By Jana Nicol
It all started with a grant possibility through our province's department of education. The lucky recipients would receive a $1000 budget and five days of release time (gasp!) to plan and execute an action research project about Universal Design for Learning (UDL)... but there was a catch - applicants needed to assemble a school-based team of four and complete the application by the last day of September. Seriously?!
On the teacher calendar, September is one of the busiest months of the year, what with getting to know
twenty-something students and their parents, putting the finishing touches on our classrooms, planning lessons, open house, PLCs, reading and signing Special Education Plans, and deadlines (cumulative files, information sheets, professional growth plans, etc.), something else was loaded onto our already heaping plates. And only one elementary, middle, and high school would be selected from each of the province's four school districts.
I checked around... a lot of teachers in schools throughout our district were really excited about this grant, so there was going to be competition. And it was probably going to be fierce. After all, our district has a lot of amazing schools and educators. We put an excellent team of teachers in no time, completed the challenging feat of filling out the application and passing it in on time. Then it was just a waiting game...
A few weeks later, we heard back from the department: we got it... how exciting! I am really looking forward to learning more about UDL and working with some amazing educators in the process.
It all started with a grant possibility through our province's department of education. The lucky recipients would receive a $1000 budget and five days of release time (gasp!) to plan and execute an action research project about Universal Design for Learning (UDL)... but there was a catch - applicants needed to assemble a school-based team of four and complete the application by the last day of September. Seriously?!
On the teacher calendar, September is one of the busiest months of the year, what with getting to know
twenty-something students and their parents, putting the finishing touches on our classrooms, planning lessons, open house, PLCs, reading and signing Special Education Plans, and deadlines (cumulative files, information sheets, professional growth plans, etc.), something else was loaded onto our already heaping plates. And only one elementary, middle, and high school would be selected from each of the province's four school districts.
I checked around... a lot of teachers in schools throughout our district were really excited about this grant, so there was going to be competition. And it was probably going to be fierce. After all, our district has a lot of amazing schools and educators. We put an excellent team of teachers in no time, completed the challenging feat of filling out the application and passing it in on time. Then it was just a waiting game...
A few weeks later, we heard back from the department: we got it... how exciting! I am really looking forward to learning more about UDL and working with some amazing educators in the process.
