Candidates will explore historical interactions and contemporary legal, medical, pedagogical, and philosophical models of social responsibility, treatment and education for individuals with disabilities. The course focuses on ensuring candidates effectively provide safe educational environments and practices for all students and families based on individualized and unique needs. These needs will be reviewed as a means to ensure students' overall access to educational environments through collaborative practices highlighting specific student abilities and challenges in areas of communication, learning, social, physical movement, mobility, sensory, emotional supports, and adaptive needs. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.

Candidates will monitor student progress from eligibility, to placement in LRE using collaboration and appropriate special education supports to help students gain access towards academic content and learning goals. They will explore current knowledge and best practice of content standards through IEP development by applying knowledge of the purposes, characteristics and appropriate uses of different types of assessments including students whose cultural, ethnic, gender, or linguistic differences may be misunderstood or misidentified as manifestations of their disability. Candidates will administer and utilize assessment data to disseminate assessment data at IEPs, and develop appropriate learning goals. Candidates will make use of assessment data to: 1) identify effective intervention and support techniques, 2) develop needed augmentative and alternative systems, 3) implement instruction of communication and social skills, 4) create and facilitate opportunities for interaction; 5) develop communication methods to demonstrate student academic knowledge; and 6) address the unique learning, sensory and access needs of students with physical/orthopedic disabilities, other health impairments, and multiple disabilities. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.

Candidates will apply knowledge of students, including their experiences, interests, and social-emotional learning needs to develop supports and strategies for positive psychosocial development and self-determined behavior of students with disabilities. They will demonstrate the ability to develop transition plans with students, their families, appropriate school and community service personnel including goals for independent living, post-secondary education, and/or careers, with appropriate connections between the school curriculum and life beyond high school. Candidates will use person-centered/family centered planning processes, and strengths-based, and functional/ecological assessments to develop effective evidence-based instructional supports, support students in assuming increasing responsibility for learning and self-advocacy. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.

In this methodology course candidates will understand the historical and legal aspect of developing, implementing and analyzing assessments for special education supports, how to manage caseloads of diverse special education populations and how to resolve conflicts with all stakeholders. Candidates will monitor student progress from eligibility, to placement in LRE using collaboration and appropriate supports to gain access towards learning goals. They will explore current knowledge and best practice of content standards through IEP development by applying knowledge of the purposes, characteristics and appropriate uses of different types of assessments including students whose cultural, ethnic, gender, or linguistic differences may be misunderstood or misidentified as manifestations of their disability. Candidates will demonstrate knowledge of special education law, including the administration and documentation of assessments and how to hold IEP meetings according to the guidelines established by law. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.

This course utilizes evidence-based strategies for promoting social and emotional development and preventing and addressing challenging behaviors. Candidates will demonstrate knowledge of the communicative intent of behavior, implement strategies that support social emotional learning, demonstrate the ability to identify if a student's behavior is a manifestation of his or her disability and, if so, to develop positive behavior intervention plans inclusive of the types of interventions and multi-tiered systems of supports that may be needed to address these behavior issues, implement systems to assess, plan, and provide academic and social skills instruction to support positive behavior in all students, including students who present complex social communication, behavioral and emotional needs, and elicit their ability to provide positive behavioral support, taking advantage of informal and formal opportunities to engage in instruction. Participants will create supportive partnerships with parents, families, teachers and employers to provide instructional, behavioral, social, communication, sensory, and pragmatically appropriate supports to students with mild support to extensive support needs. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.

Candidates will learn methods and strategies that promote diversity and foster inclusion in the classroom and within the school culture. Through collaborative learning experiences and the use of evidence-based inclusive high leverage practices (HLPs), candidates will develop knowledge and skills to better meet the diverse academic and social-emotional needs of students with mild to moderate and extensive support needs. Emphasis will be on the three key areas of support for successful inclusion: curricular adaptations, peer supports, and instructional and assistive technology. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Field-based experiences are threaded throughout the course where candidates will engage in translating research and theory into practice. Candidates will complete 20-hours of field observations over the 8-week course. Candidates may not begin field observations until they have provided all required pre-requisite documentation and have been cleared by the field coordinator.