#UDLchat "Learner Needs"
Addressing & Understanding Learner Needs Through a UDL Lens
BACKGROUND
What are potential triggers or barriers that may unintentionally be present in learning environments?
Through Alexis’ work, she is privileged to help re-engage disengaged and often misunderstood learners across developmental time points and ages. In the past few weeks she has been curious about best ways to support educators at the start of this new school year.
Through candid discussions with individuals and groups of learners she has uncovered a series of requests that they have for educators. Please take some time to consider the questions below. The goal is not to change educators, but to consider potential trigger or barriers that even the most well-intentioned humans may create. We hope you will cultivate an awareness of how to set up learning environments, interactions, expectations, and engage in conversations that empower, rather than stifle learner development.
Points to Ponder:
-Learners who experience challenges (across any area of their life) benefit from patience, pause, and others having faith in them.
-Be mindful not to generalize an individual from a marginalized community or ask them to speak on behalf of their entire community. For example: “How does someone from x background feel about y issue?”
-Be mindful to ask learners what they need, especially if you notice a shift or change in their behaviors. Just because someone can’t do something in one context, doesn’t mean they can’t do something at all.
#UDLchat Questions for August 21, 2019
Q 1: How do you establish a culture of caring, compassionate, and respectful learning?
Q 2: As an adult learner, what are some of the triggers (things that set off a strong emotional response) or barriers that get in your way of reaching a goal? What are potential triggers/ barriers your Ls may experience?
Q 3: Learning challenges may present differently across learning environments. Ls have shared that comments like “You just need to try harder” are incredibly invalidating. What are some phrases we can reframe to be more considerate?
Bonus question to consider…
Question 4:
-Barriers can exist in learning environments, through interactions, and in the words we use. How do we protect and value the diverse tapestry of learner characteristics across contexts?
Further background information
Dive Deeper to Learn More:
Ted Talk
Mindfulness & Neural Connectivity
Engage the Brain
Understanding Learning & Related Disabilities
Inconvenient Brains
Understanding Teachers’ Perspectives on Students’ Mental Health (2012)
Setting School Culture With Social And Emotional Learning Routines
Leading With Learning On The First Day Of School To Build Class Culture
Mindfulness + Reflection → Engaged Learning
You Can’t Learn If You’re Anxious, Stressed, or Scared
Your Two Facilitators for the Evening
Alexis Reid
Alexis Reid is Director of Learning-Based Therapies at BCSC. Alexis is responsible for delivering services that focus on the development of executive functioning, educational, and learning-based skills via individual coaching and group-based formats. Additionally, Alexis provides consultation, workshops, and trainings for parents and educators to support individualized learning needs at home and in the classroom.
As a learning-based therapist and educator for more than a decade, Alexis fosters skill development, closes academic gaps, integrates mindfulness practices to enhance learning, and works to meet the academic and social emotional needs of all learners in a dedicated, supportive, and personable manner. Alexis’ approach is geared toward equipping learners with skills required to be purposeful, resourceful, goal-directed, self-regulated, knowledgeable, and engaged learners who know how to advocate for their needs across contexts.
Alexis earned a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Loyola University in Baltimore, MD and a Master of Arts from Boston College in Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology. Alexis has extensive experience through research and practice in developmental psychology, creating access to learning through Universal Design for Learning (UDL), executive functioning, developmental disabilities, positive youth development, and mentoring.
Ron Rogers
What's this #UDLchat all about?
#UDLchat is a bi-monthly Twitter chat focused on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). We are a virtual community of practitioners, enthusiasts, and evangelists eager to discuss resources, successes, and challenges in implementing UDL in a wide variety of environments and contexts.
Join us every 1st & 3rd Wednesday from 9-9:30pm ET / 6-6:30pm PT for a rapid-fire learning-focused chat, and build your PLN!
#UDLchat Team
Mindy Johnson @min_d_j
Elizabeth Stein @ElizabethLStein
Ron Rogers @Ronbrogers
Barb Gentille Green @BGentilleGreen
Bryan Dean @drrevdean
Kimberly Coy @digitallearnudl
Joni Degner @DegnerJoni
Want text alerts to remind you before each #UDLchat?
[text in image above described below]
Trouble using 81010? Try texting @udlchat to (781) 916-9648 instead.
To receive messages via email, send an email to udlchat@mail.remind.com. To unsubscribe, reply with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.
You can also visit the #UDLchat Remind site to sign up!