Dive Into Udl: Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners - Softcover

[CN]Chapter 4
[CN]Your Assumptions and Beliefs
The classroom is an extremely busy place with dozens of moving parts, dozens of personalities, and hundreds of demands on our time in any given day. There are just too many pieces of information for us to process or even notice them all. In many ways, the classroom is an example of the selective attention principle (Simons, 2010) at work. The effects of selected attention are illustrated in Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris’s famous “Gorilla” video (bit.ly/DiveIntoUDLCh4a): When instructed to count to the number of times the players in white pass a basketball during the video, viewers become so focused on the passes that they fail to see a person in a gorilla suit walk through the game.
Our focus becomes a filter.
For many of us, our assumptions and beliefs about learning and learners become our focus and our filter. We expect to see certain behaviors: for certain students to succeed, for other students to struggle. We count the passes, but counting the passes reinforces our expectations so we fail to see the gorilla walk across the floor.
It’s only when we consciously look for the gorilla—when someone points out that we should look for the gorilla—that we see it. If you are lucky enough to have experienced the Simons and Chabris video without prior knowledge of its intent, it is an eye-opening moment. You can’t believe you missed the gorilla. It’s so obvious! However, some will insist the video was doctored. There is no way they missed that gorilla! The gorilla wasn’t there. If you want to give the test another try, take a look at “The Monkey Business Illusion” (bit.ly/DiveIntoUDLCh4c) or “Movie Perception Test” (bit.ly/DiveIntoUDLCh4b), which illustrate the same concept.
What’s the “gorilla moment” in your professional life? It’s when what you expect to see and pay attention to causes you to miss or misinterpret something important. It might be observing your class engaged in a task and missing the student quietly struggling. It might be watching a student not know what to do next and assuming they weren’t listening to your instructions. It could be assigning leveled text based on learners’ decoding skills, rather than their excellent comprehension skills when using a screen reader.
For Kendra, the gorilla moment was assuming disability was internal to the student and not dependent on a variety of factors within her control to change. She saw learners struggling with reading and writing tasks and provided technology to accommodate the disability. Although this recognized the underlying ability of the learners, she didn’t challenge (until later) the system belief that students who didn’t fit the “norm” required a diagnosis and label to get extra support and remediation or the conventional belief that text-based instruction and assessment were the best ways to teach and for students to learn.
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Tweet: What we measure and count is our focus. Our focus then becomes our filter, reinforcing what we “know” about our students. With this laser focus we often miss the gorilla in the room. What’s your gorilla? bit.ly/DiveIntoUDLCh4a #DiveIntoUDL
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Examining your assumptions and beliefs on a regular basis can help you clear your filter. Taking a step back from your teaching to look for the gorilla in your instruction and assessment, the learning environment, or your expectations of students, however, can cause disequilibrium. It can be shocking to suddenly see the gorilla. This is why it is helpful to share and reflect with others. Do they see the gorilla too?
Exploring your assumptions and beliefs about teaching, learning, and learners before you begin exploring more about UDL will give you a benchmark to help you see your professional growth over time. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers to the “Pause and Reflect” questions. This information is for you and your professional growth, so consider recording it in some way to reference later.
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[SB Head]Pause and Reflect
Do you see the gorilla?
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•           How has your understanding of the average student influenced your teaching practice?
•           How has your role as a general education or special education teacher shaped your teaching practice?
•           Is it possible to reach and teach every student given the vast diversity of learners in our classroom?
•           What does it mean to have a disability? Who should support students with disabilities or other learning differences?
•           What role does technology play in your life? What role does technology play in your classroom?
•           Who currently succeeds in your classroom and why? Did you succeed in the education system? Why or why not?
•           What is your role as a teacher? What is the role of a student? What is the goal of learning?
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[A]Exploring Your Assumptions and Beliefs
Your assumptions and beliefs are like the clothes in your closet. Some fit perfectly. Some don’t fit anymore, but still you hang on to them in case they fit again (they usually don’t). Some are old, worn out favorites that may be worth keeping. Can they be updated and repaired, or should they be replaced with something more up-to-date? Some might be trendy. Even if these seem to fit, do they stand up to everyday wear? Will they be replaced when the next trend comes along, or does this trend have its roots in solid design?
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Figure 4.1 Assumptions and beliefs: Clean out your instructional closet regularly.
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Just like performing a seasonal closet clear-out, regularly bring your assumptions and beliefs about learners and learning out into the light and examine them closely (Figure 4.1). Try them on. Be critical. Consider getting a new perspective from your trusted peers during this process, especially those with a critical eye and unflinching honesty!
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Tweet: Regularly “clean” your instructional closet. Review your assumptions and beliefs about learners and learning. Keep what fits, then tailor or dispose of those that no longer do. #DiveIntoUDL
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Every teacher comes to teaching with assumptions and beliefs that come from a variety of places and times: our school experiences, our children’s (or friend’s children’s) school experiences, our pre-service, our graduate degrees, the PLN we curate, and the climate and culture of the schools and districts we work in. Some of these assumptions and beliefs may be accurate. Some may be accurate but difficult to implement for a variety of reasons. Others may need updating, refining, or changing. For example, when Luis first started learning about UDL, his focus was primarily on removing barriers by ensuring educational materials were accessible. This focus was shaped by his experience as a legally blind student who experienced frustration in trying to...