Colleen's+Page

I am a second grade teacher in a large school district just outside of Denver, Colorado. I have my education license for grades k-12 with emphasis in English and Mathematics. Prior to teaching second grade, I taught sixth grade for many years. I grew up in Colorado and moved to Ohio immediately after graduating high school to attend Xavier University. In 2002, I began my first teaching job in a rural one building school district. After that I switched to teaching in an inner city school in Cincinnati. I am amazed at how diverse the education experiences and opportunities available to students in the United States are.

Two resources that I found/created while completing this weeks application are listed below:

[] Students complete a fourteen question multiple-choice survey. The questions and answers are geared towards elementary students. The teacher can tally the results to learn which students are kinesthetic, visual, or audio learners.
 * Learning Style Survey**

[] I am excited to implement the online survey that I created at the start of next school year. As Bray, Brown, and Green (2004) point out, it is important to utilize the strengths of our students as well as challenge ourselves to meet their weaknesses. While this survey will not give me all of the information I will need to meet the needs of the students, it will give me valuable information that I can use to plan my instruction and further develop my relationships with my students.
 * Beginning of the Year Online Student Survey**


 * UDL Presentation**

Keeping in mind that our staff meetings are held at the end of the school day and my colleagues tend to be tired and ready to go home, I have prepared a brief presentation about UDL. Knowing that the staff at our school is filled with diverse learners, I have designed a presentation that encompasses all learning styles.

http://prezi.com/lltwtvjtztny/udl/

I am actually looking forward to the end of this course, as I will finally have TIME to utilize and learn from this wiki a bit more. I have eight more days and my Masters will be finished! I cannot wait to use the time I have been putting into the classes to instead use it for exploring the resources my classmates have been sharing. I am very interested in keeping this wiki open so that we can continue to add to it and share our ideas for continued professional development. As I leave this course and reflect on what I want to take from it, I realize that I have already begun quite a bit of the change I want for my students. My classroom is using much more collaboration and group interaction. I am striving to use more games for practicing skills and understand that it is not only okay to have my students doing different activities to learn, it is essential.
 * Summary**

I believe I have a better understanding of the importance of DI and UDL within the classroom and this wiki has helped me find more tools to use to collect data and learn about my students. A site that I came across this week that I would like to share with all of you is http://www.ldpride.net/learning_style_work.html The site offers suggestions for the next step for teachers after we have collected information on our students learning preferences. I am excited about this site because so often I find myself having data, but not being sure what to do with it or how to most effectively design lessons that meet the needs of all students.