Kurzweil Assignment

For the Kurzweil assignment, I used The Future is in the Margins. I noticed that even though I wanted kids to "look up" words with in the program, the built-in dictionary wasn't working. It couldn't define heralded or transformative. With that in mind, I circled potential vocabulary words in red. I highlighted key points in Cyan, I put sticky notes, bubble notes, and voice notes in as well. 1. Michael is often an enthusiastic and excited member of the class because he desires to “perform well.” He likes opportunities to explore his own interests and has difficulty when asked to learn about other topics, execute a new skill, or complete a task that involves multiple steps. When presenting, Michael often uses formal language and prefers to spend his time on visual representations. Other students are often annoyed with his questions and comments, although as a group with teacher guidance, they have become very good at explicitly telling Michael what is or is not appropriate. In preparing a lesson, the teacher knows that she will need to provide Michael with support for abstract concepts, directions, and any use of figurative language. For Michael, the objective is to get him to complete the task of reading the article and have him define the vocabulary words in context. This acts as both an instructional and an assistive tool, as his language skills are getting reinforced as he learns about the principles of UDL. Michael should spend time drawing connections to his personal life, illustrating examples from the reading, and making constructing a diagram of the material in the article. 2. Finn has mastered the art of looking and sounding interested. He knows that given enough time, things might make sense. His teacher often knows that if she asks a question and leaves it unanswered, about 20 minutes later Finn will have an aha moment and answer the question. Finn, as a result, is behind in nearly every class discussion. Finn’s teacher usually calls on Finn to share a homework answer so as to help him participate. Figurative language, interpretive comprehension, challenging questions and sometimes even the use of guiding questions, and group work are extremely challenging for Finn and he often sits back and focuses on listening only for the whole point of the lesson and then writes down those words, whether or not he understands what they really means. For Finn, the objective is to get him more engaged in the reading and help him make sense of it in a more timely manner. Like Michael, for Finn Kurzweil will act as both an instructional and an assistive tool. Finn's language skills are weak and any assistance with defining words in context or highlighting key concepts seems like it would only be helpful and benefit him.