Toolbelt Theory

EDPD 584: Toolbelt Theory

Toolbelt options for a grade 9 Social Studies final exam.

Assignment Requirements:

Students must demonstrate the knowledge obtained during the social studies course. 

The accumulative test will be presented as a series of questions.

All questions must be answered.

All students must participate in this final assessment.

Choices Available:

Sensory reduction tools.

During the test students may choose to listen to music on earbuds or wear noise cancelling headphones.

Audio Format.

The test will be available using Kurzweil for students who may better compute the content of the question by hearing it aloud.

Modes of expression choices.

Students may choose to answer the questions using whatever means works best for them. This may be a traditional written answer format, but may also be recorded answers on an iPad or other recording device, spoken answers delivered using a talk to text program such as Google ReadWrite or TalkTyper.

The Why?

Offering students multiple modes of engagement, representation, and expression, and trusting them to make their own choices, allows them to be responsible for their own learning. Technology can offer students helpful choices and effective learning strategies. For some students it will be the difference between being physically able to complete and assignment or not. For others it will simply be an assistance. Teachers often seem against making things easier for students. As long as a student is learning, it shouldn’t matter how they are intaking the information or outputting the proof of that learning. Why are we determined to make learning hard? Isn’t it our job as teachers to make learning easier?
            Offering students choices, and tools will help students develop ownership and investment in their education and become more confident in their knowledge of themselves as a learner.

The challenges students face in school will often also be challenges they will continue to face throughout the rest of their lives. By arming them against these challenges we are setting them up for success in the classroom as well as beyond it. UDL levels the playing field so that all students have equal opportunities and equal ability to succeed. Assistive technology is one of the most useful and accessible methods in accomplishing this equality.