Welcome to the 5E-SESE project! 

Our video is based on 5E Science Education for Special Educators as it was implemented during early usability testing (2019) and field testing (2021-22) phases. In fall 2022 we will begin a full-scale pilot test of the 5E-SESE professional development model. This has been an exciting opportunity to infuse Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into an inquiry cycle for professional development. 

We’d love to talk about the way UDL principles can support PD design that is more engaging and relevant for teachers, and how teaching teachers to use UDL principles when designing science instruction can support more inclusive, accessible, and engaging science instruction for K-12 students.  Are you working on similar instructional design projects? What experiences have you had designing inclusive science education PD? 

Hi Meagan, this is such important work. I love how you have the teachers themselves go through a sort of scientific process in order to pass along science lessons to their special education students. I see that as a way of giving them a lived experience through which they can then pass on their experiences to their students. 

I would like to know a little more about what was in the content of their lessons that was different from how they presented science prior to the 5E SESE project. Was it mostly a change of content, structure, pacing, or something else? 

Lovely video--I enjoyed the animations and the professional level of video production!

Beautiful video. I would love to get the student perspective on this if they are able to share their science experience.

Of course! So happy to see this work being done.

Such important work! Thank you for sharing. I appreciate the way you connect the 5E model with UDL to provide accessibility supports for all students. The usability data are very encouraging. I'm excited to see how this work keeps evolving!

This is such great work and I loved seeing the footage of the students in your video.  I'm curious whether your content includes any computer science?  As we see more and more CS in K12 education, it's important to make sure that students with disabilities are exposed to CS.

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed seeing all those smiling faces! I was wondering whether you're able to integrate any project based learning or other hands-on activities. Also, do the students have input into what they're learning or how they approach it, such as student-proposed projects or digging deeper into a question important to them?

Are there any unexpected obstacles that came up in your work between design and implementation/testing? What surprised you?

If you get to continue the work beyond 2022, what directions do you think you'd prioritize?

What an amazing video and project.  I could feel the excitement of the teachers and students!  I wonder if you could provide a little more information about the "virtual coaching" component of the project?  Who were the virtual coaches?  Was this a one-on-one model of coaching and was it customized to fit the needs of each educator and their situation?  Was it valued and viewed as being an effective strategy?

I really enjoyed watching your video and learning more about this project. It sounds like teachers are being supported to create lesson plans. I was curious if the teachers are in community with one another, and if they are sharing their lesson plans for other educators to use?

Beautiful, informative, and inspiring video!

What questions do you have going into the full-scale pilot test, and what are some of your expectations and hopes? Best wishes in your next phase.

I really enjoyed your video! Thank you for sharing your important work. I especially liked the animation between 1:00 and 1:06 that showed the 5E-SESE model. In that part, there was a mention of "Universal Design" principles. In that vein, I'm curious if you see this model as specifically meant to benefit students with significant disabilities or if the same principles could be applied to all science lessons and benefit students who don't identify as having a significant disability? Additionally, is this a "stand-alone" PD experience or could it be coupled with other science PD to increase accessibility on a broader scale? I could see many teachers and students benefiting from this type of training!

Thank you so much for your work. I wonder whether you could elaborate more on the ways you integrated NGSS with 5E and UDL. We are working on a PD program with rural science teachers who are new to NGSS and we've struggled a bit to integrate 5E with NGSS--they just jump on the 5E (maybe because it's familiar?) and forget about the three dimensions of NGSS. Since you're also layering UDL, how do you think about the process of lesson design?

Hello Rebecca - this is a great question! Our project has some nice overlap with the goals of your work in Utah. The teachers on whom our project is focused are also often quite isolated from their peers who teach students with significant cognitive disabilities when they are a single teacher in a single school. Unlike your teacher population, the teachers in our study typically have not had many science courses or opportunities to boost their science content knowledge. They tend to be especially anxious to jump to lesson planning (the 5E and UDL parts of our model) before learning the needed science content (the 3D-standards part of our model). We designed our self-paced learning modules (and the aligned lesson planning model) to take this tendency into account by requiring teachers to first focus on each of the 3 dimensions for a specific standard (of their own choosing), respond to questions, and begin their lesson planning process there (using a lesson plan format we provide and with guidance from 1:1 coaching sessions). In addition, we have included "scenarios" in each of the learning modules consisting of special education teachers talking with their general education science teacher peers about the science content and their need to understand it before they start in on a lesson plan. This is the project's approach to modeling for teachers effective practices in lesson planning and the types of conversations that we know can support embedded and ongoing teacher learning. While our current study doesn't measure this exact construct, your use of social network analysis is such an interesting lens to measure aspects of this type of teacher learning. UDL is also layered into our lesson planning design; after teachers have learned each of the 3 dimensions for a specific standard (including common misunderstandings about that content), they choose a phenomenon on which their students will focus, and begin to consider ways in which engagement, representation, and action/expression can be incorporated into their lesson. In this way, they are front-loading the lesson with science content and UDL decisions before they start into the specifics of each of stage of 5E. We have also embedded strategies to support adult learners in our approach to instructional coaching. We are excited about the results we've seen so far and are looking forward to expanding in our upcoming pilot year with more coaches and more teachers. Thank you for your questions! We look forward to following your progress!

Sarah, Thank you so much for your response, and the detailed way you outlined the process for teachers.

I appreciate also the comparison between our projects and some of the struggles that special education teachers might have with isolation and lacking access to professional collaboration.

I think we are also leaning toward a similar strategy--with a focus first on the three dimensions and once those are well-developed, adding in the 5Es. If you have a template or series of questions you ask teachers to think about during lesson planning, I would love it if you could share! I'm not sure if we can post email addresses here, but I'll try to track yours down and reach out that way. 

Thank you for sharing this important work! We have some teachers who teach students with significant disabilities participating in our program so that they can bring virtual field trips to their students.