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Audrey Bartholomew, Ph.D., assistant professor of special education, and former student Nancy Griffin, M.S.E. ’16, wrote an article that was recently published by the journal Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, which focuses on the fields of secondary education, transition and career development for persons with documented disabilities and special needs. 

The article, titled “Using a Universal Design for Learning Checklist to Teach Secondary Transition Skills,” offers an adaption to the Center for Applied Special Technology’s Universal Design for Learning (UDL) checklist, a tool that helps teachers enhance the accessibility of their instruction for a wide variety of learners.  The adapted UDL proposed by Bartholomew and Griffin assists teachers who are looking for opportunities to infuse secondary transition instruction into their teaching to further the relevance of their lessons.

According to Bartholomew, high school students with disabilities are often excluded from academic opportunities with their peers due to the need for instruction focused largely on life skills. The adapted UDL checklist provides teachers with an avenue to deliver accessible academic instruction using life skills applications, such as goal setting, self-monitoring and self-assessment, she explains.

The article takes a practitioner-focused view on implementation and uses Griffin’s own perceptions of the process to help guide teachers in implementation in their own classrooms. 

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