Accessing the General Curriculum: Including Students With Disabilities in Standards-Based Reform

  Give your students access to the general curriculum and find better ways to assess their progress! How is your special-education curriculum impacted by the requirements of IDEA and NCLB? How can you improve student learning and retention to positively influence assessment results? What methods are available for determining your students' present level of performance? In this second edition of the best-selling Accessing the General Curriculum, Nolet and McLaughlin provide updated frameworks and strategies-with invaluable examples and flowcharts for fitting special education into the frameworks created by national standards and assessments. This invaluable resource provides K-12 educators with the support necessary to produce expected results from every learner. The authors begin with far-reaching legal implications and connect them with individual students to show teachers how to: Use curriculum as a map for guiding students toward achievement Understand learning research as a bridge to the learning-teaching connection Relate each student's disability to his or her academic performance Design alternate assessment tools and curriculum Link goals, objectives, and benchmarks to state assessment criteria Affording special education students accommodations and modifications to their individual curriculum will improve their performance, enhance your ability to help them advance, and, ultimately, improve the evaluation of their progress throughout their academic career.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Acknowledgments 1. Access to the General Curriculum: Why it is More Important Than Ever Before The IDEA and Access to the General Curriculum The No Child Left Behind Act The Link Between "Standards" and "Curriculum" A New Way to Think About Special Education 2. The Nature of Curriculum Multiple Types of Curriculum The Core Elements of Curriculum What is the Purpose of Curriculum? Curriculum Involves a Domain Curriculum and Time Finding the General Curriculum Chapter Summary 3. The Learning-Teaching Connection Learning Research and Implications for Teaching Help Students Develop Meaningful Patterns of Information Creating Experts Teach to Improve Your Student′s Memory Help Students Attend to What You Want Them to Learn Make Effective Use of Practice Make Effective Use of Scaffolding Help Students Manage Their Own Learning Teach for Transfer and Generalization The Learning-Teaching Connection 4. Assessment That Supports Access to the General Curriculum Assessment and Decision-Making What Will Typical Students Be Expected to Do During the Timeframe Addressed by the IEP What is the Student′s Present Level of Performance in the General Curriculum? In What Ways is the Student′s Disability Impacting Performance? Is the Student Making Progress in the General Education Curriculum? 5. Access to Curriculum and the Individual Education Program Curriculum Access on a Continuum Universal Design for Learning Multiple Means of Representation Accommodations Modifications Accommodations and Modifications and Assessment Special Education and Related Services 6. A Decision-Making Process for Creating IEPs That Lead to Curriculum Access Step 1: Instructional Assessment Step 2: Choosing the Standards and Identifying Supports Step 3: Creating IEP Goals, Objectives, and Benchmarks The Relationship Between Objectives and Benchmarks References Index