If you’ve spent any time at all in postsecondary education, you have likely already experienced students with disabilities in your classrooms.  Since the passage of federal disability civil rights laws in 1973, disabled students in increasingly greater numbers are taking advantage of increased access to postsecondary education, with recent estimates at 8 to 12% of the total college population.  These students are taking classes in every division of our college, and there is not an instructor who will not eventually encounter at least one student with a disability in their classroom.

Despite this prevalence, teacher preparation curricula do not typically include courses that train future educators in methods of addressing special populations.  Thus, many of our faculty may have questions about how to best meet the diverse needs of students with disabilities.

Perhaps that’s the reason you have decided to participate in this online inservice.  Hopefully, it will give you the information you need to comfortably work with this worthy population.

I’ll not try to be comprehensive; you only have so much time to devote to this subject, after all.  Please contact me if you wish to discuss any of this material more thoroughly.  I will be most happy to meet with you; particularly if you’re buying lunch!

Your Module One author,

                                                                                                 Susan Hoehn