Transdisciplinary Pedagogy for Equity: Teacher Candidates Teaching Social Studies to Students With Disabilities

• In Event: 67.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 67.068-5 - Preservice Teacher Perspectives and Practices Working With Students With Disabilities

Abstract

Contextualized in the critical pedagogies of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and social justice education, our study aimed to teach Teacher Candidates (TCs) to consider minoritized populations in a way that explicitly included students with disabilities when planning and implementing “social studies for social justice” lesson plans. In an attempt to ensure that Teacher Candidates (TCs) can universally design instruction to foster learning communities that equitably empower all learners, we engaged in a transdisciplinary collaboration to infuse UDL, historically taught exclusively in an Introduction to Special Education course, into an Elementary Social Studies for Social Justice Methods course. This case study examined TCs’ coursework and survey data to identify their ability to plan and practice UDL in lesson plans.

Authors

• Anneliese Mueller Worster, Salem State University

• Leigh E. Rohde, Salem State University