What Lessons Does Special Education Hold for Improving Personalized Learning?
Personalized learning has, in recent years, become one of the most talked-about trends in education. Fueled by donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists, the instructional approach has spread to classrooms around the country and more than 40 states are exploring it in some form. As education leaders cast about for solutions to the performance gaps exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, some are hitting upon the idea that more personalized methods could help schools better serve students who’ve had wildly different experiences with education this year. Read more ›
College means new freedoms and new opportunities. Making the transition to college isn’t easy for anyone. Classes will be more difficult than high school and you have to plan ahead and motivate yourself to study. Plus you may have the new and stressful experience of living with a randomly-assigned roommate. All these things can impact your mental health. To make sure you succeed in college, know where to find support and how to put your best foot forward. 
This year, schools may be offering social-emotional skills training to students with disabilities, such as autism, in separate virtual groups. However, if staff are spread thin, or students need additional opportunities to generalize skills, it may be useful to find ways to integrate social-emotional learning into other virtual encounters during the day. This will help to ensure students who have social-emotional goals in their IEPs can work on their skills. 
As students return to in-person instruction, their parents may be concerned about the repercussions of the pandemic on their child’s learning. They may raise those concerns with their child’s pediatrician or other medical provider and arrive at your district with a prescription for an evaluation, specific services, or an IEP from the doctor. 
As the year begins with distance or hybrid learning at most schools, many parents are worried that pre-pandemic IEP plans may leave kids without vital services. If you’re concerned your child is struggling, it might be time to make some additions to your child’s plan to incorporate remote learning accommodations. 
When the pandemic forced schools to transition to remote learning in the spring, some families struggled more than others. Families of students in special education programs were suddenly expected to adapt to an online learning environment that was often inaccessible to children with a variety of physical, emotional or developmental needs. 
Your child’s IEP or 504 Plan was not designed for distance learning, but as most of the nation’s children are starting the 2020-21 school year learning at home, it now it falls on parents and educators to make new accommodations for students with ADHD and other learning challenges when they’re outside the classroom. 
If your child is struggling in school, you might be 
