Providing Resources to Facilitate Access to the General Education Curriculum

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Providing Resources to Facilitate Access to the
General Education Curriculum

• Amanda Schwartz
• June 27, 2003

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What is the Access Center?

• Located in Washington DC at the American
  Institutes for Research (AIR)
• Principal Investigator
• James Hamilton, Ph.D.
• Project Co-Directors
• Judy Shanley, Ph.D.
• Don Dailey, Ph.D.

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What is the Access Center?

• National Technical Assistance Center
• Five year project 2002-2007
• One of over 40 TAD projects
• Funded by the U.S. Department of Education
• Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)

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Access Center Audiences

• Our Primary Audiences Include
• State and District Technical Assistance Providers
• State and District Administrators and
  Policymakers
• Through These We Reach
• Local Educators
• Parents and Families

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Access Center Mission

• The mission of the Access Center is to provide
  technical assistance that strengthens state and
  local capacity to help students with disabilities
  effectively learn in the general education
  curriculum.

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Access Center Goals

• To achieve our mission we will
• Increase awareness among educators of
  research-based programs, practices, and tools
  that can help students with disabilities learn in
  the general education curriculum
• Strengthen the ability of educators to be
  informed consumers of programs, practices, and
  tools designed to help students with disabilities
  learn in the general education curriculum
• Assist educators to implement and evaluate
  programs, practices, and tools that can help
  students with disabilities learn in the general
  education curriculum

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Our Bridge to Effective Access

• Connecting research to practice to progress
  through services and supports

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What is Access?

• Active learning of the content and skills that
  define the general education curriculum
• Supports to Improve Access
• Instructional and Learning Goals
• Instructional Methods and Practices
• Research-based Materials and Media
• Research-based Supports and Accommodations
• Appropriate Assessment and Documentation

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We Offer Three Types of Services

• Web-based Services
• Training, Materials, Threaded Discussions, Chat
  Events, Videoconferences
• Ongoing Direct Assistance from Technical
  Assistance Liaisons
• Information Sharing Communities
• State-to-State Information Exchange and Learning
• District-to-District Information Exchange and
  Learning

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Structure of the Access Center

• Regional Technical Assistance Liaison Teams
• Aligned with the 6 Regional Resource Centers
• Assist with needs assessment
• Facilitate resource mapping
• Provide and support TA in SEAs and LEAs
• Content Teams with Focus on Need Areas
• Develop training, materials, resources
• Create reports, FAQs
• Identify topical content for web based services
• Serve as knowledge bank to fulfill TA requests

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Our Partners

• Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
• Regional Resource Centers (RRCs)
• Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center (MPRRC)
• Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), and
• An Expert Knowledge Bank of Recognized Content
  Experts

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What do we know?

• 5,683,707 children aged 6 21 were served during
  the 1999-2000 school year
• a 2.6 increase from the year before and
• A 30.3 total increase

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What do we know?

• As of the 1998-99 school year, 47.4 of children
  with a disability are served outside of the
  general classroom 20 or less of the day and
  95.9 are in the general education school.
• Increased from 24.6 in the 1984-85 school year
• Children with more severe disabilities or
  multiple disabilities are still more likely to
  receive services outside of the general education
  setting

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What do we know?

• In 1999, only 14 states reported participation
  data for children with disabilities in large
  scale assessments and only 17 states included
  performance data.
• Participation rates varied from 33 to 97
• Performance rates varied from 20 - 50

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Visit our Website!

• www.k8accesscenter.org
• We welcome your suggestions and ideas
• to continuously improve
• our resources and services

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How the Access Center provides support

• Briefs regarding research-based strategies
  including
• Universal Design for Learning
• Early Reading
• Mnemonics
• Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)
• Curriculum-Based Assessment

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How the Access Center provides support

• Other Documents available
• Special Education and Access Terminology
• The Access Framework
• Research to Practice FAQs

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How the Access Center provides support

• Online chats
• Implementing Research-Based Reading Interventions
  with Margo Mastropieri and Jan Greatz
• Research-Based, Evidence-Based,
  Scientifically-Based, and Research Proven
  What Does it All Mean? with Becki Herman and
  Allison Auerbach from the What Works
  Clearinghouse

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How the Access Center provides support

• Threaded Discussions
• Research-Based What does it all mean?
• Research-Based Reading Interventions
• Access in General
• Reading Instruction
• Effective Strategies
• What Does Accountability Mean?

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How the Access Center provides support

• Links
• ideapractices.org
• National Center on Accessing the General
  Curriculum (cast.org/ncac)
• The Partnership for Reading (nifl.org/partenership
  forreading)
• Office of Special Education Programs
  (ed.gov/OSERS/OSEP)
• Council for Exceptional Children (cec.sped.org)

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Coming Soon

• Rating Scale for Selecting Research-Based
  Practices
• Research-based strategies chart
• Literacy/Print-Rich Environments Brief
• How to Guides
• How to Work Collaboratively to Facilitate Access
• How to Integrate Children with Emotional or
  Behavioral Disorders into the General Education
  Curriculum
• Online courses
• Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating
  Research-Based Reading Instruction for Students
  with Communication Disorders
• Using Assistive Technology to Improve Access

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Strategies

• In pairs, please brainstorm
• three strategies you would use
• to facilitate access
• to the general education curriculum
• for children with disabilities

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Research-Based Strategies
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Try out some strategies

• Computer Assisted Learning
• Mnemonics
• Adapted Books
• Learning Strategies
• Functional Behavior Analysis

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The Access Center Improving Outcomes for All
Students K-8American Institutes for
Research1000 Thomas Jefferson St. NW
Washington, DC 20007Ph 202-403-5000 TTY
877-334-3499 Fax [phone]e-mail
accesscenter_at_air.org website
www.k8accesscenter.org
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• This content was developed by staff at The Access
  Center Improving Outcomes for All Students K-8,
  funded by U. S. Department of Education, Office
  of Special Education Programs and housed at the
  American Institutes for Research. Retrieved
  today's date, from the World Wide Web
  http//www.k8accesscenter.org