Universal Design Essay

Every student has a right to receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in a least restricted environment (LRE). An education is a right not a privilege, with that in mind, a student with a disability should be given the opportunity to begin their educational journey in the general education classroom. What if the their journey can not be achieved in the general education setting? Administrators, teachers, and all Individual Education Plan (IEP) team members must give reason as to why the LRE will not be effective and constitutes the main subject of discussion in the IEP meeting.

The right of entry to education resources is more than uncomplicated admission to a college. The right to use means to provide students with the devices they will need to be victorious in higher learning. Students with a recognized disability ought to be no omission. In reality, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, “ensure that all qualified persons have equal access to education regardless of the presence of any disability.” Objective replacement, class waivers, and revision of classroom management, testing and course necessities are all illustrations of behavior to supply access for the learner with a disability. A break down to the creation of such practical adjustments can place schools in breach of federal and state statutes, ensuing expensive fines.

According to the latest figures available from Data Accountability Center, U.S. Department of Education, 2,415,564 students were identified as having a Specific Learning Disability in the Fall of 2010 (“Full Inclusion”). With the severity of the number of individuals with disabilities in the school system, the controversy of the best way to support them arises. One of the solutions of this controversy is the issue of full inclusion. Those opposed to the idea of full inclusion fear that the approach may impede on the children without disabilities and put a strain on the students with disabilities. The major stakeholders against full inclusion also fear that the process will negatively affect the teachers, as well as, the atmosphere of the classrooms. Many of these parties and individuals are not fully against inclusion all together, but do not support the idea of full inclusion.

In the educational world, there are countless programs, curricula, strategies, manipulates, and resources for teachers to pull from in order to aide in the teaching of concepts and learning of students. Whatever method(s) a school or district has deemed best practice, or adopted as their curriculum, tend to be the instructional practices or resources utilized the most by those teachers. Additionally, teachers will also have preference to teaching styles, resources, and materials they use for their students. While autonomy in any classroom is important to students’ academic growth, one must also be careful to select and implement instructional with great intention and purpose. Consideration to students needs is equally important as the mandate of teaching standards and demonstrating proficiency amongst students. Even when teaching non-disabled students, it can be time consuming and overwhelming to plan lessons so just how much more is involved when planning for students with significant disabilities (SD)? Better yet, what are appropriate instructional strategies to use for students with SD? Regardless of the instructional setting, these are considerations that must be given when teaching students with SD in order to maximize their learning opportunities to learn

This section of the encyclopedia talks about what students and teachers can contribute to online learning environment. It talks about who the average online learner is and the online relationship between the student and the teacher, and the student and their peers. Above all the author stresses that thinking differently is important to make online education work.

In the article “Universal Design for learning (UDL) and learners with Severe Support Needs”. Hartmann writes a story from her experience about student his name is Marcus has disabilities. The regular curriculum failed to get him a better education, and then his teachers decided to replace him in a school had curricula focused in disabilities or severe disabilities. Unfortunately, those schools for students “non-verbal” and Marcus had an ability to speak; his mother had frustrated and embarrassment for son future because the education curriculum did not design around students to get more benefit from learning. Also, she writes the students come from different background, culture and heredity; consequently, those factors influence in their learning even two brothers do not learn the same way. Moreover, most of the learning curriculum have designed for normal students, and they have supposed every student should receive the learning in the same way, but this is unjust for students have dissimilar abilities. The UDL has shown the problems are not in the students, but in the atmosphere around them and curriculum because there is not enough flexibility; it needs to fix it. Then, Hartmann describes the beneficial of UDL has changed the learning process to engage all the student’s abilities in the classrooms. Additionally, UDL has played a role in flexibility to involve all student with different abilities, and It also has helped teachers to become more think how to support

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) does not specifically target children with learning and attention disabilities. However, it is a way of using a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers to learning and to give all students equal opportunities to succeed.

The elements of design were created by Arthur Wesley Dow to help people see, describe, and create visual qualities in a systematic way. It consists of 7 elements: line, shape, form, colour, value, texture and space.

In 1984 five clinicians from North Shore Children’s Hospital in Salem, MA founded the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). They met in a local pizza parlor and conceived the idea to “explore ways of using new technologies to provide better educational experiences to students with disabilities.” They were given an anonymous grant of $15,000 to get started and CAST began to focus on how technology could enhance the learning experiences for students with disabilities (CAST Timeline 2015). Today UDL is being applied in classrooms other learning environments to better accommodate the learning styles of all students. UDL is a powerful and flexible form of curricula, which is designed to embrace and enhance the natural variability of learners (Glass, Meyer, Rose 2013).

The “Universal Design for Learning (www.udlcenter.org)” consists of a group of principles that require all children to receive the same form of education and learning. There are three main principles which aid in protecting students with disabilities. These three principles make sure that the students with disabilities receive the same education as any other student as well. The following will explain my opinion on the learning of all children and how the UDL principles apply to this.

The Universal Design for Learning is defined as a set of principles for curriculum development that caters to varying needs in the classroom and provides individual and equal opportunities to learn. It provides a framework for devising instructional goals, methods, teaching practices, and assessments in a range of different modes to promote student learning. The approach is important because it identifies a wide array of needs and wants in the classroom, with individual students necessities, skills and effective learning techniques pivotal. The framework recognises the barriers to and for learning, allowing for the implementation of flexible techniques that cater to student’s strengths and desires so that each student can reach their learning

In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while

The use of technology in educating children with special needs has widely grown in the past few decades. Individuals with special needs are unique and all have different areas in which they need assistance. Due to the advancements in assistive technology, computer programs, software, and other technology tools, it has become much easier for people to find useful and easier ways to become educated. Because of this, “technology has changed the way people with disabilities live, work, and learn.” (Winzer,98)

According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities should be placed in a “least restrictive environment.” One of the main ideas of this act was to improve the learning experiences of students with disabilities by giving them learning opportunities outside of a special education classroom. The number of students with disabilities being placed in their general education classrooms is increasing more and more each year. The U.S Department of Education’s 27th annual report to Congress on the implementation of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2005) indicates that the number of students with disabilities in general education classrooms has risen to almost 50 percent. This is about a 17 percent increase from the 1997 U.S

Education has undergone significant changes because of the development of information and communication technology over the 21st century (Lin & Jou, 2012:2). As a convenient and inexpensive way to gain knowledge while pursuing higher education, online learning, a form of training or teaching that takes place over the Internet, has been considered as an alternative to traditional classroom learning (Zhang et al, 2004). This essay will argue that even though online learning has benefit such as flexibility which could outweigh traditional learning, traditional classroom learning might still not be entirely replaced. This essay will discuss positive and negative aspects of online and traditional learning in terms of four criteria: