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Work 2A: Educational Practice Analysis

Project Overview

Project Description

Write a case study of an innovative learning practice—a method, a resource or a technology, for instance. This could be a reflection practice you have already used, or a new or unfamiliar practice which you would like to explore. Analyze an educational practice, or an ensemble of practices, as applied in a clearly specified a learning context. Use theory concepts introduced in this course. Use as theory concepts defined by members of the group in their published Work 1, with references and links to the published works of the other course participants.

Go to Creator => Feedback => Reviews => Rubric to see rubric against which others will review your work, and against which you will do your self-review at the completion of your final draft. The rubric explores four main knowledge processes, the background and rationale for which is described in the papers at this page.

Icon for Universal Design for Learning: Applications for Technology in the Music Classroom

Universal Design for Learning: Applications for Technology in the Music Classroom

Introduction: Background

My interest in examining Universal Design for Learning came from a problem-based learning activity that I gave to my High School Music Appreciation students:

Problem-based learning assignment: Music Appreciation

This assignment got me thinking about how I would approach this problem in my classroom. What strategies would I employ? What assistive technology would I need to make sure that any student could access the materials that were essential to their learning regardless any barriers they may bring with them? What modifications would be necessary to ensure that every student was able to learn?

My investigation lead me to the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a template for moving forward. An extension of the principal of universal design from architecture, UDL is a framework with in which design of teaching materials, environments, and lessons are done with student diversity and challenges considered and addressed in the design stage. UDL most often functions with some level of technology integration into the lesson materials to aid in accessibility and to remove as many barriers to learning as possible (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012).

Principles of UDL

The goal of every teacher and every lesson is to ensure that students are learning, have high achievement, and can show mastery of the concepts or standards being taught. For many students the traditional methods of content delivery does not do an adequate job of presenting material in ways that are accessible, usable, or meaningful. Teachers, too often, cater lessons and curricula around the concept of the "average student" instead of taking into account the varying levels and types of student diversity:

The notion of the “average student” has become a highly suspect construct at this point in the evolution of higher education. In fact, thinking about our teaching practices in terms of the average student will likely impede our efforts to teach all of our students effectively” (Quaglia, 2015, p. 1).

To help teachers effectively address and teach the diversity of students in their classroom, the UDL approach was developed. UDL prompts teachers and curriculum designers to plan ahead for student diversity offering options, choice, and differing levels of assistance to ensure that each student in the classroom is able to meet the same high standards. “Choice and flexibility are key elements of this approach, as providing options for students supports engagement and also helps teachers to differentiate activities to ensure content is presented in ways appropriate for various groups of learners” (Doran, 2015, p. 3).

Media embedded September 30, 2018

Implicit in the UDL model, though not always required, is the strategic use of educational technology to assist in removing barriers and providing support to students. This reliance on technology is founded on the ideas that digital resources are flexible, adaptable, individualizable, versitile and transferable (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012, p. 7). UDL focuses on reducing or eliminating barriers to student learning in three cognitive areas “recognition, strategic, and emotional or affective. As a result, instructors meet the needs of all learners by including multiple means of representation …, multiple means of action and expression …, and multiple means of engagement” (Doran, 2015, p. 3). The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) developed the UDL model along these three ideas producing a series of research-based guidelines that addresses accessibility in many ways. The basis of the UDL model utilizes current research and findings from neuroscience to help add weight and foundation to the model (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012). 

CAST (2018). The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines Graphic Organizer.

The following sections are the means of adaptation and supports that address each of these three areas of learning in a music appreciation classroom.

Provide Multiple Means of Engagement

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This element of the UDL model addresses student engagement, both with the material, other students, and the instructor. When looking at this element through the lens of a music classroom, it is important that students are able to listen, react, and share their informed personal opinions about music. Sometimes, though, this is a challenge. I identified three issues in this area:

  1. Students are not comfortable sharing their personal opinions in class
  2. lower student motivation due to a lack of familiarity with course materials
  3. Assignments or assessments are too rigorous or challenging

Issue 1: Students are not comfortable sharing their opinions in class

To address this issue, multiple means for communication and expression should be considered. Here, technology can play a vital role. Blogger, for example, allows students to create an online blog that can be used to express personal feelings and/or opinions. For students who are uncomfortable or unable to speak in front of a class can still have the experience of sharing their opinions through writing. When I tried this is my classroom, there were some students that excelled in this format and others that struggled.Those successful were able to use the platform as an extention of their natural voice while those that struggled foud Blogger to be burdensome and provide a potential barrier to their further sharing.

To help students that are not necessarily comfortable or able to share through the use of blogger, another way to allow students a creative voice is by creating videos for YouTube. With YouTube students can create reaction videos to a given piece of music and post them so the class can see. 

Teachers can also create a Google form to allow students to share their opinions anonymously. This may allow students more freedom in expressing authentic reactions and emotions to a given piece of music.

Another tool that can be given to students are links to effective music critique articles and videos which are found in various sources around the internet including NPR, Under the Radar, and Classicfm. These can help form a framework that students can use to model their own reactions. 

 A non-technology based solution to this issue would be to allow students to raise their hand or make some other agreed-upon gesture when they find a part of a piece of music enjoyable or non-enjoyable. This can allow a student who is not able to take advantage of the solutions offered above to still actively listen and engage with the piece of music. These techniques can be particularly effective for students with communication deficiencies or other cognitive impairments. This can help address the need to keep material challenging, yet accessible to students by providing " ... options that appropriately balance challenge and support in order to ensure that learning occurs most efficiently" (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012, p. 18). It is hoped that eventually students will gain confidence in sharing in this manner to participate in discussions or other interactive means with their peers.

Issue 2: Unfamiliarity with class materials leads to lower student motivation

This issue can be addressed through effective planning on the part of the teacher. By providing examples of music that students are familiar with (e.g. popular music) or by providing unfamiliar music in more comfortable settings (e.g. classical music used in movies), student unfamiliarity can be addressed. Videos or soundtrack examples can be provided for students to engage with.

 

Issue 3: Students find assignments or assessments to challenging or prohibitive

​​Choice is the key to addressing this issue. By providing multiple means through which students can demonstrate their level of understanding and mastery this issue may be eliminated. One strategy that I devised was to simply provide students with the assignment requirements and then allowed them to complete it using whatever means they saw fit. This strategy was used in the PBL activity that I provided at the beginning of this work. By using this strategy students were able to create a video, a website, a PowerPoint or Google slides presentation, an audio file, a poster or a verbal presentation. There were no limits to their choices. Assessment can be handled in a similar way. Creating assessments that could be completed on paper, on computer, or through one-on-one discussion with the student allowed students to choose means of expression that were comfortable for them.

Provide Multiple Means of Representation

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This element of UDL address how information is transmitted to students. When thinking about a music appreciation classroom, this area potentially has the greatest challenges. What steps can be taken if a student is deaf? Visually impaired? Thinking about these lead me to three specific issues that need to be considered:

  1. lack of background knowledge about topics being presented
  2. difficulty processing/ understanding information presented due to language barriers (e.g. non-native English speakers)
  3. students having a difficult (or impossible) time hearing or aurally processig the music being presented.

Issue 1: Lack of adequate background knowledge about topics being presented.

This issue can be addressed primarily through proper curriculum planning. By scaffolding concepts throughout the course, students will slowly gain the knowledge that they need to become informed and intelligent consumers and critics of music. Another means of addressing this issue can be by supplementing in-course materials with additional background materials that the students may use as they see fit. 

A class webpage can be an effective tool in helping students with material they are not familiar with. The webpage can curate classroom materials (e.g. terminology lists, relevant images) and links to additional resources (e.g. Wikipedia articles, YouTube videos, or other relevant webpages). Allowing students to contribute their own materials that they have found to this webpage can help grow student agency in the webpage.

Encouraging student "note-taking" in whatever means they see fit is important to address this issue as well. I put "note-taking" in quotes to suggest that there are many means with which a student could preserve information in-class. Standard note-taking by hand or computer is one means. Students could also record the class session in an audio or video file. From the teacher-side, class presentations can be recorded using Screecastify or similar technologies so students can view them at a later time. Frequent formative assessment can help teachers and students learn if their note-taking strategies are effective.

These three strategies address issues related to guideline 3: providing options for comprehension:

 ... the checkpoints for Guideline 3 stress the importance of activating or supplying cackground knowledge; providing students with models and scaffolds to highlight critical features; big ideas, and relationships; to guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation; and to facilitate the transfer and generalization of knowledge to different contexts (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012, p. 16)

Issue 2: Linguistic barriers 

Addressing linguistic barriers is a growing area of importance with several unique ways of addressing. Finding valid and meaningful course materials in a students native language is one way of addressing this issue. Utilizing online resources to translate materials, while not always 100% accurate, can help with this task. Through the classes cultivated webpage, the teacher or student can include articles and resources in native languages. If students are unable to read, for linguistic, processing, or physical reasons a website like ttsreader.com can take text that is input and read it back to the user.

ttsreader homepage

When used in conjunction with online translation services, it is possible to present class materials and lectures in a students native language (again, with an admission of a potential lack of 100% accuracy).

To assist students with visual processing deficiencies, presenting PowerPoint or Google slides in large, high-contrast fonts may offer a means that students can still see the information presented. It is also possible to print-out the information contained in a presentation for students to be able to interact with it.

Issue 3: Auditory barriers

This issue presents the greatest challenge to a music classroom, and some of the more interesting solutions. The simple goal in addressing this issue is to provide students alternative means of experiencing and enjoying a piece of music. One interesting development in this regard is the production of visualizer videos on YouTube. These videos take the auditory elements of a piece of music and add a visual layer that is separate from the music being performed. These visual elements can represent the pitch of the notes being played, the amplitude with which the sound is played, the duration of the sounds, and the sound source or quality through the use of different shapes or colors. The end-product is extremely effective in transmitting a wealth of information visually instead of just aurally.

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Another strategy in addessing this issue is to ask students with auditory impairments to focus on visual performance elements from a performance video. Musical examples that provide a video of a live performance can give a wealth of information for students to examine and critique. Students can pay attention to body language of the performers, the actions and movements of the conductor, bow movements of string musicians, or even the finger movements of woodwind or brass players. Each of these aspects can add unique insights to the music being performed.

Media embedded September 30, 2018
Media embedded September 30, 2018

Students may also be given a print out or link to a piece's printed score to examine to help with their understanding of a piece of music. For students who are not musically trained, this will be a foreign document with information that may be confusing and unusual. Despite this, even non musicians can still look at a piece of music to see what instrument or combination of instruments are playing at a given moment, how much activity is happening within the music, and even a glimpse of how loud the music is being played.

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Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression

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Looking at this area of UDL involves the addressing the "how" of student behaviors and products of the learning environment. When looking at the UDL model in the music appreciation classroom there were four issues that I identified:

  1. students cannot adequately share their opinions verbally due to lack of comfort, linguistic barriers, or a lack of proper vocabulary
  2. students need assistance with goal-setting/ prioritization of class assignments
  3. difficulty processing/ understanding assessments
  4. lack of connection of the music presented in class.

Again, each of these can be addressed through UDL.

Issue 1: Students cannot adequately share their opinions

This area was addressed, in part, in the engagement section. Providing multiple means of student expression is key to addressing this issue. By providing alternative criteria to show preference for a piece of music (e.g. a Likert Scale or physical gesture) and providing multiple means of student interaction, this issue can be diminished. Technology can play a key role here by providing the means for students to critique and interact anonymously. Allowing students to offer thoughts through an anonymous Google form or other survey can help students who are otherwise uncomfortable to still actively participate. Further, the cultivated class website that was described earlier can be use to house a terminology/ glossary page to help students understand and use the unique terminology of music and musicians.

Issue 2: Students need assistance with goal-setting/prioritization

The use of an LMS or online calendar service can help in this area. "We can help students develop critical thinking skills by providing such options as guides to develop goal setting, checklists to support planning ..." (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012, p. 17-18). There are various online resources that can help students create interactive checklists or calendars. Sites like Google Calendars or Outlook Calendar can help teachers and students set tasks and deadlines in an easy to follow format. 

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Goal setting should be addressed by helping the student to find shorter-term goals with can then build to longer-term goals; this goal setting should be done with the understanding of potentially helping students build the capacity to do these tasks themselves (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012, p. 17)

Issue 3: Difficulty processing/understanding assessments

Providing multiple means of assessment is the key strategy for this issue. Creative use of Google forms, paper assessment, or in-person assessment can help students overcome any difficulties they are experiencing. Linguistic barriers to assessment can be address through the strategies described in the previous section.

Further, providing students with extra time can also help to address student difficulties.

Issue 4: Lack of connection to material presented in class

Finding a way for students to interact with music from their own experience and culture is an important part of addressing this issue. Providing assignments and opportunities for students to use music they know and are comfortable with is a key element to addressing this issue. Further, a personal connection can also be gained through the viewing of a live performance. While not practical for everyday situations, these experiences can help the students form a powerful personal connection.

UDL and Blended Learning

One interesting way of addressing many of the challenges presented in the UDL model is to adopt a blended learning environment in the classroom. This model, which fuses face-to-face learning with online instruction allows for " ... leveraging the Internet to afford each student a more personalized learning experience, including increased student control over the time, place, path, and/or pace of learning" (Whiteside & Dikkers, 2016, p. 137).

Each of the three cognitive areas of UDL are addressed through the use of a blended learning model. 

Representation

When teachers use a blended learning approach, content is provided to students in multiple means. Accommodations and clarifications can be provided as needed through online tools. Students can also use the internet to seek out better means of comprehension (or even create their own means). Tools are also available online to help students clarify their thinking.

Action and Expression

There are an increasing number of technologies available to allow students with physical barriers to interaction a means of interacting with the internet. Alternative means of data entry (e.g. voice recognition, touchscreen interface) can allow a gateway for these students to access online resources. When looking for means with which the students can express their ideas there are many technological means to help: curation of a blog, online collaborative document or chat post, student or teacher created videos, web page creation, and text-to-speech synthesizers can all help students to express their level of understanding and mastery of the concepts being taught.

Blended learning also allows students to work and learn at their own pace. With an emphasis on online learning within the blended learning model, students have more time to review and learn than in the traditional didactic environment.

Engagement

Through planning, novel and unique means of interaction with the lesson material can be planned. Whether a unique technology-infused project or lesson, or a student created video that helps describe a specific piece of content, engagement is readily enhanced through blended learning.

Challenges in Adopting the UDL Model

One of the greatest challenges in working with the UDL framework is anticipating student barriers and needs. Utilizing the UDL process requires forethought that many teachers, including myself, are not used to conducting.

Rather than focusing solely on accommodations that might occur during and after the lesson-planning process, UDL emphasizes instructional design focused from the very beginning on maximizing accessibility and minimizing barriers to learning while also engaging and challenging students (Doran, 2015, p. 3).

Due to my personal unfamiliarity, I relied on the website for the National Center on Universal Design for Learning to help identify student barriers to learning and translate them to a music classroom.

Another challenge with fully leveraging UDL are the practicalities involved and a potential lack of resources for a music classroom. The visualizer videos, for example, are not something that I know how to make and are not available for every piece of music within the course curriculum. It is possible to request a specific piece to have a video created, however, this is extremely time consuming. Creating translated materials for other student language needs is time-consuming for the teacher for no other reason than to ensure that the materials presented are as accurate as possible. Engaging a live-performance for every piece of music is not possible due to time and financial constraints

In looking at the amount of planning that needs to happen to effectively address the elements of UDL, I know that I have missed potential barriers and potential supports. One area that I know I did not adequately account for were cognitive barriers: " ... traditional accessibility standards for digital materials address sensory and physical challenges, but are limited in how they support cognitive and learning barriers experienced by individuals with identified disabilities ..." (Basham, Smith, & Satter, 2016, p. 149).

With considering a blended learning framework to help address these various barriers, there is still a great amount of forethought and planning that needs to occur before the material is presented to the students and the lesson is taught. Finding the appropriate online enrichment materials, creating flipped lesson videos (if appropriate), and creating an engaging and relevent class website are all activities that take time if they are to be done correctly.

With these challenges in mind, it is important to look at this work as a living document, one that can and must change with the changing needs of my students. 

Conclusion

UDL provides the means to critically examine, identify, and account for barriers to student learning and plan to address them. Each of the three cognitive areas present their own unique challenges. Through careful and detailed forethought, supports can be provided to help students minimize the barriers that stand between them and learning. The effective use of educational technology can help ensure the success in implementing a teacher's plan.

References

Alberta Education. (2015, January 30). Making sense of universal design for learning [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOUdmzaZrc8&t=36s

Basham, J.D., Smith, S.J., & Satter, A.L. (2016). Universal design for learning: Scanning for alignemnt in K-12 blended and fully online learning materials. Journal of Special Education Technology, 31(3), 147-155.

Center for Applied Special Technology [CAST]. (2018). www.cast.org

Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at OU. (2017, July 25). Universal design for learning (Part 5): Action and expression strategies [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H66jHEiGNLQ

Classicfm. (2018). www. classicfm.com

Cmaj7. (2018, June 26). Igor Stravinsky -- The rite of spring (1913) [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP42C-4zL3w&t=3s

Doran, P.R. (2015). Language accessibility in the classroom: How UDL can promote success for linguistically diverse learners. Exceptionality Education International, 25(3), 1-12.

eHowTech. (2013, October 18). How to use Google calendar to schedule school assignments: Computer topics [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdw3tbeVy9M

Fatova Mingus. (2010, January 30). Joffrey ballet 1987 rite of spring (1 of 3) [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1OQkHybEQ&t=21s

FDLRS Miccosukee. (2016, May 31) UDL representation [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTI8649atSg&t=19s

Hall, Tracey E., Meyer, Anne.Rose, David H. (Eds.) (2012) Universal design for learning in the classroom: Practical applications. New York : Guilford Publications, Inc.,

London Symphony Orchestra. (2017, October 2). Stravinsky the rite of spring // London symphony orchstra/ Sir Simon Rattle [Video file]. Retreived from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkwqPJZe8ms&t=101s

Perkins School for the Blind. (2012, December 7). Universal design for learning (4 of 6) [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHQizit6058&t=30s

Quaglia, B.W. (2015). Planning for student variability: Universal design for learning in the music theory classroom and curriculum. Music Theory Online, 21(1), 1-21.

Smalin. (2013, March 28). Stravinsky, The rite of spring, Animated graphical score, 1/2 [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02tkp6eeh40

TTSReader. www.ttsreader.com

Whiteside, A.L., & Dikkers, A.G. (2016). "More confident going into college": Lessons learned from multiple stakeholders in a new blended learning initiative. Online Learning, 20(4), 136-156.