Meet Heather Cowap
Heather Cowap, MS, MEd
Speaker
Heather Cowap, MS, MEd spent 15 years, (including remote emergency teaching) in high school science classrooms working with multiple grade levels and subject areas. Inspired by the goal of enticing students to be motivated and engaged in content, Heather has used Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a pedagogical structure to find and implement a number of ways for students to have choice in demonstrating knowledge of content. UDL encourages them to select from a wide variety of both technical tools and alternative ways of expression. She discovered that using technology in the classroom increased students’ mastery in learning and increased their engagement in the topics covered. Discovering the need to help students manage their choices and learning group goals, Heather began using Scrum, an Agile method of project management. She used Scrum as her classroom framework for both projects, project learning, blended learning and all content required for state examinations. By combining these two methods her students are freed to embrace personalized learning goals within the context of her state standards for science.
Today Heather is putting the final touches to her book on using an Agile approach to the UDL classroom, empowering independent learning in the student centered classroom, and teacher sanity. She is available for professional development opportunities on UDL, as well as using Agile in the classroom.