Abstract:

The average scores of Pakistani students for science on the National Education Assessment System all fell below 50 percent. This is because the students are unable to access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities in their classrooms. Instructors fail to deliver critical scientific concepts in a resourceful and knowledgeable approach, hence resulting in poor comprehension skills of students. Moreover, engagement is the key driver of students’ achievement in 21st century learning design. According to a Gallup report, if the engaged students are compared with their disengaged peers, they are 2.5 times more likely to say that they will be getting excellent grades. However, science classrooms in most Pakistani schools fail to recruit the interest of students due to didactic, irrelevant and non-interactive monomodal lesson plans providing no means of experimentation and exploration. These factors reduce active student participation in the classrooms, and they fail to develop practical scientific skills required in 21st Century Learning Era. Universal Design of Learning (UDL) framework for inclusive learning suggests that it is possible to design inclusive and engaging lesson plan by providing learners multiple means of engagement, action and representation while using multi-modal lecture delivery mechanisms.

The proposed solution to identified problem is to design inclusive tech-enabled Science lesson plans based on Universal Design of Learning Framework and discuss the insightful experiences with the educator communities. For this purpose, this study employed the CAST UDL Lesson Builder Tool to create and adapt science lessons that boost student engagement and promote student participation in the general education curriculum for all students. In the study, CAST UDL lesson builder is used to design engaging and interactive science lesson plans for primary students in Pakistani school to ensure they think, talk and do in science.

Using an innovative and digital Microsoft sway tool, we developed creative and multimodal (images, videos, documents) science lesson plans for an interactive experience. Blended learning strategy was used including colorful printed resources (posters), interactive and animated Urdu videos, educational games, and traditional dry erase boards to provide scaffolds to students while performing contextual hands-on science activities.

In this inclusive UDL-based lesson plan, anticipatory set (introductory video, discussion, lesson objectives) is first used to recruit interest of the learners followed by introducing and modelling new knowledge and information (vocabulary, comprehension). Then, the learner performs activities under teacher scaffolding in the guided practice (interactive guides, group activities) which later transforms into independent practices (scoring games, individual experiments) where students is allowed to explore and experiment on his own. Similarly, multiple quiz formats are used in the assessment worksheets.

This study demonstrated that the hands-on inclusive learning activities enhance engagement of students while providing them with maximum participation in classroom. The use of low-cost teaching and learning aids made out of recycled/re-used items not only made these inclusive lesson plans affordable but also accessible for Pakistani schools. This study also implied that inclusive lesson plans can not only engage learners but also maximize their learning outcomes.

Keywords:

Universal design, inclusive, science learning, inclusive lesson, low-cost science, teaching science.