The Inclusive Class

An inclusive classroom welcomes students of all ability levels. There may be students with learning disabilities, students who are gifted and/or talented, students who work at grade level, and students who work below grade level in one class. How does a teacher not only provide instruction for such a wide variety of abilities, but also assess student growth and progress? Accessing Curriculum Teaching strategies such as Universal Design for Learning give teachers a way to deliver instruction to these various learners.   Methods of delivery such as differentiating curriculum , allow teachers to present the subject material in several different ways. The intent is to make concepts and content understandable for students who are auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners. Assessing Students Who Work at Grade Level Students, who work at grade-level, are expected to learn pre-determined concepts and content through the course of the school year. These are general...

Students with cognitive disabilities deserve the same quality education as their peers. In an inclusive classroom, students with intellectual disabilities are not required to meet the grade-level standards. Instead, students with ID have their own set of achievable goals created for his or her specific needs (and indicated in the student's IEP). The state of Wisconsin has created a set of alternate achievement standards for students with intellectual disabilities that are aligned with the achievement standards for the Common Core curriculum. These corresponding standards provide opportunities for the students with ID to work with the same material as his or her peers yet reach ability-level goals.  The English Language Arts alternate achievement standards can be found here . The Math alternate achievement standards can be found here . There are also alternate standards available for Science here .