Presuming Competence By Design • A Tutorial for Systems, Environment, Curricular, and Materials Design in Learning Systems

Requirements

K-12 Educators

Universal design is most commonly directed at the K-12 audience.  If you are in K-12, you may feel like this is yet another “innovation” (with an edge of cynicism) or some academic’s new idea, and this too shall pass.  However, in this tutorial, we will discuss how it relates to valuable practices such as differentiated instruction and is part of the useful mindset and toolset for RTI (response to intervention) that is becoming a widespread, data-based approach to designing instruction for every learner.  This tutorial is not just for the special educator in your school.  It is for the general educator, paraprofessional, administrator, library or media specialist, and even parent volunteers.

Excellent Resources for K-12 Educators include:

http://www.cast.org/ - Center for Applied Special Technology

http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/163/over3.html - see the Secondary Curricula and Texts & Design of Assessments sections