I have always been a fan of Understanding By Design by Wiggins and McTighe. I found it to be a useful framework that I could easily apply to lesson planning that would improve my students learning. I found that it allowed me to navigate within the systems standardization framework, but allows me to tie in the big 3-questions, "How can I use this?", "Why must I use this?" and "When will I use this?" UbD allowed me to be creative as well as a level of autonomy for myself and my students. As I became more comfortable and confident with UbD, Universal Design for Learning seemed a natural progress.
As a student, I struggled with remembering or activating prior knowledge. However, I seemed to always remember the projects. Why? Because the projects allowed for my strengths as a learner. Projects allowed me to work in a small-group and learn and appreciate my peers. Projects allowed me to feel confident. And people remember how they feel. One negative example, of how a learning activity made me feel inadequate were timed-fact sheets. Remember those? Where you had to finish as many problems as possible in 1-minute. My anxiety would hit the roof! I could see others whizzing through the work sheet. I believed that I was slow. I didn't like or want this experience. Now, consider a project that I did in my 5th grade Science class. Where I had to trace my full body, color and label parts. Everyone's paper was white. I am a beautiful sun-kissed tone; not white and definitely not peach. My teacher understood this and brought in new markers and crayons closer to my skin tone. She ooh'd and ahh'd as I worked. Other students also started to find tones that better represented them (even Shawn who wanted to be green). Even in a predominantly white suburban classroom in the 1980's, she understood that representation mattered. She made me feel included. I learned my required number of body parts, and some extra. I was an engaged learner. This project was everything Universal Design for Learning is meant to be.
Syllabus mapping encompasses the ability for teachers and students to see their past, present, and future.