Chapter 1 UbD

Chapter 1 in the UbD/DI book was a little difficult for me to get through.  I felt that for the beginning part of the chapter it was trying to tell me that I could not make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with only peanut butter or just jelly.  I felt I understood the concept of using both Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction equally but the reiteration was unneeded.  Under Axiom 2, there is a discussion of working with school specialists to pinpoint materials and information that would be helpful to the varying reading levels.  This would obviously depend on the resources a school has to offer, but including other staff in the education of students seems like a great idea to incorporate into my future lessons.  Axiom 3 brought up a great idea on what material to focus on to deal with differing levels of student learning.  The book discusses the idea that slower learners should prioritize the core and essential information in a unit while advanced learners need challenges on critical parts of the learning material.  Dr. Hardy uses a similar pattern in his teaching that I have witnessed.  He would occasionally preface a piece of information saying it will not be asked on the test.  This allows for students who are struggling to focus on other topics while advanced students can incorporate more detail into their work.  Axiom 6 seems like an interesting and effective way to freshen ideas for lecture and student materials.  Working with other teachers and learning their different ways of teaching would only benefit my own effectiveness with teaching differing levels of student skill and ability.