Blog Post #7 - Website Reflection

Over the last several weeks, we have worked on implementing interactive websites that focus on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. For mine and Brianna's website, we created a supportive website for "The Masque of the Red Death." When designing this website, we took several factors into consideration. 

First, we considered what the goals of the assignment were for the students in Mr. Mattson's class. In the weeks prior to using our website, the students were reading "The Raven" and learning to use plot diagrams to develop an understanding of literary methods Poe uses in his writing. They were then supposed to do the same for "The Masque of the Red Death" and our specific goals for the students using our website were: 

1) Recognize and analyze how literary devices are used 

to establish the story's tone and mood.

2) Analyze how symbolism is used in this short story 

by Edgar Allan Poe.

Along with building a supportive, interactive website, we elicited feedback from both the students and our peers in how successful the website was in getting the students to those goals. For student perspective, we created this form which asks them to rate how helpful the website was, how easy it was to navigate, and we also included a few questions which encouraged the students to reflect on their own comprehension by making connections between "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Raven." I was less concerned with how positive the student feedback on our website was and more interested in their reflections on their interaction with the website.

From the peer feedback, we were able to make revisions to the website prior to its launch and structure it in a more friendly manner for the students. Mr. Mattson also had feedback for us which was helpful as he knows the students we would be working with and what would work best for them as learners. 

UDL GUIDELINES DEVELOPMENT

When designing our website and goals for this assignment, we took the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines into consideration. A tool which my partner and I used in the early development stages was the UDL Educator Worksheet. While we focused on many of the UDL Guidelines, I felt that the ones we were most successful in addressing were:

I - Multiple Means of Representation:

• 1- Options for Perception
• 1.2 - Auditory Representation and 1.3 - Visual Representation. We included a narrated video of a reading of "The Masque of the Red Death" that, in addition to the text e-book, students could choose to listen to the story and read along with the words.
• 2 - Options for Language
• 2.1 - Clarification, 2.3 - Decoding of Text, 2.5 - Multiple Medias. We pulled some of the more complex vocabulary that Poe uses in this story and provided definitions and flash cards as an option for student use. We also read through the story several times on our own and provided guiding questions for students to read as they read the story. Asking questions while reading is very important to comprehension.

II - Multiple Means for Action and Expression

• 5 - Options for Expression and Communication
• 5.1 - Multiple Medias for Communication - Poe used a lot of symbolic language and his representation of the Seven Rooms was deeper than just the decoration. We provided a page which gave an image of one of the Seven Rooms (there was so much artwork inspired by this story) and a description of what the color and room placement symbolized.

III - Multiple Means of Engagement

• 9 - Options for Self-Regulation
• 9.3 - Self-Assessment and Reflection. By providing a feedback form that not only let us know how we did in creating an interactive website, we also asked the students (as part of the form) to reflect on their understanding and connection to the story. Their comprehension was the goal of this reading and I felt that their feedback let us know we had supported their learning in multiple ways.

FINAL THOUGHTS & REFLECTION

Some guiding questions we focused on were:

• At the core of UDL is the premise that often the curriculum is disabled (and disabling!). It is not flexible; it often poses barriers, and consequently prevents rather than supports optimal learning experiences. Do you agree or disagree with this view? Why or why not?

I agree with this statement. Curriculum is often packaged as a "one-size fits all" prescription when, in reality, no two students learn the same or are at the same level. Treating curriculum (and students) in this way is why curriculum can be labeled as disabled/disabling. It is our job as teachers to make sure all students, no matter their skill set or ability level, can access the curricular information and be successful in meeting education goals.

• What are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student’s strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of this approach?

Analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the students, takes the judgement away from their being a problem with the student. Focusing on student strengths and weaknesses creates the opportunity to label a student as "different" than other students, whether it be as a gifted or struggling learner. Again, as teachers, we are supposed to be facilitating learning, and by addressing the strengths and weaknesses of curriculum, we are forced to assess our own strengths and weaknesses as educators. The first question a teacher should ask should be "What could I have done differently?" Not, "What could the student do differently?" If a student is struggling to understand curriculum, it is not a deficiency on the student's part, but on the curriculum and delivery. This is a challenging situation because we have one set of curriculum and anywhere from 20-30 students. Deciding how to make the curriculum "work" for all of those students takes time, effort, and energy. It is taking that time, effort, and energy that separates successful teachers from unsuccessful teachers. 

• How can instructional websites help to address disabling curriculum and foster student independence? What are the strengths and weaknesses to this approach to teaching and learning  

Instructional websites address a potentially disabling curriculum and helps foster student independence by giving them the tools to help them learn and making them share in the responsibility and ownership of their own learning. The strengths of using UDL Guidelines in building curriculum include supporting more types of learning styles and levels, and making the curriculum more accessible to students. The weaknesses include still not reaching every learner, some supports may not be helpful to students, and there is a higher time commitment to creating a UDL curriculum.

While differentiating instruction using UDL Guidelines asks teachers to put more effort into adjusting and analyzing curriculum for strengths and weaknesses, it also provides the opportunity to reach students more efficiently than using pre-packaged materials. Allowing for multiple entry and exit points of assignments ensures that students can access the material and interact with it how they are best able to. It is important to give students the responsibility of participating in their own learning and by designing curriculum that they are able to connect with, they should be more apt to want to participate and learn. I think that instructional websites, when designed correctly (to be efficient), can be a major benefit to students, especially older ones. Engaging students in a variety of ways and allowing them to express and communicate their understanding in multiple ways makes learning (and teaching) a more successful endeavor.