustained period of time, hippocampus will physically shrink
Not as functional
Differentiated by Stress
What’s Next?
- Stress can be good or bad –
A novel environment is stressor – nervous system gets prepared,
Can mobilize positively (here is something I have to do or learn – challenge)
OR
Can perceive as threat (get out of there! brain responds in a different way) this is bad, we need to get out of here
Research – how does a person decide if an it is a challenge or threat
Individual does an attribution – how hard, threatening is it?
What resources do I have to meet this threat – if you feel you have the resources, then you move towards challenge, if you feel you do not, move towards threat
Resources (internal, external)
If you have extra support in the environment – does the threat response go down?
Reading tasks w. electronic reader (extra resources) does it move towards challenge?
Measuring LD and “regular” kids – not shows significant results until
LD kids coming into environment – “we are going to be reading” – they come in stress when they hear they will do be reading
Coming into a threat situation
Regular kids did exhibit this way
LD kids are chronically in a state of high-stakes threat walking around school – affecting their hippocampus
Preparatory pathological state in every day school – how do I get out of here??!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Individual differences in the means of representation
Task – “Draw what you saw”
Williams Syndrome (they see detail)
Down Syndrome (they see the large shape)
(Matched w. IQ – 50)
Assumption: if we lecture – all kids get the same thing – incorrect – the learning happens in the interaction between the individual and the environment
Learning is differienated by task
UDL – orients using 3 different brain networks
Recognition
Perceive, re-create and dream the world
Information in – always come to the back of the brain; perceive info in the environment and transform into usable knowledge
How do you remember things? Recreating the image in the brain – “do that again”
What’s next: measuring baronet activity in epilepsy patients has recorded individual brain cells in the act or recalling a spontaneous memory
Make the same cells light up again – it cells you are used to make the image, when you asked to recall it, they light up again. You “remake” the image
Memory is a cognitive act of construction – “there is no vault” – you are remaking the memory! That is why eyewitness testimony is not always reliable!
Distort re-construction of the memory
There is nothing stored in memory, you become better at reconstructing things over time
Are we receiving information? You are making up stuff on the basis of what you receive on the retina
Zeki – h how is color perceived by the brain – you don’t perceive it, you make it up.
“Color constancy is the most important property of the color system,” declares neurobiologist Semir Zeki of University College, London.
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Strategic
Frontal cortex – plans, organize ad initiate purposeful actions on the environment
Grows late in adolescence – not strategic in the way they receive information, no purpose in how they are using information
Ex: not reading for purpose – do not know why/what they are doing
Trace eye movements of students w. reading disability – do not have strategy when looking at text book page
low executive function – do not know where to go (new type of text books)
Question: Where is the “maker?” (of the memory)
Back – reconstructs it (not perfectly)
Front – choose what you remake
Affective – if I remake it, I will also feel it
When we asked to remember the Simpsons – 3 things light up – couple of visual cortex, prefrontal cortex, (have a plan that you make to recall the image)
Affective
Monitor internal and external environment to set priorities and to motivate learning and behavior – defines
Color your experience – experience it as feeling
Of what importance is it? When you look at this something – why do I care about this? If I don’t care, I am going to move on
WHAT NEXT
Nervous System recognizes objects, figures out a plan, WHILE affective part is looking for things that are important (run away, go there, remember it, etc.)
“Walking around in an emotional landscape” – nervous system responses to physical locations associated w. memory
Reading – trouble w. recognizes patterns, don’t know how to plan, affective says it is not important OR it we have to get out of here (even if you try to make it low stakes)
UPTAKE:
The more you understand about what happens in the brain in learning, the more you realize that the act of learning is an organic change in the brain.
That is the way we remember things
WHAT IS NEXT – That criteria for NIMAS will not hold up in case law- it is all ORGANIC; current criteria is not sustainable
Advances in our Understanding of Disability
Last 7 years – view has changed
“Old days” – disability resides in the individual
UD in architecture – you see the building as part of the problem, not the individual was the beginning
Providing alternatives – they change the view of how is disabled and who is not
What are the sources of variation that we need to pay attention to in designing for learning?
What is appropriate to very (i.e. is construct irrelevant and what in inappropriate to vary – is construct relevant?
What do you need to pay attention to?
WHAT NEXT
neuro-diversity – we all differ, only when we are confronting w. environment that problem of disability occurs
This spring: new books
The Strengths of Neurodiversity, Alex Olinkowwitz
www.brainhe.com
What is the upside of the side that we are diverse?
“Emily”- video of asperser’s syndrome – young woman talking about her experience
” Neurotypicals” and the Myth of Aspersers
When we confront standardizing conditions, then some people will get left out
Simone Berran Cohen (Autism researcher) Oxford
www.autismresearchcentre.com/
a lot of this colleagues have children w. autism – incidence is high
Science, Math
New research – what are autistic brains “good” at? Rather than what is wrong
Krista Hyde Fabieen Samson Neuroanatomial differences in brain areas implicate in perceptual and other core features of autism reeled by cortical thickness analysis and voxel-based morphometry
J. Autism Dev Discord
Before we start fixing people, what is the diversity in skills people have – are we under recognizing what people have?
Not worse,
People may do poorly in your classes that are smarter than you in different ways.
NIMAS Laws – saw disability is broken and something that they “have”
Great diversity and the idea that you can separate disability and ability – is not going to hold up in the future
Not going to be a bright line
CAST focus –
With New media – can say that books are really good for instructional media anyway
Flexibility of new media – some information and display it inn different ways
Give us one good digital version – can manipulate it for multiple ways of representation
Adjustable challenges and support to reduce threat and increase challenge – there is MORE help in the “text”
More resources available.
UDL Editions by CAST (reading environments)
> Follows the CAST guidelines for multiple means of representation
(link)
Provide options for:
Perception
Language and symbols
Comprehension
What’s Next?
Scholastic working w. CAST
“Expert Space” – how are we going to teach students info literacy in a media-rich world – in this environment, print looks disabled
(You have options to choose, what is important to you)
1. Watch It (video)
2. Read it (lots of resources) – options for Lexile levels (difficulty); read along, dictionary, take notes
3. Dive Deeper
> Gradual release of information – thousands of articles. Lexile w. reading support (not shut out because of reading ability)
This information is available in multiple ways w. resources and support (Back part of the brain)
How does it deal w. front part of the brain – built in tools and resources?
Note taking (reminds students to cite sources)
Bibliography
Outline (drag and drop_
Project Ideas
Skill Builders
Dictionary/Atlas
Strategy and skill building lessons (w. support and resources, feedback)
Tutorials:
Setting Goals
Searching for information
Evaluating sources
Note taking
Outlining
Citing sources
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Expression
Provide options for:
Physical action
Expressive skills and fluency
Executive functions
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What has print disables? Our schools have print disabilities, not the students who have the disability
David Rose’s course: http://universaldesignforlearning2010.edublogs.org/
Student example:
Tools:
Book Builder
This afternoon – more tools demonstrated plus stuff
Didn’t work in my class
Students have own blogs -and choose whose blogs to comment on
Same “social groupings_ occur in blog – aggregated into social groups
Some blogs did not get comments on
Ethical Problem
Is it OK to be a student and never do the reading? Tracking for electronic books (Rose could see student highlighting, note taking, when and if they did the reading) is this TMI?????