Reflecting on Design Choices

Being in an early childhood and elementary setting, I have yet to be exposed to many Instructional Design (ID) models. I have more experience with teaching philosophies such as Reggio Emilia and Montessori, as these are the two approaches we use at work. Upon starting this course, I realised I have a slight knowledge of some IDs like Bloom’s Taxonomy (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020), where we discussed this model in my education psychology and child development classes during my bachelor's. A more recent design I have been exposed to was the idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (Takacs et al., 2021). 

In my final internship before graduating, one project was creating a lesson plan while keeping UDL in mind. In the specific class I was in, a couple of students already had Individual Education Plans (IEPs); thus, I was somewhat used to differentiating instruction, and I was up to creating a lesson while keeping all the students in mind. The idea of UDL is not to eliminate students' IEPs or accommodations but to design a lesson that maximizes learning for most students (Takacs et al., 2021). I decided to do a reading comprehension activity with them, where using the Smart Board, I found a read-aloud on YouTube that incorporated the captions so they could both hear and read along. Afterwards, I asked questions about the book, and the students discussed their answers in a group. The students were engaged and enjoyed doing this activity, and it worked well to meet the needs of several students. I was lucky to have access to that technology. Using technology in the classroom was meaningful, as I did not want to use it just because it was there. 

Kale et al. (2020) discuss how teachers must understand how to integrate technology into their instructional design meaningfully. While it is great that schools now have access to different types of technology like Smartboard, laptops, tablets, and more, if it is not used meaningfully, it will not help students learn effectively. I was constantly encouraged to use technology during my internships when creating lesson plans. Thus, when coming up with my lessons, I reflected on ways to use technology, not just because it was there and I had access to it, but to help students understand the content and expand their knowledge. It was and still is important to me to reflect on the “why” I should use technology in this instance. 

In the end, using UDL and its three principles of multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression (Gronseth & Hutchins, 2019), I am constantly reflecting on ways to incorporate technology and how to create lessons to meet the needs of most students at once. 

References 

Gronseth, S. L., & Hutchins, H. M. (2019). Flexibility in formal workplace learning: Technology 

applications for engagement through the lens of Universal Design for Learning. TechTrends, 64(2), 211–

218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-019-00455-6 

Heaster-Ekholm, K. L. (2020). Popular Instructional Design Models: Their Theoretical Roots and Cultural

Considerations.International Journal of Education and Development using Information and

Communication Technology, 16(3), 50-65.

Kale, U., Roy, A. & Yuan, J. To design or to integrate? Instructional design versus technology 

integration in developing learning interventions. Education Tech Research Dev 68, 2473–2504 (2020).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09771-8

Takacs, S., Zhang, J., Lee, H., Truong, L., & Smulders, D. (2021). Universal design for learning: A practical

guide. JIBC. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/jibcudl/