No abstract

Special education is filled with variations of service delivery models, collaboration among multiple service providers, ongoing documentation, frequent testing, and the creation of individualized plans all designed to help a child with a disability access the general education curriculum. Many education and rehabilitation preparation programs across the country are compartmentalized. Although these preparation programs include overviews of other related service providers outside of their fields, often the overviews are cursory at best. Inclusive education and Universal Design for Learning offer a way to help bridge the gap across programs. This chapter will demonstrate why educators and multiple related service providers should work together as a team to provide students with disabilities with thoughtful and intentional supports that strive toward a collaborative goal of increasing access to the general education curriculum.

At its core, inclusive education takes a great deal more than educators who follow a checklist of best teaching practices and procedures. It requires professionals philosophically committed to inclusion who effectively and efficiently co-plan and co-teach instruction to a diverse group of learners. Co-planning is one of the most important elements of co-teaching and inclusion, yet one of the hardest things to make time for amongst a busy school week. Within this chapter, the authors will discuss and analyze their co-planning and co-teaching models across two semesters of teaching a differentiation methods course to pre-service undergraduate teachers, specifically sharing about their successful utilization of a virtual platform for co-planning. The chapter will conclude with the positives and challenges of using a virtual planning platform, as well as specific recommendations for how to use one.