State award Northern Wells school district $70,000

Through a $70,000 state grant, Northern Wells school officials hope to make its special-education curriculum a little less special — giving iPads to students with physical and cognitive disabilities to keep them in the classrooms learning the same lessons as their peers.

To earn the grant, though, school staff had to submit a proposal to the State's Department of Education, containing the following goals:

Goal #1:

To create a highly effective differentiated learning environment that increases the number of students with special needs who score within the average range in literacy and math assessments, by implementing the personal digital assistant concept using iPad tablet technology.

Strategies:

• Research and develop a drop-down search database of apps for each ability level and need of student and distribute to classroom and special education teachers for collaboratively designing their instruction.
• Provide classroom sets of 30 iPads to each elementary special education program.
• Identify the individual student ability levels and customize the iPad accordingly by carefully selecting apps to support general; education and remediation activities.
• Customize activities using the designated curricular app database to personalize learning for each student.
• Develop individualized assistive technology profiles for each student to assist with the transition to secondary education and beyond.

Metrics:

• 80% of our special education students will score within the average range of grade level, district and state assessments.
• 80% of our special education students will receive 90% of their instruction within the general education setting.

Goal #2:

To create a highly engaging 21st century instructional program that supports diverse learners by, increasing student access to curriculum through digital content.

Strategies:

• Research, identify, and purchase/borrow a “high interest” collection of e-texts that will help meet the needs of students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
• Research, identify, and subscribe to online digital content that increases the modalities in which our students receive instruction.
• Train to teachers to create digital content that is aligned to Common Core Standards and used to meet the needs students with special needs within all learning environments.

Metrics:

• 90% of all classrooms will provide digital content and e-texts to students with special needs within daily instructional frameworks.
• 90% of students with special needs will demonstrate independence within learning environments as evidenced by student perception (student survey) and decreased direct support (staff survey.)

Goal #3:

To develop universal design for learning frameworks aligned to Common Core Standards in which students with special needs demonstrate increased independence and self-advocacy within the learning environments.

Strategies

• Train teachers in the principles of Universal Design Learning and the use of assistive technology solutions in the development of Common Core Standards based learning.
• Provide teachers (general and special) collaboration/planning time to design frameworks for learning aligned to the Common Core Standards that overcome the learning barriers of students with special needs.

Metrics

• 100% of curriculum frameworks designed will included identification of barriers to learning and identify resources/solutions for overcoming those barriers.