If regular and special educators are collaborating on curriculum for their classes, preparing adaptations for special needs children, then they have already taken the first step to universal design. Effective Teaching Strategies that Accommodate Diverse Learners. See especially pp. To achieve that end, we recommend that all developers of instructional materials adopt the concept of universal design and implement it in their products. Furthermore, we recommend that teacher training programs prepare teachers for teaching in environments where the goals, methods, and materials are universally designed.
Publishers respond to the needs of the market.
When practitioners and local and state education agencies demonstrate their need for instructional materials that are supportive and inclusive of students who have wide disparities in their abilities to physically and cognitively access the curriculum, publishers will provide them. As researchers explore innovative ways to increase our understanding of curriculum access and more groups collaborate on ways to broaden the base of support for universal design, it will become a basic feature of the curriculum. Planning for an inclusive classroom is not a new concept. If regular and special educators are collaborating on curriculum for their classes, preparing adaptations for special needs children, then they have already taken the first step to universal design. Materials that have had planning built into them will save teachers that step and allow them to start teaching with the materials.