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jenweening 's review for:
UDL and Blended Learning: Thriving in Flexible Learning Landscapes
by Katie Novak, Catlin R. Tucker
This book had some really great ideas and strategies for improving my teaching, and it was easy to read and relatable. I've been a huge fan of Catlin Tucker for a long time, and getting lots of her ideas in one place was good. The natural connection and mutual beneficence of UDL and blended learning made sense to me, but I wish the book had provided quite a bit more in terms of UDL strategies -- I know that there are other books out there that go much deeper on that topic, but as this was my first foray into learning about UDL, I feel like I still have a huge gap in understanding that will make it hard to really apply many of the principles without a lot of additional study.
I found that the first five chapters of the book were really excellent, and the discussion and reflection questions at the end of each chapter were helpful for leading the direction of our discussion. However, I found that the quality and applicability of the remaining chapters left something to be desired. (This is the reason for my 3-star rating rather than 4, which is what it would have been up to chapter 5.) I think I was looking for more strategies and examples at that point, perhaps feeling like I had taken in enough theory by then and just needed more ideas to actually implement them. However, in all, I'm looking forward to hearing what the rest of my book study group thought of the second half of the book and I'm sure that there will be some key takeaways that I'd missed just due to the nature of my reading at the time.
My copy of the book is filled with lots of underlining and margin notes - definitely too many to copy down here. However, one of the key points that probably challenged my thinking more than anything (and which I will probably struggle to apply the most!) is this:
"Note that building trust is not just about students trusting us. If we are to facilitate expert learning, we have to trust that students can and will learn if they are given opportunities to make choices, reflect on those choices, and try again." (117)
I found that the first five chapters of the book were really excellent, and the discussion and reflection questions at the end of each chapter were helpful for leading the direction of our discussion. However, I found that the quality and applicability of the remaining chapters left something to be desired. (This is the reason for my 3-star rating rather than 4, which is what it would have been up to chapter 5.) I think I was looking for more strategies and examples at that point, perhaps feeling like I had taken in enough theory by then and just needed more ideas to actually implement them. However, in all, I'm looking forward to hearing what the rest of my book study group thought of the second half of the book and I'm sure that there will be some key takeaways that I'd missed just due to the nature of my reading at the time.
My copy of the book is filled with lots of underlining and margin notes - definitely too many to copy down here. However, one of the key points that probably challenged my thinking more than anything (and which I will probably struggle to apply the most!) is this:
"Note that building trust is not just about students trusting us. If we are to facilitate expert learning, we have to trust that students can and will learn if they are given opportunities to make choices, reflect on those choices, and try again." (117)