Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

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Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood
As an academic and a teacher, managing students
with a lot of learning styles and
abilities/intelligences, and new tools for
learning, we are increasingly facing choices
about how we manage the learning environment
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And sorry I could not travel both
Tools we traditionally associate with learning -
notes, books, images, blackboards and chalk have
history, they fit comfortably with our teaching.
New tools technological gadgets can be
difficult to keep apace with?
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And be one traveller
As learning becomes more accessible, the student
profile is changing. 4.6 in Ireland, In
nursing, teacher training, medicine, engineering
courses
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long I stoodAnd Looked Down oneAs far I could
Students with disabilities are taking courses we
would never have thought possible. A Nurse with
one hand, A Teacher who is deaf, Engineer with
visual impairment
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TO WHERE IT BENT IN THE UNDER GROWTH
There is a quiet revolution we need to
embrace! We must stop and think about teaching,
learning and technology, How, Why, What for?
Universal Design, what is it. And most
importantly, How much do I need to know????
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Then took the other as just as fair
When considering students with disabilities and
the choices they are making, it may (will)
challenge our biases and presumptions.
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And having perhaps the better claim
We need to recognise students are choosing
courses that they believe they have the ability
to study and want a career in.just as their
peers do. Students - today - can engage in
learning in a different way and claim it in a
way that suits them
I have a new amplified stethoscope!
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Though as for that the passing there Had worn
them really about the same
But is not student success and high quality of
education still what it is all about?
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And both that morning equally lay
Yet things cannot remain the same for any
student Control quality of education,
appropriate usage of technologies,Standards
whats fair to all students?Equality what
will this look like??
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In leaves no step had trodden black.
This is all new ground
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Oh, I kept the first for another day!
So with all the changes the primary objective
is that all students with a diverse need can be
the best that they can be and that best will
get better.
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Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
And now more than ever we need to share our
learning, our concerns, our experiences, our
questions.
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I doubted if I should ever come back
Through this sharing and evolution we will all
realize change
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I shall be telling this with a sigh
And sometime in the futurewe will all be able to
say we were part of this great change
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Somewhere ages
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and ages hence
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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
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..WE took the one less traveled byAnd that has
made all the difference.
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FROM THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, ROBERT FROST,
(18741963)

• Robert Frost
• four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet,
  teacher and lecturer.
• Although he never graduated from college,
• he received over 40 honorary degrees.
• He also suffered from depression and a fear of
  public speaking

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• Thank you Mary Quirke
• www.thelinknetwork.eu
• www.ahead.ie