My UDL Journey

Thoughts, Errata, and Notes on My Present Journey as a Teacher

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And with this, I introduce myself to my colleagues in the Alternative Delivery Certification course at Heartland Community College...

Who would have thought that writing a new website could be so challenging?

Plans don't always work. But as a teacher, I'm sometimes surprised by how much I don't realize I know.

Can Your Own Tongue Be a Foreign Language? Yes, I think so. Especially for a student in a writing classroom.

This week in our Alternative Delivery Certification at Heartland, we had a quiz about experiences with online classes and plans for how to use Canvas.

So what happens when you have a student who doesn't do all the assigned reading? Here are my thoughts from a UDL perspective. And reflecting on that time I didn't read Madame Bovary before writing an essay on it…

I thought I understood how to use (and teach) social media. But I was mistaken. From talking with my students, I learned that social media has fundamental effects on student writing habits that I couldn't have anticipated. Unlike me, my students already knew how best to use online tools to improve their classroom writing.

After writing my page on Course Design and Backward Planning, I went back to designing my course. And what did I do? The opposite of what I recommended for others...

It's hard keeping up with a website like this. So I threw together a quick post with some UDL Resources that will hopefully reach a more central page. At some point. When I find more time.

For the Alternative Delivery Certification course, we explained our thoughts on UDL in the discussion forums. Given the focus of this site, I figured those thoughts might be somewhat relevant...

Yes, I've taken a lot of creative writing classes over the years. Most have been excellent — I recommend them for anyone, regardless of your major or career track. But in one course, a few offhand remarks from a classmate and the instructor left me feeling like a total pretender.

I'm not always a big fan of rubrics. But when it comes to online teaching, having a "pre-flight checklist" can really help keep your teaching focused, as seen with the Quality Matters Higher Ed Course Design Rubric.