"Formative assessment--the process of interpretating data on student performance to adapt instruction to individual needs--is perhaps the single most powerful tool available to teachers to help every student succeed to their full potential." With that bold statement, Michael W. Connell sets out to unpack formative assessment--what it is, how it works, and why it is so essential for learner growth. He shows how to incorporate it into different teaching methods and settings, such as flipped classrooms, programmed instruction, and more. The goal: to provide the benefits of individualized instruction even in group settings.

Using Formative Assessment to Improve Student Outcomes in the Classroom

Education & Teaching

Connell, Michael W

Schools & Teaching

CAST, Inc.

Leading the Way to Excellence in AT Services is designed to help administrators identify critical issues and specific actions that will influence the provision of excellent assistive technology (AT) devices and services. AT experts Gayl Bowser and Penny R. Reed examine four aspects of school administration--leadership, program management, supervision, and advocacy and program improvement--and their relationship to AT. The result is an authoritative and useful guide that explains the legal, ethical, and practical reasons for providing high-quality AT to every student who needs it. In this highly practical book, readers learn to:   identify ways to support educational programs that encourage and sustain students' and educators' use of AT;  create and share a vision of their agency's approach to providing AT devices and services; manage material resources, allocation of personnel, time, and physical resources in a way that helps to provide an efficient, ethical, and cost-effective AT system;  support educators in learning and applying pedagogical strategies for integrating the use of AT into the educational programs of students with disabilities; and  regularly assess AT services and identify strategies to improve the current model.   The authors showcase a number of resources, self-assessment tools, and specific strategies to help administrators and schools deliver assistive technology services that are academically effective and also cost effective.

Leading the Way to Excellence in AT Services: A Guide for School Administrators

Bowser, Gayl

Reed, Penny R

Authors Patti Kelly Ralabate and Elizabeth Berquist draw on years of working with schools, districts, universities, and states to put the inclusive principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into practice. They offer a guide for adopting UDL as the conceptual framework for an entire system, not just individual classrooms. The authors clarify the difference between mere change and true transformation in a system, offering a welcome solution to the common "flavor-of-the-month" dilemma that school leaders at all levels so often face. Your UDL Journey addresses challenges in learning design, instructional planning, professional development, resource allocation, and reflection. Written in a warm, collegial style, this book is filled with helpful signposts along the road to transformation.

Your UDL Journey: A Systems Approach to Transforming Instruction

Ralabate, Patti Kelly

Berquist, Elizabeth

How do we help language learners--those whose primary language is not the language of instruction--become resourceful, motivated, and strategic? In UDL for Language Learners, authors Caroline Torres and Kavita Rao address this critical problem of teaching practice. Whether they are newcomers or natural born citizens, language learners are often a highly diverse group with widely varying needs, in addition to their language acquisition needs. Differences in academic and cultural backgrounds can present special challenges for teachers who are trying to help all of their students meet common goals and standards. This book shows teachers how to plan for that variability and anticipate special challenges. The result: lessons that empower such students to achieve at high levels. Detailed vignettes illustrate how teachers can apply UDL in the classroom. The authors share strategies and design processes relevant to specific grades and content or skill areas.

UDL for Language Learners

Torres, Caroline

Rao, Kavita

In The Empowered Student: A Guide to Self-Regulated Learning, authors Nancy Weinstein and Mary-Vicki Algeri provide teachers with a practical workbook so they can help students develop the skills they need to take charge of their own learning. Part 1 is dedicated to getting students on board, laying the foundation for self-regulated learning with the basic neuroscience on how learning happens and what that means in practical terms for effort and motivation. Part 2 gets specific, delving into exactly what self-regulation looks like in the classroom, relying on the Universal Design for Learning curriculum development framework developed by the researchers at CAST. Packed with tips, strategies and student activities, The Empowered Student is light on words and heavy on examples. The authors assert that self-regulation is not just a set of skills but a way of being, and students who learn it need the guidance of patient, caring adults who embrace the trial and error of ongoing personal growth.

The Empowered Student: A Guide to Self-Regulated Learning

Algeri, Mary-Vicki

Weinstein, Nancy

In this one-of-a-kind book, artist and teacher Liz Byron demonstrates how to design lessons and instruction in the visual arts using the inclusive principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). 
Art for All: Planning for Variability in the Visual Arts Classroom offers teachers classroom-ready advice on how to transform their practice in sustainable ways with UDL. Readers learn to set meaningful goals, measure progress, customize instruction, and engage all learners across grades. They also discover ways to help all students appreciate and embrace themselves as artists. 
“ Liz is at her best when she shares, often with humor, her own misgivings and classroom trials and errors. This highly readable, useful book is filled with lots of takeaways and good advice for teachers about how to implement UDL practices,” says Linda F. Nathan Executive Director of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship, and a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Art for All: Planning for Variability in the Visual Arts Classroom (Cast Skinny Books)

Byron, Liz

In The Unbound Classoom, educator Chelsea Miro describes ways of creating and implementing cross-disciplinary lessons and units to personalize learning for diverse groups of students.

The Unbound Classroom

Miro, Chelsea

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) suggests exciting ways to design and deliver engaging, rigorous learning experiences--as a growing international movement of UDL practitioners can attest. However, implementing UDL also requires us to unlearn many beliefs, assumptions, and teaching practices that no longer work. In this lively and fun book, UDL experts Allison Posey and Katie Novak identify elements of what they call "The Unlearning Cycle" and challenge educators to think again about what, how, and why they teach. The authors share hard-won lessons in a caring, collegial way. Unlearning is a refreshing tonic for anyone looking to rejuvenate their teaching practice and make room for growth.

Unlearning: Changing Your Beliefs and Your Classroom with UDL

Posey, Allison

Novak, Katie

You know that Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can improve teaching and learning in higher education. You want to share UDL’s innovative best practices on campus and throughout your institution. Yet getting buy-in for trying new approaches can be tough given the many different stakeholder interests represented by faculty, departments, and administrative offices. It can feel like you are navigating through dark woods.
That’s where this book can help. Jodie Black and Eric J. Moore have been at the vanguard of UDL implementation at their respective institutions. In UDL Navigators in Higher Education: A Field Guide, they share strategies and resources for introducing UDL to postsecondary systems. Topics include: <ul>
<li>Program-level design</li> <li>Course-level design</li> <li>Instructional experience</li> <li>Technology selection and use</li> <li>Accessibility services</li> <li>Professional learning</li> </ul>
Since no two postsecondary institutions are alike, Black and Moore group their advice in themes that can be transferred and tailored to address the particular needs, culture, and values of your setting. UDL Navigators in Higher Education: A Field Guide—don’t set off without it!

UDL Navigators in Higher Education: A Field Guide

Black, Jodie

Moore, Eric J

Higher & Continuing Education

Due to popular demand, the authors of the Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology: A Comprehensive Guide to Assistive Technology Services (CAST, 2015) now offer this practical companion to the original book, which will help students, families, school professionals, and communities work together to meet the educational needs of every student.
The original Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology, or QIAT, were developed by a team of experienced leaders in the field of assistive technology (AT) in education over nearly two decades. Drawing on contributions and feedback from thousands of educators and families, the Indicators offer extensive support for the development and implementation of AT services, including research-based information, resources, and scenarios. They collectively support AT decision-making and actions at all points of AT service delivery and ensures that they <ul>
<li>align with specific areas of special education processes;</li> <li>describe the core components of quality AT services in eight areas; and</li> <li>require a team approach that emphasizes student and family voice.</li> </ul>
The indicators, intent statements, and supporting materials for each area are used as guideposts for developing and sustaining effective, efficient, and ethical AT services across the country and internationally. This new volume, The QIAT Companion, offers educators and families an action-based, "just-in-time" resource written by the QIAT authors themselves.

The QIAT Companion: A Just-in-Time Resource for Implementing the Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology

QIAT Leadership Team

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