Universal Design for Transition: The Educators’ Guide for Equity-Focused Transition Planning

For students with disabilities from historically marginalized backgrounds, inequities in education and support services often lead to negative post-school outcomes. Promote successful adult lives for all students with disabilities―including historically marginalized culturally and linguistically diverse learners―with the new edition of this guide to the universal design for transition (UDT) framework.

Like the popular first edition, this important text prepares teachers, transition coordinators, and principals of Grades 6–12 to apply the principles of universal design for learning to transition planning for all learners with disabilities. This reimagined guide adds an equity lens, so that educators can understand the needs of historically marginalized racially and ethnically diverse students and create culturally responsive and sustaining instruction, supports, and services as students approach transition age. Practical tips, examples, and downloadable tools help teachers apply the UDT framework successfully, and the voices of experienced educators provide guidance and insight throughout. Equally useful as a textbook and an in-service resource, this new edition will get educators ready to help all students with disabilities build fulfilling adult lives that reflect their goals and dreams.

EDUCATORS WILL LEARN HOW TO:

• Reduce student opportunity gaps related to academic achievement and transition planning
• Incorporate the rich cultural heritage of historically marginalized students when planning their academic and transition curriculum
• Master the components of UDT, including multiple means of assessment, student self-determination, multiple life domains, and use of multiple resources and perspectives when making decisions
• Prepare students for key aspects of adult life: employment, postsecondary education, community living, and social inclusion and engagement
• Create culturally sustaining IEPs that honor the complexities of diverse students and families
• Promote equitable access to and use of technology with a UDT approach

WHAT’S NEW:

• New focus on culturally responsive practices and supports
• Updated research throughout
• New and expanded coverage of key topics such as community living options, use of technology and multimedia resources, and weaving social outlets and leisure activities into UDT
• All-new examples, resources, teaching tips, vignettes, and case studies

Colleen A. Thoma, Ph.D., earned her doctoral degree from Indiana University, where she began her research on self-determination in transition planning. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education and Disability Policy and Director of Doctoral Studies in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. She teaches courses on disability policy, transition and secondary education, curriculum and instruction, and characteristics of students with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. Her research interests include preparation of teachers to support selfdetermined transition planning, student-directed individualized education program development, and the impact of student self-determination on transition and academic outcomes. She has mentored doctoral candidates at VCU (including her co-author, Dr. Christina Bartholomew) in their own research on self-determination, teacher preparation, and transition services. Dr. Thoma's scholarship, teaching, and service have focused primarily in the areas of self-determination, transition planning and services, and teacher preparation. She co-authored a book on transition assessment with Dr. Caren Sax, Transition Assessment: Wise Practices for Quality Lives (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2002), and has authored or co-authored more than 40 peerreviewed journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports. She is a frequent presenter at major national conferences, with more than 100 peerreviewed presentations over the past 10 years. She is the recipient of VCU School of Education's award for Distinguished Scholarship (2007). Her leadership in the field of transition services also included 5 years on the executive board of the Division on Career Development and Transition, a division of the Council for Exceptional Children, including 1 year as President.

Christina C. Bartholomew, Ph.D., earned her doctoral degree from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond in December 2007. Prior to enrolling in the doctoral program, she worked as a special educator in the Commonwealth of Virginia. During her teaching experience, she worked with students with disabilities in both academic and employment settings. She has served as the student representative on the board of the Council for Exceptional Children's Division on Career Development and Transition and was awarded the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society Scholarship Award for VCU's School of Education in 2006. Dr. Bartholomew has worked on a statewide project promoting the instruction of self-determination skills in secondary settings and has created and implemented professional development seminars for middle school teachers in the areas of coteaching, collaboration, and assessment practices. Dr. Bartholomew has taught several graduate-level courses in secondary and transition programming, co-teaching and collaboration, instructional methods for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and trends and characteristics in special education. She has presented at numerous state and national conferences on self-determination, student-led individualized education programs, and linking transition to academic goals and instruction. She has conducted dissertation research in the area of teacher perceptions of school and classroom influences on their support for student self-determination, and she has coauthored articles for educational journals. She currently works in the field of special education as an adjunct instructor at VCU and as an educational consultant.

LaRon A. Scott, Ed.D., received a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice, with a psychology minor, from Radford University in Virginia. He worked as a mental health/mental retardation case manager before completing a master’s degree in education from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Qualified in special education and mental health, LaRon continues his career, which includes working with at-risk and children and adolescents with special needs by serving as an intensive in-home counselor and special education teacher. Mr. Scott teaches students with disabilities in both academic and community settings. He continues to guest lecture in graduate-level courses at VCU on universal design for learning and self-determination. He was recently named the special education department chairperson at the school where he is employed. In 2007, Mr. Scott received the Iva Dean Cook Teacher of the Year Award, given by the Division on Career Development and Transition of the Council for Exceptional Children.