Author: Tarang Team
Universal Design for learning
Author: Bharati Dsouza | August 1, 2020
My name is Siddhi, I am a Nursery teacher at the Chubby Cheeks School, Porvorim. One of my major issue is making children understand what I want them to do. Following instructions at this time is difficult for them and for me as a nursery teacher it is a chaotic situation to be able to handle so many tiny tots at the same time. Just to share a small experience, getting children to form a line was a very confusing and overwhelming process. I tried hard but failed, and here is where the Tarang team came to my aid and explained how the Universal Design for Learning can be used to teach something as simple as following instructions by using the multisensory approach. In this example I have specified only a single means of teaching this concept. By using a visual card of children standing in a line, I was able to tell my students what was expected from them. A visual line marked on the floor gave them a concrete sign in understanding forming of a line, after which a demonstration of the concept was given. The training process also involved having a student as a line leader. Then each student’s name was called out one by one, to stand on that marked line and they were prompted when required. After a while of training, my students today are able to form a line just by giving them the instruction ‘form a line’ and calling out their names to maintain structure. I could now take a sigh of relief as my class was less chaotic when leaving the classroom for any outdoor activity.
The Tarang Transforming Schools Program by Sethu aims at training teachers to use the Universal Design for learning approach to teach children. This approach makes it possible to include children with different learning modes, ability levels, learning interest and backgrounds in the same classroom.
Teachers! Are you bored of using the same old blackboard and auditory mode of teaching? Would you like to learn a fun and engaging way to teach?
Why use Universal Design for learning?
- It helps teachers plan lessons that address diverse learning needs in the classroom.
- It is a multisensory approach to teaching a concept
- It incorporates activity-based teaching to keep students engaged and motivated.
- It gives all children equal opportunities to succeed.
Project Update
We recently had another digital meeting with teachers from our partner schools, Manovikas and Chubby Cheeks. It is their dedication and enthusiasm towards leaning more on inclusive education that pushes us to work harder.
The Inclusive Education team at Sethu presented a series of UDL lessons online to the teachers of our partner schools on the 24th of June. This enabled the teachers to see a UDL lesson in action and understand how to implement it in their classrooms.
References: www.cast.org
(Follow this post to know more about the UDL style of teaching and the ongoing activities of the Tarang project)
Tarang Goes Digital
by Manju Sashidharan | June 15, 2020
The Tarang project represents Sethu’s work in the field of inclusive education in Goa. We created a new developmentally sequenced curriculum for our preschools that is appropriate, activity based and socially & culturally contextual. For example, a child at the age of 3 years may not be physically ready to hold a pencil so teaching that child to writing will be unpleasant at this stage. Though it is important to introduce a child to new concept, its equally important to link learning to what the child is familiar with. When teaching students about seasons we cannot say that we should wear sweaters and caps in the winter as that is not how we experience winter in Goa. It is important to make the child realize what we wear in Goa in the winter.
Teachers are the most important partners in our journey of inclusive education. After getting their valuable feedback on our curriculum, we planned on presenting them with our revised version. However, with the COVID crisis, it seemed like there would be a spoke in our wheel. But after careful and creative planning, we decided that this crisis would not come in our way and decided to go digital.
Rather than face-to face, we presented the revised curriculum based on our teachers’ feedback through an online meeting. This allowed us to convey information, simplify skills, discuss issues and troubleshoot problems. Overall, the online session enabled us to reach out to teachers from different locations all over Goa. We fought off anxiety brought by technical difficulties during the meeting, and overall the session was a rewarding and useful experience.
Here’s what our teacher’s and facilitators had to say about the meeting!
