How to use UDL to plan your lessons in MYP PHE
Dear teacher,
Today, I will be sharing my insights on how to create an effective lesson plan, taking into consideration the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). If you are new to UDL, please refer to this article from last week, and then you can come back to this one. After the training, I scheduled a one-on-one session with Jason Hicks from Pathways to Inclusive Education to discuss how I can incorporate UDL into my lesson plans and ensure that learners are provided with different opportunities to express their ideas, learn, and share their outcomes.
We looked at one of my lesson plans, which focused on Jump Rope, and discussed possible barriers to learning. When we talk about barriers, we are looking into the future and asking ourselves what might make learners lose focus or disturb their learning. Always keep in mind that the barriers are in the design of the lesson and not the learners. We need to ensure we have different ways to teach a specific concept or content.
Below is my lesson plan, and I will take you through the barriers I shared with Jason Hicks and how we responded to them to help students learn. Make sure to open the UDL guide after seeing this lesson plan; it will be easy for you to follow and implement in your lessons.
| IB Middle Years Programme: Year 3 | ||||||
| IB Objective C: Applying and Performing & D: Reflecting and improving performance | ||||||
| Subject: Physical and Health Education | Grade:8 | Total Time: 45 mins | ||||
| Lesson Topic: Creation of Jump Rope Routine | ||||||
| IB Statement of Inquiry for Unit: | Successful interaction and choices can contribute to improving relationships and creation. | |||||
| IB Learner Profile Focus: | IB aims to develop learners who are Communicators | |||||
| Link to AK strands: | Pluralism – Collaborative with varied groups of people, working collectively to reach a goal or solve a problem. | |||||
| Lesson Objectives: | By the end of the lesson, students should. . .Learn and practice new Jump rope skills Come up with their own skills | |||||
| Prior Knowledge: | All students will come to the lessons with active living, some will be refining and extending skills and movements previously learned while others will be beginners and need direct instruction for the introductory skills. But all of them will develop knowledge in Jump rope. | |||||
| Materials: | Skipping ropes | |||||
| Time (mins.) | Teacher | Students | Materials | |||
7 min | Note: ask students to review classroom expectations. And what we worked on in the last lesson. Set induction: today we are going to continue with our routines and I will show you new ideas that you can implement inside your routine. Warm-up: 3 sets of 1-minute jumping the rope – Students will use basic Jumps. | Intro: -Listen and ask questions- Warm-up | Ropes | |||
15 mins | Main session 01Bring students together and explain the next task, With demonstration I will show the students different skills they can apply in their routines. Students will practice the new exercises in their groups. We all discuss the connections between the concepts and context that are being explored. | DevelopmentListen and ask questions. – practice different skills in groups | Ropes | |||
15 min | Main session 02Students will use this time to combine new skills into the routine and add their own skills. We all discuss the connections between the concepts and context that are being explored. | Students will practice individually and in groups. | Ropes | |||
8 mins | –Closing Activity:Discussion Ask students successes and challenges they went through during the session. | -Students provide answers as to what successes and challenges they had. | ||||
| Assessment for/of Learning: | ForF Teacher observations – during each exercise teacher observes the strengths and weaknesses of students and adapts to the next lessons. The teacher provides verbal feedback to students as they are working. | |||||
| Extensions: | -If students feel comfortable, the teacher can challenge them, adding advanced movements into the routine. | |||||
| Adaptations: | The teacher will provide different skills that will help students to develop their confidence during the routine.-Students can collaborate with other groups at any point during the lesson. -nonparticipants will observe other students and help them to identify their mistakes and help them using their prior knowledge or from an outside perspective. | |||||
| Plan B: | ————- | |||||
| Reflection |
As you can see, I have a goal for the session. Through observation, I will be able to determine if the students are learning, and an assessment will take place during the session to provide feedback to the students. The next step is asking yourself what the possible barriers are that could hinder the students from learning.
Here are some barriers that I came up with and shared with Jason Hicks: I don’t like Jump Rope, I don’t know how to Jump rope, The skills are different, I can’t perform the skills properly, and I am not motivated today.
So, looking at the UDL guidelines, we need to ensure that at least our session covers one checkpoint in the three main areas: Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression. For this session, we realised that even though I planned before learning about UDL, I ended up covering many checkpoints.
Let’s look at Engagement: This lesson plan provides options for recruiting interest. I gave students the choice to create their skills and choose which ones they wanted to include in their routine. Considering Sustaining effort & persistence, students have the opportunity to collaborate with others not only in this specific lesson but throughout the unit, and they have the freedom to work not only with their team but with all classmates.
On Representation, students assess each other and give and receive feedback to help improve their session. Moving to Representation, we provide options for perception; students are given different ways to learn, through demonstration, and they are free to research on YouTube or use instructions from the teacher or classmates. In the last one, Action & Expression, we provided options for executive functions where we break down the skills so that everyone can do them. If you have difficulty jumping, you can help the team turn the ropes while learning.
Looking at this lesson plan, the main focus is on the concepts, not the content. This is IB – International Baccalaureate, and one thing that Jason Hicks realized and shared with me that helped solve most of the barriers is that my session is focused on concepts, releasing the pressure from students who have difficulties with the content. We are focusing on bigger ideas (communication, choices, collaboration, relationships).
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