That’s awesome, Rich, so glad this application helped the concept “gel” a bit.

Janelle

I hear you all have some great models for doing this so we definitely need to connect!

We had a great response to our initial panel, lots of engagement in the follow up discussion, and want to keep the momentum going. We have a survey that is currently open to attend to the voices of adults with disabilities as they look back on their K-12 experiences and reflect on their workplace contexts.

What we would love to do is host collaborative sessions where we dig into our survey data with other interested folks. The hope is that those sessions could lead to some co-authoring of publications and presentations among researchers, students, and teachers. We’d love to support the exchange of resources and ideas that lead to broader transformative changes. We are a wonderful teaching institution but our infrastructure for these kinds of efforts is limited...we are really hoping to collaborate with others. 

Definitely!  Myself and my team are focused mostly on college and older, but our UCAR Center for Science Education is focused on K12.  The GLOBE Program also has a lot of great contacts for accessible geoscience K12 resources.  As a filmmaker, I've really been trying to think about whose stories are we telling in the sciences and how are we telling their stories,  Maybe there are some proposals that could grow out of it, too.

I'm a GLOBE US Partner so I'm already a big fan! Our Multi STEM project is based on GLOBE protocols and helping educators connect with students who they've been less able to engage in science. 

Awesome!

Hello Karen,

Thank you for your questions. I'm not quite of full teacher yet, but what has helped me more than anything is knowing there are questions to be asked. One of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations.

Specific to teacher preparation, unless student teachers are striving to be certified in special education, I don't think the single course I took in exceptional learners was adequate to prepare me for interactions with students with disabilities. The course I had was I primarily focused on legislation and identification, and not so much on different classroom strategies that can be used to assist these individuals. So, while I understand that understanding legal obligations of a teacher are important, I think a broader exposure to how all teachers can help students with disabilities would prove beneficial. This could then also introduce future teachers to more of "what they don't know" so they are able to ask more questions, but maybe also provide some ideas for strategies or resources they can use to not be overwhelmed.

– Joe

Thanks, Joe.  Often it's those thought provoking questions or experiences, not information alone, that make the learning meaningful. I appreciate your thoughtful reflection on what you have learned and your desire to explore what you don't (yet!) know. Best wishes for your ongoing studies. 

Thanks for sharing, and especially for posing these excellent and troubling questions...your framing them as 'why don't' is important.  There is much evidence that the silos are problematic and that teacher preparation is lacking--still--even though we have ample data that taking one "special education" course is likely a meaningless effort.  I'm glad to know that you and your team are keeping these conversations at the forefront!   

Hi Karen,

I know there are institutions and states who have figured this out at the licensure level...if we could build on those foundations, it’d be really helpful.

Hi Eric, I absolutely get the sadness. I am definitely a newcomer to this realm and I can see it already. We are exploring options for co-teaching structures, both in teacher prep and trying to learn more about what is happening in innovative K-12 schools who are doing this. I think we also need to keep pushing to make sure disability is included in DEI work...isn't that where the "I" in DEI came from in the first place?

Indeed! At our Center, DO-IT at the University of Washington, we created stickers to give out at campus events, including one sticker that says "Diversity includes Disability" When we were on campus, it was fun to see high school campers sticking them on one another, or seeing a sticker on someone's backpack. I look forward to being in person on campus again, so we can continue these great conversations face-to-face. 

Love it. We need to scale this up for sure.

Those scenarios certainly represent inequities. I'm wondering which institutions have built better models to proactively support these kinds of challenges.