ABSTRACT
As schools move toward including more students with disabilities into general education classrooms, the need to reform the instructional methods used to support both students and teachers (McLeskey, Landers, Hoppey, & Williamson, 2011) is not in debate. There is a collective call for reform in both general and special education to include evidence-based practices that are interactive, multimodal, collaborative, dynamic, and real-world (e.g., Council for Exceptional Children [CEC], 2007; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004; National Council of Teachers of English [NCTE], 2005; National Commission on Teachers of Math [NCTM], 2008; National Science Teachers Association [NSTA], 2004; No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB], 2001). Yet, despite shared goals, there remains a mismatch between the learning needs of students and the traditional instructional delivery methods actually used in classrooms (Kennedy & Ihle, 2012). Although fi ndings in the How Teaching Matters report of 2000 demonstrated that students’ test scores on standardized assessments were higher if teachers individualized and differentiated their instruction (Pearl & Miller, 2007), research shows that teachers continue to use traditional, whole-group teaching methods even as classes become more diverse and more inclusive of students with disabilities (Kennedy & Ihle, 2012; King-Sears & Bowman-Kruhm, 2011).
