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Rutgers University

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It has long been understood that adults learn differently from children, and from students of traditional university age. With the recent shift toward continuous education and adult learning, especially in the professional sphere, it has become necessary to quantify these differences more closely.

Instructional design' is a science-based field that synthesizes pedagogical realities and the neurological facts of learning. Although it can be applied to any learning community, the field has attained widespread recognition due to its role in adult-focused pedagogy.

It builds on and implements existing theories of adult learning in modern, effective ways.

A Brief History and Definition of Malcolm Knowles' Theory of Andragogy

'Andragogy' refers to the specialized pursuit of effective curricular design and instruction delivery for adults. The basic theories of andragogy, as developed by Malcolm Knowles and others, are used extensively in the design of adult-oriented training programs. They are especially valuable in "soft skill" domains that are prized in the business world, such as management development.

Knowles was a U.S.-based adult educator who was first published in the 1950s. He became prominent over the next two decades for developing theories to assist adult learners, whom he referred to as "a neglected species." As executive director of the Adult Education Association of the USA, he was able to apply and refine his theories with the participation of large student communities.

Knowles recognized that adults cannot simply act as passive receptacles of others' expertise as children often do. To fully comprehend and use new information in the future, they must have a different level of engagement than what is required by youths. For example:

Adults desire explanations of why specific concepts are being taught in the first place;

They typically respond best to learning that is centered around performing common tasks;

Adult learning materials should take into account different levels of prior experience;

Adult students prefer a self-directed approach that allows for discovery on their own.

Styles of Learning: Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic

The idea of different 'learning styles' has great currency among both adult and traditional learners. Harvard University's Howard Gardner is one of the top writers in this area, having defined seven distinct intelligences - with the potential for many more.

When learning experiences are tailored to the needs of the individual learner, that person is more likely to understand, recall and use new information. Learning styles can be categorized according to the most dominant "sense" the learner prefers to use.

The three major learning styles are as follows.

1. Visual: These learners prefer to see the process demonstrated in a step-by-step way. They benefit from video demonstrations and from lectures that focus on watching an expert perform a task. They also tend to use traditional class notes more effectively than others.

2. Auditory: These learners are most effective when they listen to a process or concept being described. They benefit most from a traditional lecture. Participating by actively asking questions may help them learn better. They gain advantages from recording each lecture.

3. Kinesthetic: Kinesthetic learners learn best by performing tasks. This is true even if they have not quite mastered the concepts and need to use trial and error. They can use either of the other learning styles as a secondary tool, but will benefit the most from project-based learning.

The Principles of Adult Learning Theory

What are the basic principles of adult learning? They derive from adults' experiences and needs.

As a general rule, adults need to be involved in planning their instruction and evaluating their results. They should be provided with an environment in which mistakes are safe, expected and a basis for continued learning, in keeping with a problem-centered approach to new ideas.

For the most part, adults have little time to learn new content for its own sake. Instead, they are interested in approaching tasks directly related to their occupation. To thrive in most learning environments, they must be clear on how each lesson fits into their goals for self-advancement.

From an early age, children are conditioned to recognize educators as authority figures who have broad-based power to tell them what to do, when and how. By contrast, adults expect that even the most credentialed expert will behave as a partner to them in a participative learning journey.

Overview of the ADDIE Instructional Design Model

Instructional designers must be prepared to develop materials and systems to meet the needs of many different educators and learning communities. They may not - and often do not - have any influence over how material is delivered or consumed once it is completed. As a result, there needs to be a robust and repeatable process for ensuring materials are effective.

The ADDIE Model provides such a process in five steps:

1. Analysis: Determine if training is appropriate, and define requirements for the training;

2. Design: Define objectives, build out the program and choose the methods and media;

3. Development: Conduct pilot courses using all materials in accordance with objectives;

4. Implementation: Implement 'version 1' of the training, evaluate it and refine it;

5. Evaluation: Perform evaluation at key milestones to ensure goals are being met.

Modern ideas about instructional design date back more than 50 years, with the ADDIE model appearing by the 1970s as a product of the United States military. By following the model, instructional design experts can take a data-driven approach that allows them to ensure systems are aligned with key goals. Plus, they have many opportunities to 'course correct' using periodic evaluation.

Instructional Design in the Future

The ADDIE Model represents one attempt at codifying all the most important aspects of IDS (Instructional Systems Design). This is seen as a comprehensive and systematic attempt to bring all the disparate parts of instructional design together. It synthesizes elements of the individual perspectives of learning styles and overarching principles of adult learning theory.

Although instructional design and its approaches have been in refinement for decades, they are now being applied more frequently than ever. New, innovative approaches will be necessary to design and deliver varied, large-scale curricula to diverse audiences around the world. No matter how complex this task becomes, a structured and systematic approach will remain vital.

Colleges, universities, businesses and NGOs all have different uses for instructional design. Wherever there is a need to make the process of adult learning more efficient and effective, the principles of instructional design can be used. At each level, the instructional designer must operationalize an understanding of the curriculum, the needs of learners and the end goal. Remaining focused on this perspective in every step allows even the most sophisticated learning system to develop according to plan.

Learn More

Information means more than knowledge, it means solutions. When technology, people and information intersect, society and industry benefit. You can harness the power of information with our online Master of Information degree at Rutgers University.

Sources

http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html
http://www.fgdla.us/uploads/White_Paper-Introduction_to_the_ADDIE_ISD_Model.pdf
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/andragogy.html

Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy

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The Principles of Adult Learning Theory - Rutgers

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It has long been understood that adults learn differently from children, and from students of traditional university age. With the recent shift toward continuous education and adult learning, especially in the professional sphere, it has become necessary to quantify these differences more closely.

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Teaching and Learning and Research, oh my!

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Teaching and Learning and Research, oh my!

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Times Higher Education (THE) Podcast

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Experts in teaching and learning weigh in on the teaching versus research debate from the 2018 Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit held at the University of Glasgow

Download this podcast
At the 2018 Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit, global experts on teaching and learning debated how universities should balance world-class research with effective teaching as well as the best way to teach students - lectures or active learning?

Sara Custer speaks to two presenters from the summit, Suzi Derbyshire, deputy vice-chancellor of learning and teaching at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and Bob Duke, director of the Center for Music Learning at the University of Texas at Austin.

You can find the rest of our coverage from the summit here.

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THE podcast: teaching and learning and research, oh my!

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Experts in teaching and learning weigh in on the teaching versus research debate from the 2018 Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit held at the University of Glasgow Download this podcast At the 2018 Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit, global experts on teaching and learning debated how universities should balance world-class research with effective teaching as well as the best way to teach students - lectures or active learning?

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TED Talk Playlist

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Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education

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Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free -- not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed.

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Center for Teaching - Vanderbilt University

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Print Version
by Patricia Armstrong, former Assistant Director, Center for Teaching

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information

The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You're free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it to the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. For a higher resolution version, visit our Flickr account and look for the "Download this photo" icon.

Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom's Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as "skills and abilities," with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors' brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One, pp. 201-207):

Knowledge "involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting."

Comprehension "refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications."

Application refers to the "use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations."

Analysis represents the "breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit."

Synthesis involves the "putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole."

Evaluation engenders "judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes."

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the "Asking Questions" chapter of Tools for Teaching, also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of "educational objectives" (in Bloom's original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These "action words" describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

Factual Knowledge

Knowledge of terminology

Knowledge of specific details and elements

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

1. Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.

2. Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, entitled "The Taxonomy in Use," provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, "The Taxonomy in Perspective," provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom's Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Bloom's Taxonomy. Print Version by Patricia Armstrong, former Assistant Director, Center for Teaching Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You're free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it...

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Wabisabi Learning

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A Creative 3D Bloom's Taxonomy Model For Every Educator

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Enjoy this 3D Bloom's Taxonomy model created by Rex Heer from Iowa State University. It's got a few things you may not have seen before.

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Common Sense Education

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How Podcasts Can Improve Literacy in the Classroom | Common Sense Education

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Boost confidence and focus with these free, accessible, and fresh texts.

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Stanford - Teaching Commons

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Quick Checklist

Be Prepared

Outline clear objectives for your lecture-both what students should know after the lecture and why it is important.

Develop a lecture outline and any audiovisuals.

If you are nervous about the lecture, write out your introduction and rehearse it.

Keep Your Focus

Limit the main points in a lecture to five or fewer.

Create effective visuals, analogies, demonstrations, and examples to reinforce the main points.

Share your outline with students.

Emphasize your objectives and key points in the beginning, as you get to them, and as a summary at the end.

Engage Your Audience

Focus attention early on using a quote, a dramatic visual, an anecdote, or other material relevant to the topic.

Integrate visuals, multimedia, discussion, active learning strategies, small-group techniques, and peer instruction.

Link new material to students' prior knowledge, such as common experiences or previous coursework.

Show enthusiasm for the topic and information. Remember, you are modeling your discipline.

Give students time to think and genuine opportunities to respond.

Plan for diverse learners. Use verbal, visual, and kinesthetic approaches such as hands-on exercises and simulations.

Get Feedback

Observe students' non-verbal communication: notetaking, response to questions, eye contact, seating patterns, and response to humor. Are they "with" you?

Use the "minute paper" or other assessment techniques. Ask students to respond in one or two sentences to the following questions:What stood out as most important in today's lecture? What are you confused about? Do this every few lectures-it will take you about 15 minutes to review the responses and you'll learn an enormous amount about your students.

Give quizzes periodically on lecture objectives, not obscure material. Are they getting it?

Conduct midterm teaching evaluations or simply ask the students for suggestions and comments at the midpoint of the quarter.

See Also

For further information about effective lecturing, including preparation, basic presentation skills, variety of presentation, and tips from other faculty, see:
Lecturing Guidelines
Preparing and Delivering the Lecture (1-hour talk by Lanier Anderson)

From Tomorrow's Professor:
How a Stanford Professor Liberates Large Lectures Designing and Delivering Effective Lectures

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Outline clear objectives for your lecture-both what students should know after the lecture and why it is important. Develop a lecture outline and any audiovisuals. If you are nervous about the lecture, write out your introduction and rehearse it. Limit the main points in a lecture to five or fewer.

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Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

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Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

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Journal of Occupational Therapy Education | Eastern Kentucky University

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The Journal of Occupational Therapy Education (JOTE) is an open access, peer reviewed journal devoted to occupational therapy and occupational science education. JOTE is published through the EKU Libraries' Encompass publishing platform.

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Public digital library of open educational resources

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

Learn more about creating OER

Groups provides a flexible environment to organize, create, share, and discuss resources with others in your network. Collaborate with group members, tag and add resources to shared folders, create your own collections, all within a public or private group.

Groups

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Projects, districts, states, and initiatives make use of Hubs to bring groups of educators together to create, organize, and share OER collections that meet their common goals. Explore Hubs

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Microsites are custom, flexible sites that include all the features available on OER Commons. Microsites allow your users to search resource collections using a custom taxonomy at a unique URL. Contact Us

Our award-winning OER Professional Learning programs support instructors and curriculum specialists to gain the necessary skills required to find, adapt, and evaluate high quality open materials.

In-person and virtual OER workshops help focus instructors to develop a "commons" mindset, to experience the benefits of open processes using the platform's tools, collaborative features, and workflows. This can include using Open Author for creating, remixing, and publishing shared curriculum.

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OER Commons is a dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

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International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE)

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International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE)

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Research and Resources on Service Learning

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International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement

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After careful consideration of the health and safety of our members, the difficult financial predicaments many face as a result of COVID19, current travel bans, and the recent uprisings, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year's annual conference in Minneapolis scheduled for ... [Read more...] about 2020 CONFERENCE UPDATE

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International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement - IARSLCE

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After careful consideration of the health and safety of our members, the difficult financial predicaments many face as a result of COVID19, current travel bans, and the recent uprisings, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year's annual conference in Minneapolis scheduled for ... [Read more...]

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Seeing Through Paulo's Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage and Humility

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Seeing Through Paulo's Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage and Humility

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Freire Project

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Paulo Freire Documentary Seeing Through Paulo's Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage and Humility

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Sprouts - Video

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Free, online classes in just about any subject you can think of!

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A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.

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Sophia

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Flipping your classroom is simple, and our certification program lets you get certified quickly and easily. Streamline your classes and get more time for one-on-one learning opportunities by using video tutorials instead of traditional homework and lectures.

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Flipping the Classroom - My Journey to the Other Side

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Flipping the Classroom - My Journey to the Other Side

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Jenn Williams at TEDxRockyViewSchoolsED

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Flipping the classroom -- my journey to the other side: Jenn Williams at TEDxRockyViewSchoolsED

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Essay - Critical thinking in healthcare and education

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Essay - Critical thinking in healthcare and education

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Sharples et al., 2017

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Universal Design in Learning (UDL) Guidelines

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Universal Design in Learning (UDL) Guidelines

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CAST

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

UDL Rising to Equity

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey. Do you use social media? Join the conversation happening now in the #UDLrising hashtag.
Meet the UDL Rising to Equity Advisory Board Meet the UDL Rising to Equity Stakeholder Council

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guid…

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Universal Design in Higher Ed

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Summary

Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities have worked hard to make universal design in the built environment "just part of what we do." We no longer see curb cuts, for instance, as accommodations for people with disabilities, but perceive their usefulness every time we ride our bikes or push our strollers through crosswalks.

This is also a perfect model for Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework grounded in the neuroscience of why, what, and how people learn. Tobin and Behling show that, although it is often associated with students with disabilities, UDL can be profitably broadened toward a larger ease-of-use and general diversity framework. Captioned instructional videos, for example, benefit learners with hearing impairments but also the student who worries about waking her young children at night or those studying on a noisy team bus.

Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone is aimed at faculty members, faculty-service staff, disability support providers, student-service staff, campus leaders, and graduate students who want to strengthen the engagement, interaction, and performance of all college students. It includes resources for readers who want to become UDL experts and advocates: real-world case studies, active-learning techniques, UDL coaching skills, micro- and macro-level UDL-adoption guidance, and use-them-now resources.

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Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education

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Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities have worked hard to make universal design in the built environment "just part of what we do." We no longer see curb cuts, for instance, as accommodations for people with disabilities, but perceive their usefulness every time we ride our bikes or push our strollers through crosswalks.

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Accessibility and Inclusion in Medical Education

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Accessibility and Inclusion in Medical Education

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AAMC

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Rubric for Evaluating Your Course Syllabus

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Rubric for Evaluating Your Course Syllabus

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Universal Design for Learning

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Education Next

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The model of special education known as inclusion, or mainstreaming, has become more prevalent over the past 10 years, and today, more than 60 percent of all students with disabilities (SWDs) spend 80 percent or more of their school day in regular classrooms, alongside their non-disabled peers (see Figure 1). This is not the full inclusion favored by some disability advocates, wherein all SWDs would be educated in inclusive classrooms all day; however, many supporters celebrate the increasing acceptance of differently abled students in general education as an opportunity to improve the academic and long-term trajectories of these traditionally underserved learners. In theory, inclusion provides SWDs with access to the grade-level curriculum and the same educational opportunities as their peers.

Unfortunately, research has yielded only weak evidence that inclusion confers benefits on SWDs. Studies that report better academic and behavioral outcomes for SWDs who are taught in a general-education setting suffer from methodological flaws. Even less evidence suggests that general-education teachers are adequately prepared to meet the unique academic and behavioral needs of SWDs. Further, studies of inclusion seem to assume that SWDs are educated in a vacuum; that is, they fail to examine the experiences of non-disabled classmates.

In this article, I explore policies and existing research on inclusion to describe what we know, what we don't, and how current knowledge should inform decisions about where to educate SWDs. An underlying theme of this discussion is that inclusion influences not only SWDs but also their peers and teachers. The interplay between and among these three groups suggests areas of research that can inform future discussion about inclusion and how it can work well for all stakeholders.
The Least-Restrictive Environment
Inclusion did not become the widespread practice it is today because of a robust evidence base that supports its effectiveness. Rather, it is prevalent because of federal laws that establish special rights for SWDs and their parents. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), first signed into law in 1975 as the Education for all Handicapped Children Act, mandates that SWDs receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least-restrictive environment (LRE) possible. A student's FAPE and LRE are established through a team process that produces an Individualized Education Program (IEP). After a school identifies a student with a disability, it convenes an IEP team meeting. This team typically consists of the student's parents or guardians; special- and general-education teachers with knowledge of the student; school staff members who can interpret the results of evaluations; other service providers; and, in many cases, the student. At this meeting, the team identifies annual goals for the student. These individualized goals determine what constitutes an "appropriate education" for that particular student.

Once the goals are in place, the IEP team discusses the instruction, related services, and accommodations the student requires to meet the goals. During this stage of the IEP process, the team decides where the student will receive services-for example, in a regular classroom; in a regular classroom with the support of a paraprofessional or special-education teacher, or perhaps with additional support in a resource room or pullout setting; or in a self-contained special-education classroom. IDEA requires that students be educated in regular classrooms unless their academic and behavioral needs cannot be met in that setting even with the use of supplemental aids and services.

Consider the following two examples. A 1st-grade student with a speech or language impairment might require one hour of speech therapy a week from a speech/language pathologist to improve his enunciation. His IEP team may also decide that he needs accommodations in the classroom, as his impairment influences his reading fluency. Apart from his weekly speech therapy, the student would attend a general-education class with the occasional accommodation for his reading skills. Removing this student from the regular classroom because of an enunciation problem would be inappropriate: the student can likely make progress there with the suitable supplemental services and accommodations.

Contrast this student with a 5th-grade student receiving special-education services for a specific learning disability who is struggling with sounding out words while his non-disabled peers are focused on reading comprehension. Because this student has such significant educational needs, the IEP team would likely decide that he should receive some of his reading instruction outside of the regular classroom.

These examples illustrate the individualized nature of placement decisions. The IEP team determines where a child will be educated based on the services the student needs and where those services can practicably be delivered. But IDEA explicitly states that most SWDs should be taught in the general-education classroom, and IEP team members may be unduly influenced by this requirement. For example, IDEA requires that states report to Congress each year the percentage of the school day that SWDs spend in general-education classrooms, in addition to other indicators such as dropout rates, SWDs' participation in assessments, their proficiency rates on these tests, and suspension and expulsion rates. The Department of Education compiles these data in an annual report to Congress and uses the information to determine if a state is in compliance with IDEA. In this publication, data related to the setting in which SWDs are educated are disaggregated by state, yet the data regarding student academic outcomes are not. The reports therefore appear to assess the extent to which students are receiving an appropriate education by the location in which they are served.

There is little federal guidance on whether schools can consider students' classmates and teachers in their decisions about where SWDs are educated, further complicating placement judgments. IDEA only briefly addresses the needs of non-disabled classmates: schools are required to consider the use of positive behavioral interventions when an SWD's behavior affects his classmates' learning. Beyond this mention of peers, federal policies pay scant attention to the interplay between SWDs, their classmates, and general-education teachers. Special-education case law includes conflicting opinions as to whether placement decisions can be based on how a student might influence their classmates. What is clear is that placement is to be an individualized decision determined by the needs of each student with a disability, but it seems unlikely that a student will derive appropriate benefit from the prescribed services if his placement causes disruption or detriment to his peers and teachers.
Access to the Curriculum
A key assumption of IDEA is that including SWDs in the regular classroom will expose them to grade-level, general-education curriculum. Yet exposure may not result in progress in that curriculum. Research suggests that many SWDs will not be able to advance along grade-level academic standards with the instruction typically provided in regular classrooms, even with accommodations and supports. For example, a recent study by Lynn Fuchs and colleagues compared the size of the math achievement gap between students with or at risk for learning disabilities and their non-disabled peers. SWDs were randomly assigned to two groups. In the first one, students with or at risk for disabilities received intensive fractions instruction, exemplifying special-education techniques, while those in the second group were exposed to fractions instruction in the regular classroom with accommodations based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (that is, instruction that includes multiple means for students to express what they know). The math achievement gap between students with or at risk for disabilities and without disabilities in the regular classroom setting was twice as large as the gap in the first group (see Figure 2).

It is a mistake to equate the setting in which a student is educated (that is, the general-education classroom) with the actual progress a student is making. Such an assumption ignores the fact that students are found eligible for special-education services precisely because they are failing to progress in general education. Placement data may suggest that SWDs are being exposed to the general-education curriculum, but achievement data suggest that they are not actually learning the curriculum: SWDs placed in general-education classrooms continue to lag dramatically behind their peers. A recent meta-analysis that I conducted with my colleagues Doug Fuchs and Joe Wehby estimated that SWDs score about 1.2 standard deviations below their non-disabled peers in reading, a gap that translates to more than three years of academic growth. Achievement gaps between SWDs and their peers are similarly large in math. Though federal laws stress the importance of educating SWDs in the regular classroom, there is no good evidence that placement there improves the outcomes of these students.
Inclusion and Student Outcomes
That's not to say that researchers have not examined the issue. Many studies have compared SWDs who are educated in inclusive settings to those who are educated in special-education settings, generally finding that the former have better academic, social, and long-term outcomes. For example, data from the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study conducted from 2000 to 2006 show that SWDs who spent 75 percent or more of their school day in inclusive settings scored higher in reading comprehension and math than those who spent 25 percent or less of their day in such settings. These results fueled the push to move more SWDs into general-education classrooms.

More-recent work also finds that SWDs educated in general-education settings have better outcomes. Roddy Theobald and colleagues observed that high-school students with disabilities in Washington State who spent more time in general-education settings had higher reading scores than their peers who had less time in such settings, even after taking into account differences in prior achievement and a wide range of student characteristics. They were also more likely to graduate on time and enroll in college than students educated in more-restrictive settings. Laura Schifter has reported similar results regarding graduation for students in Massachusetts: SWDs educated in general-education classrooms have higher probabilities of graduating than their peers who were educated in more-isolated settings. These recent studies and others have led many to conclude that inclusion benefits SWDs.

Unfortunately, this determination ignores a major limitation of the current research base: the failure to account for selection bias. Students with higher academic abilities or fewer behavioral challenges are more likely to be placed in inclusive settings, while their peers who may have the same disability label but greater learning or behavioral needs are placed in special-education settings. The consistent finding that SWDs have better outcomes when educated in general-education settings likely reflects this bias. Even in studies that account for students' prior levels of academic achievement, the researchers may not capture all the aspects of a student, such as his behavior, that can influence both the setting in which he is placed and his future outcomes. A student's educational placement is an IEP team decision and may be based on a host of factors not included in the administrative data sets to which researchers typically have access. This makes estimating the true causal effect of inclusion on student outcomes nearly impossible.

One study does improve on these others in regard to selection bias. In 2002, Eric Hanushek and colleagues used Texas students whose special-education classification changed over time to examine the influence of special-education classification (as determined by a student having an IEP) and educational setting on students' math outcomes. The researchers first compared the students' progress in school years when they had an IEP to their progress when they did not have an IEP, allowing each student to serve as his or her own control. They found that students scored higher on state math assessments when they had an IEP than when they did not. This result suggests that special-education services may benefit the students who receive them. When the researchers examined SWDs' math achievement by the setting in which they were educated, however, they found that SWDs performed neither better nor worse in regular classrooms than in special-education settings. While this study design is stronger than that of the research discussed above, its results only extend to students who took the regular state assessment and whose special-education eligibility changed over time, thus excluding students with more-significant disabilities. The one clear takeaway is that accounting for unmeasured differences between students who are placed in different types of settings can influence estimates of the association between general-education placement and student outcomes.

In sum, ample correlational evidence confirms that SWDs have better academic and social outcomes when they spend more time in general-education classrooms. But our ability to draw conclusions from these studies is limited, because it is likely that SWDs who would be expected to have better academic and social outcomes are more often included in general-education classrooms than their peers with more-intensive needs.
Inclusion and Peer Outcomes
A key component of inclusion is that SWDs are educated with their peers who do not have disabilities, yet little research has examined whether and how SWDs' outcomes are influenced by their peers-and vice versa. The scarcity of research in this area is surprising, as research on peer effects in general education shows that students' classmates shape their educational experiences. Particularly concerning are findings that students' academic and behavioral outcomes are influenced by classmates who exhibit challenging behaviors. For example, Scott Carrell and Mark Hoekstra found that an increase in the percentage of students' classmates who had experienced domestic violence-a variable highly correlated with children's behavior-negatively affected students' academic outcomes and increased their behavioral problems (see " Domino Effect," research, Summer 2009). Further, exposure to a peer who was more likely to exhibit challenging behavior led students to complete less schooling and earn less as adults. These findings are relevant to the topic of inclusion because SWDs have a higher probability of exhibiting challenging behavior than their peers without disabilities.

Most students without disabilities have at least two SWDs in their classes, but few studies have examined whether SWDs affect their classmates. Early studies that addressed peer effects in inclusive classrooms using older data did not identify any negative academic consequences of inclusion for students without disabilities. However, more-recent research based on the U.S. Department of Education's Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS) has identified some worrisome findings, particularly related to the inclusion of students with an emotional/behavioral disorder (EBD).

These recent studies have examined both academic and social outcomes of students without disabilities in inclusive classrooms. In a 2009 study, Jason Fletcher found that having a classmate with an EBD was associated with a 0.09 standard-deviation decrease in students' math scores and a 0.13 standard-deviation decrease in students' reading scores. In 2016, Michael Gottfried and colleagues reported that students without disabilities who had a classmate with an EBD were 1.42 times more likely to be chronically absent than those who did not have such a classmate. A 2014 study by Gottfried found that students without disabilities were rated by teachers as having more behavior problems, lower levels of self-control, and lower interpersonal skills when they were in classrooms with SWDs, not just students with an EBD.

These studies, like those relating inclusion to SWDs' outcomes, are correlational and must be interpreted with caution. Yet they improve on prior work by limiting comparisons to students attending the same school. This approach allows the researchers to rule out the possibility that their results reflect differences in the characteristics of schools that make greater use of the inclusion model. These studies do not account for the sorting of students within schools based on unobserved characteristics, such as if students who exhibit more problem behavior owing to a change in their home life in a specific school year are grouped in classes with more SWDs. However, this type of sorting seems less likely than the sorting of higher-achieving SWDs into inclusive classrooms, which is a natural byproduct of the IEP process. Though this body of work is small and just emerging, the findings underline the importance of examining whether and how the inclusion of SWDs in general-education classrooms may change the environment in ways that affect their peers.
Inclusion and Teachers
Teachers are likely a key element in the successful inclusion of SWDs, but again few studies have investigated how general-education teachers are influenced by the presence of SWDs. An older body of research examined the attitudes of general-education teachers toward having SWDs in their classrooms. These studies reported that general educators were accepting of SWDs in their classrooms under certain conditions-for example, if additional supports were provided to the teacher and if the SWDs did not exhibit disruptive behavior. Yet both surveys and qualitative studies found that general-education teachers often do not have training, or feel they have the proper skills, to meet the academic and behavioral needs of SWDs while also teaching their non-disabled peers.

Two recent studies have aimed to assess the experiences of general educators with SWDs in their classrooms. These works are, again, correlational and not causal. Using an administrative data set from North Carolina, I estimated the association between the percentage of SWDs in teachers' classes and the rate of teacher turnover, as defined by changing schools or leaving teaching in the state. I found that the probability of turnover increased as the percentage of SWDs in teachers' classes went up if the teacher was not certified in special education, after controlling for differences in student, teacher, and school characteristics. This increase was especially pronounced when teachers had students with an EBD in their classrooms (see Figure 3). All else being equal, teachers with classes in which 20 percent of students had an EBD were 2.15 percentage points more likely to leave their school or teaching than teachers who had students with disabilities in their classes, but none with an EBD. I also found that the teachers who, based on other characteristics, were most likely to change schools or leave teaching were actually the least likely to have SWDs. This suggests that schools are not assigning SWDs to teachers who are more likely to leave and attenuates concerns that the relationship between the presence of students with an EBD and turnover is an artifact of selection bias.

Teachers might also be changing their instruction in undesirable ways when they have SWDs in their classrooms. North Cooc recently examined the amount of time teachers of inclusive classrooms reported that they spent on instruction, using data from an international survey of teachers. He found that teachers reported that they spent less time on instruction and more time on classroom management when their classes contained more SWDs. The association between instructional time and having SWDs in the classroom nearly disappeared once Cooc accounted for the number of students in teachers' classes that exhibited disruptive behavior.

These studies provide preliminary evidence that the presence of SWDs affects teachers in ways that could negatively influence the teachers themselves with regard to turnover, the outcomes of SWDs, and their peers without disabilities. Clearly, more research is needed to understand how teachers address the needs of SWDs in their classrooms and how inclusion changes the demands placed on educators with potentially negative consequences for all students.

Research on general-education teachers and their role in educating students with and without disabilities is particularly important given that general-education teachers are the primary educators for both of these populations. Jim Dewey and colleagues reported in 2017 that the number of special-education teachers declined more than 17 percent between 2005 and 2012; the number of students with special needs also decreased, but by only 4 percent. The student-to-teacher ratio in special education is now greater than the overall student-to-teacher ratio, suggesting that SWDs spend more time with general educators than with special educators. Even SWDs with the most significant needs, such as students with intellectual disabilities or autism, are often instructed by teachers without special-education certification. Since general educators are largely responsible for teaching SWDs, it is critical that we understand their role in teaching all students if we hope to improve outcomes for all.
An Ecological Perspective
Overall, what is known about inclusion from research is quite limited in the context of such a widespread practice. SWDs appear to have better outcomes when educated in inclusive settings, yet studies of the association between setting and outcomes do not account for important differences between the SWDs placed in inclusive classrooms and those who are taught in special-education settings. Students without disabilities have lower academic and behavioral outcomes when they are taught in classrooms that include SWDs, particularly students with an EBD. General-education teachers may welcome SWDs into their classrooms, but they spend more time on classroom management and less on instruction and are more likely to leave teaching when SWDs are present. This limited body of correlational research may not provide many conclusions about inclusion, but it does suggest a framework for future research and policy decisions.

In particular, this research highlights the importance of evaluating inclusion from an ecological perspective. Instead of focusing narrowly on the effects of inclusion on outcomes for SWDs, an ecological perspective would acknowledge that inclusion influences SWDs, their peers without disabilities, and general-education teachers, and should focus on the interactions between and among these three groups. SWDs may influence their peers, but this relationship likely goes both ways. If peer behavior changes in response to the inclusion of SWDs in the classroom, these changes likely influence teacher behavior. Without understanding how inclusion influences all three groups and the complex interactions among them, inclusion is unlikely to be successful for all those involved. The small body of literature that currently exists tends to examine the experiences of SWDs, their peers, and their teachers separately. Moving forward, researchers should focus more holistically on the classroom ecosystem in order to identify the conditions and supports necessary for inclusion to improve outcomes for all students. The results of these studies could be used to develop interventions that support teachers who work with SWDs in inclusive settings, to determine effective service-delivery models that enable all students to access the general curriculum, and to investigate ways that students of different ability levels can benefit from each other.

But considering inclusion from an ecological perspective is problematic in the context of current policy guidance and special-education case law. IDEA emphasizes the importance of making placement decisions based on the needs of an individual student, not the implications of the decision for their classmates or teachers. In its 2017 decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, the Supreme Court established a higher standard for determining the "educational benefit" a student is entitled to receive under IDEA. The new standard emphasizes the "unique circumstances" of the individual student, and it is likely that these "circumstances" could include the available teachers and the student's classmates. For example, parents and school personnel deciding on where a student should receive individualized reading instruction may weigh the ability of the general-education teacher to provide this instruction in her classroom against the ability of a specially trained teacher to provide it in a pullout setting. IEP team deliberations might also include frank discussions of teachers' skills at meeting the needs of all students in a classroom. Considering such factors means acknowledging the unique circumstances and constraints within a school and the reality that the education of SWDs is not context-free. In fact, a study I conducted with Gary Henry suggests that schools may already be making decisions about how best to educate SWDs based on the available resources in a school. We find that students with autism and intellectual disabilities are more likely to be grouped with other students with similar disabilities in smaller classes taught by special education-certified teachers. The legality of taking this ecological approach to placement decisions is questionable under current federal policy and requires clarification when Congress next revises IDEA.

In the meantime, policymakers and school personnel should keep in mind the limited evidence base suggesting that placing an SWD in a general-education classroom will result in the student making progress in the general-education curriculum. Special education is an amalgam of services, not a place. IDEA requires that SWDs receive educational services based on their individual needs. This means that decisions about where a student is educated should not be dictated by school, district, or state bureaucratic goals related to the percentage of SWDs that "should" be included in the general-education classroom for a fixed amount of time each day. Instead, decisions regarding placement in a general-education classroom, special-education classroom, or a mixture of settings should be determined by students' individual needs. If a student is not making progress in an educational setting, the student is not accessing the curriculum. Oftentimes, students may need intensive and individualized instruction to make progress and gain access to the general-education curriculum. This level of instruction might not be possible if a student is taught exclusively in a general-education setting.

On a related note, policymakers should stop using location or setting as an indicator of access. Increasing the numbers of SWDs in regular classrooms does not necessarily result in improving their academic outcomes, and may unintentionally affect non-disabled peers and general-education teachers. When the numbers of SWDs in inclusive classrooms rises without a concomitant increase in their achievement, it could mean that schools are failing to make individualized decisions regarding placement. This conflicts with IDEA's mandate and will not result in better outcomes for students.

Special education in the United States has long focused on improving SWDs' access to neighborhood schools, general-education classrooms, and the general-education curriculum. Policies and practices have increasingly veered toward inclusion. However, these policies, and the research on their effects, have narrowly focused on SWDs' outcomes without considering the confluence of factors that can affect a classroom. With inclusion as the dominant model in special education, it is imperative that researchers also focus on whether and how these students influence the experiences of their peers and their teachers in order to make schools effective for all children.
Allison F. Gilmour is assistant professor of special education at Temple University.

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