Personal Reflection on MD400 Course

During this course I have learned very important lessons. I never used Photoshop, blogging, inspiration, and web design before. Even though this class requires a lot of time, it is all worth spending the necessary time. This is a great opportunity for me to learn how to use technology and create different lessons for my students. I have started to make plans for my summer vacation to prepare lessons using Universal Design for Learning. I have used in the past graph organizers to show to my students how new concepts are connected to one another. But UDL allows showing more than just a graph organizer in black and white. Another important part of this class is creating a personal web page. When I complete this course, I plan to create a web page for my math classes in the near future. Having a personal website is great for me as a math teacher.

Added Value

There are numerous advantages for students to learn and remember what they learned when they learn new lessons through technology. When teachers use technology in the classroom, the lesson becomes more interesting and easier to understand. The teacher can give more information in a short amount of time and students will be able to better visualize new concepts. Technology allows students to access more information that relates to the new lesson. The best way to learn a new lesson is when students are engaged and do their own research. Another important part of teaching is using UDL. For students it is easier to remember when they see connections among new concepts.

Inquiry-Based Learning

I completely agree with an expression used on the article "What is inquiry-based learning?" that is posted on the website: www.thirteen.org. The expression says: "Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand." If a teacher does not involve student in the classroom, chances are that students will forget what the teacher was talking about. When students are involved, they will be able to understand and learn concepts and remember them easier. For me as a math teacher, inquiry-based learning is critical and I use it especially when I teach new concepts. For example: when I teach my students how to graph, I engage them first to gather data. Then I ask them to use tables on their graphing calculators to graph their information. They study the data and often they find the type of the relationship and the equation that represent their data. When I start teaching how to graph, they show good understanding of how to graph and what a graph means.

The Standard That I Will Focus On This Semester

The standard that I will focus on this semester is Math Grades 9-12. The content standard six focuses on spatial relationship and geometry. This part of math is very important for students because they will learn basic concepts of geometry to construct, draw, describe and compare geometric models and their transformations. Students will learn haw to solve real-world mathematical problems using geometric models. They will be able to understand plane and three-dimensional geometric shapes. Calculating angle measure, segment length, perimeter, circumference, surface area, and volume of different shapes, will be a great experience for students. It is easer for students to learn and visualize these concepts if the teacher uses digital imagery. As a math teacher I can incorporate images in every geometry lesson.

Universal Design for Learning

In this graphic organizer I have included key concepts of the article on Universal Design for Learning. The most important part of UDL is digital media. There are four aspects of digital media that are crucial for classroom applications: versatility, transformability, the ability to be marked, and the ability to be networked. On this organizer I have included the three key principles of the Universal Design for Learning: Recognition, Strategic, and Affective.
When teachers incorporate digital media into the classroom, each student has more option to learn. This is very important particularly for students with special needs.