Lenses

Lenses

Lenses can change how we look at things. They can bring things into focus, make things bigger. They can change the tint of an image, changing the mood.

There are different lenses, focuses or ways of thinking, that we can use when designing instruction. Each lens gives us a different perspective. Below are some fundamental lenses, or ways of thinking, that are important to the activities in this website.

Lens 1: Shifting to Team Learning

Classroom pedagogy has historically been focused on the individual student. There has been a shift in recent years to peer learning teams, where students learn together. This shift requires that students in diverse classroom settings feel safe and comfortable learning with each other; not afraid to make mistakes around each other, and engaged in supporting each other.

Lens 2: Universal Design for Learning

Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. (http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html)

Based on research around the brain and learning, UDL provides guidelines to design curriculum and instruction for all students based on the cognitive systemic variability that all humans share. For students to successfully learn in groups they must feel that the curriculum and instruction is relevant to their personal lives as well as supportive of students with differences working together. Students have to feel safe and empowered to learn. They also need to feel that their teachers and peers want them to succeed.

Below are several UDL resources:

  • UDL Graphic Organizer - A graphic organizer of the UDL principles and guidelines.
  • UDL: Strategy Packet - A handout with ideas and tips on using the UDL principles to meet the needs of your students.
  • UDL Ideas - An interactive website with tips on how to add flexibility to instructional activities.
  • Cognitive Strategies & Accommodations - A handout of strategies and tools that can be used to support learning for all students.
UDL Guidelines 3.pdf
UDL Strategy Packet.pdf

You can use this website to explore instructional options and supports based on the UDL Guidelines.

UDL Ideas - https://at-udl.com/tools/udlideas/

Cognitive Processing Supports & Accommodations

This handouts includes strategies and tools that can be used to support:

  • Information/sensory input
  • Information integration
  • Memory
  • Sharing Knowledge
  • Motor Skills

It also includes examples of typical accommodations that can be used for all students.

Cognitive Strategies and Accommodations Letter.pdf

Think About

Students need to become fluent using tools and learning strategies. Students may know a strategy but not be skilled in using the strategy (see page 65 of the ELA Implementation Guide). It is important that students have time to practice a strategy or tool until they become skilled in using it, and then have opportunities to maintain that skill.


Practice Strategies to Make Skills.pdf

Lens 3: Vocabulary and Language Shifts

Everything has a vocabulary that supports understanding. The English Language Arts (ELA) Standards have an academic vocabulary that students need to be fluent in using in order to become proficient. In the same way, Executive Functioning has a vocabulary, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has a vocabulary. Students and teachers can learn the words as vocabulary words, but deep understanding and needed behavioral changes require both learning and using these vocabularies on a regular basis. These shifts in day-to-day language are critical for individual and team learning.