Week Three
Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Understanding by Design (UbD) - Case Study
| Read the following two case studies. Choose one to re-design applying Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design principles. Use the DI and UbD rubric in planning your re-designed activity. Summarize the changes you would make to the activity, then post your suggestions on the forum. | |
Note: You may instead
choose an activity you currently do with your students.
Case Study 1
Sarah
Sarah is in a combination first and second grade classroom with 24 students.
Her classroom has four learning centers along the sides of the classroom (Math,
Reading/Writing, Science, and Current Events. Each center has a computer, appropriate
manipulatives/visual materials and worksheets relating to current curriculum
activities. The children usually work in groups of two or four at their own
desks (pushed together to form the groups). There is a rug area in one corner
of the room for large group activities. There is a part-time aide in the classroom
for 2 hours a day.
Sara has significant fine motor needs and some developmental delays. She is
on an ed plan, though her parents want her included in all classroom activities
so that she doesn’t feel ‘different’. Sara enjoys interacting
with her classmates, looks forward to circle time each day, and eagerly joins
in with her cooperative learning group. She is highly social in spite of being
nonverbal, using sign to communicate. The other students in class have learned
to understand her signs and to sign some themselves.
The students are preparing to share their reports on animals that hatch from
eggs. These reports are one part of a project that requires them to work in
different modalities using art, construction, and writing. The class is filled
with dioramas of animal environments and clay chickens and snakes. For a Science
report, each student has to produce a two-sentence hand written draft and a
word-processed final version.
This project poses many challenges for Sara. She is unable to hand write or
input text into a computer with a regular keyboard. Building dioramas requires
fine motor skills beyond her capability. You have been asked to help redesign
the activity so that Sarah (and a number of other students who struggle with
this assignment) will be successful.
Case Study 2
Bill
Bill is a seventeen-year old junior in a traditional looking suburban high school.
His English classroom is on the second floor of a large turn-of-the-century
brick and mortar high school. His English class houses 29 students sitting in
5 rows of 6 desks each. There are two slate blackboards on adjacent walls, a
teacher’s desk, two four-drawer file cabinets, and two bulletin boards
for posting student work, decorative posters, and homeroom announcements. There
are no computers in the classroom. However, all of the 1125 students in the
school can use computers in the library, and, if available computers in one
of the two computer labs in the building.
Bill has an undiagnosed learning disability and show signs of attention deficit
disorder. His parents feel he is just lazy and needs to just apply himself more
in school. Bill struggles with reading and writing assignments. These difficulties
became more pronounced as assignments in middle and high school involved more
abstract text and writing assignments expecting more sophisticated analytical
skills. His reading skills are approximately two years below grade level and
he is unable to concentrate on narrative text. He daydreams or becomes easily
distracted and forgets passages or loses the thread of what he is reading. Furthermore,
as a teenager who wants to be independent, his reading disability compounds
his feelings of low self-esteem. He is embarrassed when he has to ask the teacher
for additional help, knowing that his classmates are on track. His inability
to comprehend what he is reading makes it difficult for him to write thoughtful,
reflective, essays about the readings. As a consequence his writings tend to
be shallow, superficial, and often lacking key points.
The teacher of Bill’s eleventh grade class has asked the students to read
selected passages from two books by Jack London, “White Fang” and
“The Call of the Wild”. They are then expected to write an essay
contrasting the author’s view of animals from these two works.
Bill could easily be overwhelmed by this assignment. He excels at hands-on activities
where he is able to demonstrate what he has learned, and he contributes actively
in collaborative group projects. However, when it comes to independent assignments
that involve heady reading and/or analytical writing, his disability makes it
difficult for him to participate successfully.
You have been asked by his teacher to help redesign the activity so that Bill
(and a number of other students who struggle with this assignment) will be successful.