Project ACCEPT

Project Outcomes

Outcomes for Student and Faculty Strands of Project ACCEPT

The project included two strands: The Student Strand and the Faculty Strand. The components of the Student Strand included enrolling in an enhanced class, completing a collaborative clinical experience in an inclusive classroom, and to design a collaborative lesson. The Faculty Strand included having the faculty attend an institute and participate in a mentoring program. Both students and faculty were provided with experiences focused on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Assistive Technology (AT). Outcomes of these experiences are as follows:

Focus on UDL

Student Performance and Satisfaction Ratings

• Greater than 90% of enrolled students effectively planned and co-taught a lesson within an inclusive classroom with 85% accuracy or better.
• When rating the overall experience, most students indicated that they would have liked to have more clinical experience.

Faculty Performance

• Faculty mentors reported that they incorporated lesson plan development & assistive technologies into their methods courses.

Assistive Technology

Student Performance and Satisfaction Ratings

• Increasing numbers of students integrated technologies into their lesson plans.
• Students were required to evaluate the potential benefit of technology in their lesson.
• Students indicated they would be comfortable using devices as a result of hands-on experiences.
• Most students indicated that they wanted more experiences using assistive technologies.

Faculty Performance

• More than 20 faculty members have requested additional support to integrate assistive technology within their classes.
• Special education faculty developed an integration matrix.

 The Enhanced Student Course

Student Performance and Satisfaction Ratings

• Most students indicated that they learned a great deal from the simulated experiences.
• Most students indicated that they learned a great deal from guest speakers who were family members or persons with disabilities.
• Many students indicated that they enjoyed and benefited from meeting real parents and developing IEP’s.

Sustainability of the Project

• Critical components of this program are being sustained once this project ends.
• Student blocks have been arranged across program areas to coordinate student schedules.
• Clinical sites have been established with partnership schools and partnership districts have agreed to sustain the co-teaching component.
• Project ACCEPT content is available on this website in the modules section.
• Written and video tutorials have been developed to assist instructors with the integration of assistive technologies.
• A fully-functioning assistive technology lab is available with support for students and faculty.

E-mail questions and comments to:
Department of Teaching and Learning ( tedu@niu.edu )
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