Also, in Chor-US class I am always integrating other languages and the importance of singing in them. This year alone as a choir we sang in Italian, Latin, Spanish, Japanese and of course English. The students were challenged at first but as they became confident in broadening their foreign language vocabulary they were proud of their accomplishments.
In Chor-us one of my objectives is to optimize access to tools and assistive technologies. This year an interactive smart board was added to my classroom. I use it every day and allow the students to offer alternative ways to use it. They have expressed to me that they learn best when the music is always shown on the board along with the paper music in their hands and also with them listening to other recordings of the same song as a class. This was strange to me but I complied to their request and in the end it paid off. One of my main goals was for my students to memorize their music for the concert, this was one of the reasons the students were able to achieve this result (UbD).
One thought about the UDL principals for me in my classroom, is as I understand the learning guidelines that are presented in the application of UDL, of the 180 days of school and working with young developing musicians. Honestly, I have incorporated all of the areas of learning and some more than others but, all of them have been touched in my classroom. My goal next year is to strategically plan to touch all three designs all 180 days of the school year.
