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We're going to get started with our idea today, and what this is, again I'm Ben and I am a
Special Ed and Elementary Ed major, and something that really sparks my interest is this idea
of how best to educate student students with special needs.
So our title of today's seminar is "For the Love of Everyone"
And we're going to be talking about least restrictive environment, we're going to be
talking about inclusion and we're going to be talking about Universal Design.
So let's get started. "An education for everyone," is the title of my thing, and I mean everyone.
Yeah, Yeah, that's awesome.
Alright, and like I said, what we're going to be going over is we're going to start with
examining primary principles of LRE or Least restrictive environment, by law, and then
inclusion by definition.
We're going to identify the discrepancy between the two conflicting pedagogies.
These are two ideas that don't really sit well with each other; they're on opposite
sides of the fence.
We're going to discuss what universal design for learning is, and how it's the middle ground
between these two ideas.
We're also going to have to identify how it is that middle ground, so how it appeals to
both, the academic, and social sides of school.
And finally, we're going to discuss how Universal Design for Learning or UDL provides a framework
for a working curriculum and it benefits all learners.
So, Let's get started.
Again, we are going to start by examining least restrictive environment and inclusion;
and so, this is least restrictive environment.
This is the law that this is a part of, it's a part of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act and it's section 300.550 and this is the actual law.
"That to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public
or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are non-disabled"
This is the actual law, so just take that in.
"To the maximum extent appropriate," Students are educated with children who are non-disabled.
It goes even further, saying,
"That special classes, separate schooling or other removal of children with disabilities
from the regular educational environment occurs only if the nature or severity of the disability
is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aides and services
cannot be achieved satisfactorily."
So the only way that a child is from the general education environment is if their needs aren't
being met with aides and supplementary services in the general education classroom.
Talking about placements,
Actually getting them into a self contained classroom, so a classroom with just students
who have special needs, or a classroom with typical students in general education.
This is very important, section (e) of this talks about,
"a child with a disability is not removed from an education in an age appropriate regular
classroom solely because of need of modifications to the general curriculum."
So this idea, just bringing it back up to the top, to the "maximum extent appropriate"
The IDEA law, 2004 also talks about Free and Appropriate Public Education, and so, let's
identify what appropriate means.
Break that down a little bit more. It's defined as "A stimulating social environment with
academically rigorous content material."
So both stimulating the child socially and providing them with appropriate material to
access and gain academics in.
And so, summing all of this up, because it's a lot of legal jargon. Let's do that. The
main aspects of Least Restrictive Environment:
By Law, a child can utilize aids and services in the general Ed. Classroom.
So by law, you can have an aid and you can have your related services such as, physical
therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist in the classroom with the child.
And the modification of the general curriculum cannot be the reason that a child is removed
from a general education classroom. Again, that's By Law.
Talking about inclusion, there's no legal definition of inclusion.
Inclusion is the idea that students with disabilities should be included in all aspects of the general
education classroom, so not only going to P.E. or going to music or the library time
with them, but also actually in the classroom doing all the academic content with the class.
But there's no legal definition, like I said, so this is the actual definition of what inclusion
is:
"The action or state of including or being included within a group or structure."
And that is from Merriam Webster.
SO what that means is the word inclusion carries this kind of social connotation.
Being included within a group, in a group setting, group structure. Right?
And so, this primarily focuses on the social stimulation a child needs, and it fails to
address the academic focus.
But the idea behind this, inclusion, is that a student needs to only show that they are
not losing anything from being in this environment.
In Least Restrictive Environment, traditionally it was called mainstreaming, like the first
idea of least restrictive environment.
and what that was is that a child, if they could show that they were benefitting from
the environment they were in, they were allowed to stay.
If they were not, not only showing a positive growth, but remaining neutral, or losing from
that environment, they would be pulled from it.
This one says that they don't need to show any positive growth; they need to show that
they aren't having any negative effects from coming into the classroom.
So again, primarily social.
And then both of these ideas are correct.
And you are like, "What? What do you mean they're both correct? How can they both be
correct?" Right?
The idea that a student, any student, needs a socially stimulating environment and an
educationally and academically rigorous environment are both positives,
those are awesome.
The unfortunate thing is that Least Restrictive Environment only focuses on academics and
inclusion solely focuses on social.
So, how do you combine the two?
And that is the question.
The question is how do we provide a stimulating social environment while also challenging
each student academically.
And that's where Universal Design for Learning comes in.
So for those of you who don't know what universal design for learning is,
it's an approach to structuring your day, structuring the lesson, structuring your classroom
so that every student feels welcome and its appropriate for them to utilize the resources.
So, An approach to learning that focuses on educating every child in the same environment.
"Educating every child" and also the "Same environment" are important.
The three principles of Universal Design are pretty easy.
The first one, Multiple means of representation.
When I say easy, I mean easy in the idea of them, not in the implementation of them.
What multiple means of representation is, for those of you who do not know, being able
to represent the content in a variety of ways.
So when we are talking about strictly, Students with special needs,
being able to represent the content textually, so they can visually read it.
Being able to represent it audibly, so they can hear it,
being able to put it on the internet so they can access it away from just the classroom.
Stuff like that if they need more time.
So multiple means of being able to represent the same material.
The idea of multiple means of expression is the second principle.
And expression is child centered, so if you think about it as representation is what the
educator does, Expression is what the child does.
What are you asking the child to do? What is the skill you want them to accomplish?
If the skill is spelling, how can they spell? Can they spell on a computer? Yeah.
Can they spell with a pencil and paper? Yeah.
Can they show you spelling through some sort of art? Yeah, go for it.
Anything that the child can do, expression is the most broad thing, however the child
can show you that they have gained the knowledge that you have wanted them to gain,
what ever way they express it is fine by us in universal design.
The last one is multiple means of engagement.
How are you engaging the child?
Universal design was born out of this idea that the cookie-cutter mentality doesn't work
for every child, every child is different, right?
We would all agree on that, I think. Every child is different.
SO multiple means of engagement, how are you going to engage all of these different children?
If somebody learns best from you providing a PowerPoint and lecturing than you can do
that but,
what if the child that is sitting next to them or across from them doesn't learn that
way?
Maybe you have to provide a print out of it, or something else like that.
Multiple means of engagement is also geared towards teaching strategies.
SO how do you engage the child who likes working as an individual,
how do you engage the child who needs a group environment to succeed?
Stuff like this.
And these are all important factors in thinking about how you are going to structure your
classroom so that it's effective for all children.
So again, Combing least restrictive environment and inclusion,
I told you we would do that talk about how UDL meets it, this is how.
Inclusion is the idea that keeps the child in an environment that appeals to social stimulation.
Right?
How we are going to do that through universal design is that they are all in the same environment.
Everyone is in the one classroom.
How you keep them all in that one classroom, that socially stimulating environment, is
through this, all students being academically challenged at the same time. That's through
providing multiple means of Representation as an educator, and multiple means of Expression
and Engagement for the student.
So, Universal Design for Learning, how can we apply it more than just lesson by lesson.
When I learned about universal design for learning, I had to do one lesson plan.
And I said to myself, "How do I make this lesson plan universally designed?" But I want
to think about it as much broader.
How do you make your entire curriculum universally designed?
And that is what I want to talk with you guys about today, or discuss with you guys today.
How do we broaden that spectrum?
So, student's who have disabilities, who universal design for learning was created for, how do
we broaden that for student who don't fit the mainstream culture?
How do we engage all learners when them come from culturally different backgrounds, ethnically
different backgrounds,
or they don't identify with the same *** orientation as the dominant culture, or the
same gender?
Can we apply these concepts, the three principles of Universal Design for Learning,
when we are thinking about curriculum as a whole? What does that look like?
SO my question to all of you today, that we can use as a jumping point for discussion,
is how can we create this curriculum that's inclusive to all students,
and identifies their culture, gender, *** orientation, ethnicity, race and is responsive
to those things?
If we know that a child is secluded because of their ethnicity,
how do we bring them back into our classroom when the curriculum that we are given doesn't
address their ethnicity at all,
or their culture at all?
Or it only paints the picture through the U.S.'s eyes, Instead of their home culture's
eyes.
Should we? Should this be a thing that we do, and what does it look like?
So, that is it, "An Education for Everyone. I hope that you guys have an idea of what
you would like to talk about.