UDL in Kingswood
UDL is one of our pillars of teaching and learning in Kingswood Community College. UDL stands for Universal Design for Learning and is an approach to education that is based on making learning accessible to all. We have been working to embed UDL in our school for the past 3 years and have had our resources shared internationally & nationwide to help other schools do the same. Our teachers are committed to creating learning environments in which every student can succeed.
For our students, UDL looks like a few different things. Firstly, students are provided access to the curriculum in a variety of modes. Our teachers make a high proportion of their class content which includes text, images, videos, audio notes, discussions, and interactive quizzes. In this way, students are not tethered to textbooks alone and can master class content through a variety of mediums and practises. This supports home learning also as students can access these resources on Schoology.
Secondly, students are offered a variety of ways to demonstrate learning. As we are a digital school of qualified Apple teachers, we have been working to open-up assignments and assessments beyond that of exclusively pen and paper. Of course, written skills are essential but we also make use of our iPads as tools of expression. Students can demonstrate their understanding of a unit of learning through written work, movies, posters, presentations, demonstrations, audio recordings or any combination of these.
Finally, through UDL, we continue to improve students opportunity for choice in the classroom. We work to create authentic learning experience in which students have both a say in how they learn and how they showcase that learning. Our teachers design classroom experiences with choice in-built - questions to choose from, supporting material to choose from, assessment to choose from. Our students produce a plethora of multi-modal artefacts which demonstrate their mastery of learning and individual engagement with the curriculum at Junior and Senior Cycle. Check out some student examples below.