Collaborative Proposal: Universal Design of Inquiry-Based Middle and High School Science Curriculum

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Federal Legislation has raised the expectations for students with disabilities within the general curriculum and assessment systems. Science education faces increased accountability for raising science achievement for a much more diverse population, while increasing the emphasis on learning that integrates higher-order thinking skills with content knowledge. Active science learning requires students to develop and use a number of complex skills including reading, observing, collecting and analyzing information, drawing conclusions and presenting findings. The principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provide the flexibility of representation and the support of multiple means of expression and engagement to address this need. The Center for Applied Special Technologies (CAST) has pioneered the development of technology to differentiate instruction, mainly in literacy, for students with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. The University of Michigan and Education Development Centers are developing and testing comprehensive science curricula for the middle school and high school, respectively. They bring their joint expertise together to create heuristics for universally designed science materials for middle and high school instructional materials; to build an open source UDL Inquiry Science System (ISS) that enables science curricula to be transformed into digitally supported versions that incorporate UDL features; and to use the ISS to produce four UDL exemplars of chemistry and biology units from tested instructional materials and to evaluate the benefits of these exemplars for middle and high school students with and without learning disabilities. These materials support the development of the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standards (NIMAS).