(lively music)
-: Welcome to "The Accessible Learning Experience,"
where we help you turn learning barriers
into learning opportunities.
On this episode,
CAST Technical Assistance specialist, Maggie Pickett,
is joined by Michelle Schladant and Austin Garilli
from Step Up AT,
and Jani Kozlowski
from the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center,
or ECTA.
ECTA is new to the podcast,
but you've heard from Michelle and Austin
on episode seven of our first season,
and we encourage you to check out that episode
if you want to learn more about the work of Step Up AT.
The AEM Center has enjoyed an exciting partnership
with both Step Up AT and ECTA.
All three centers are funded
by the Office of Special Education Programs, or OSEP,
to improve outcomes for children with disabilities.
Over the past year,
the teams collaborated on a workshop series
to help early childhood education providers
better understand
how the use of assistive technology, or AT,
and accessible education materials, or AEM,
relates to the successful development
of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities.
Let's find out how the AEM Center, ECTA, and Step Up AT
are working together
to foster inclusive early learning education.
-: Hello, it's so good to have each of you here with us today
on "The Accessible Learning Experience" podcast.
We've had the pleasure, the four of us,
of working together, now, for a little over a year,
and what a fun year it's been.
Seriously, it's been one of the biggest pleasures
of this last year of mine, professionally.
So Michelle and Austin, you're not new to the podcast,
and so Jani, around here,
we like to get to know people's accessibility story,
how you got to this place in your career,
what was your journey
through accessibility and inclusive practices.
So Michelle, let's start with you.
How did you find yourself leading the Step Up AT program?
What's your accessibility story?
-: Well, my accessibility story,
I'm not gonna go way back when I was a classroom teacher,
but I will say that as a classroom teacher,
I was introduced to assistive technology,
and that's what sparked my passion
for learning everything I could about assistive technology.
When I found myself working
at the University of Miami
Mailman Center for Child Development,
I really wanted to improve systems of care
for children with disabilities,
specifically in the education system,
and I went on to get my PhD
and started providing trainings to other people,
and that's really what sparked the Step Up AT program,
was trying to find ways to help support teachers
in their journey to provide inclusive practices
through the use of assistive technology,
and that's what started the Step Up AT Program.
-: Austin, so you work alongside Michelle.
What's your accessibility story? How did you get here?
-: So, like Michelle,
my accessibility story starts in the classroom,
but my path is a little bit different.
So I taught in the gifted classroom,
but one of the things,
one of the things that I do remember,
I had a student who was struggling,
and when he finally got his accommodations,
he finally had that IEP written,
I don't know that assistive technology
was given the consideration it should have been,
and when he came back to my classroom,
and I was supposed to be providing something for him,
there was a lack of professional development
and a lack of communication
about what exactly I should be doing for him.
I come to find, later, that there was somebody at the school
who was supposed to lead me on that journey,
but there was a lack of communication
about what needed to be done.
And so my role on the Step Up AT team
is to find those places
where professional development can make a difference.
And so here I am, walking that journey every day.
-: Wonderful; so Jani, now to you.
You've heard Michelle and Austin's accessibility story.
Would you mind sharing with us your accessibility story,
and then how you ended up
at the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
focused on inclusion?
-: Well, thanks, Maggie.
I have to say that my accessibility story
has really come into 3D focus, I think,
through these new friendships that I have
with you, and with Michelle, and Austin,
because my focus has really been
on inclusion of children with disabilities,
young children with disabilities.
I worked as a disability services coordinator
with Migrant Head Start,
I was the disability services and inclusion lead
with the National Center on Early Childhood Development
Teaching and Learning,
which is a Head Start national center,
and then more recently, I've come
to the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
in Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina,
and even wrote a book in 2022, about inclusion,
for early childhood educators.
And so this has been an interesting new discovery for me
in these conversations that we've had together
about how can accessibility
and accessible educational materials
foster inclusion.
So I feel like I'm still on this journey, and learning,
but it's been pretty fun,
and I feel like I've had lots of light-bulb moments
with you all, over the past year.
-: Such powerful stories, thank you for sharing.
So as I alluded to a little bit ago,
we've been working together for a year,
and all of us kind of represent these different centers
that have been funded by OSEP,
the US Department of Education
Office of Special Education Programs.
So we have Step Up AT,
really focused on assistive technology,
the provision and consideration of assistive technology
for our early learners,
we've got Jani, at the ECTA,
focused on inclusive practices
and building these inclusive systems,
and then we have our work at the AEM Center,
where we're focused on the gamut of ages
and providing accessible materials,
with one of our components really focused on early learning,
and we've been working together
and really trying to hone in
how these three centers can work together and explore
how AT, AEM, and inclusion can kind of work together.
So Jani, can you tell us and share with our audience
a little bit more about that overarching concept
that we've been focused on?
-: Sure, so, you know, we know from the research
that children with and without disabilities benefit
from inclusive settings,
and in particular, inclusion right from the start,
so even in preschool, children who are included, are served
alongside children with and without disabilities,
tend to see much stronger outcomes,
and what it also does is sets the trajectory
for inclusion in elementary school,
inclusion in middle school,
inclusion in high school,
and really, inclusion in life,
and so what we've come to find out
through this work together
is that when there is inclusion in early childhood
and early childhood educators are empowered
with tools to foster inclusion
through accessibility supports,
they get those supports early,
and then that leads to having those supports,
again, when they need them,
when they start in the kindergarten or K12 system.
So I think that's really been our bigger picture,
is thinking about how can we make this clear
for people across this field
and all of the folks that are interested
in supporting children with disabilities.
-: Absolutely, and Michelle, why is this focus
this very thoughtful, intentional focus
impactful to the field of early childhood education?
-: The focus on inclusion is so important
to early childhood education
because children with disabilities are served
in so many different settings in early childhood.
A child with a disability may be in a Head Start program,
they may be in a public school special education program,
they might be in a community-based,
voluntary pre-kindergarten program,
and so the concept and idea of inclusive practices
is so important,
because young children are going
to these early childhood environments
in their neighborhood, near their home,
and it's so important that we're thinking
about the use of assistive technology,
accessible educational materials,
to ensure that these young learners
are in inclusive settings,
and are having the support that they need
in order to benefit from these naturalistic settings.
-: So let's take that a step farther,
because I think you both touched
on really important concepts.
Austin, when we kinda got together with our state partners
and we started these trainings,
we were really intentional about illustrating
what those inclusive practices,
fostered by these accessibility strategies,
the provision of assistive technology,
provision of accessible materials,
what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like
in these early learning settings.
Why is that a critical piece?
Why do we choose to start there?
-: I think that's easy.
Whenever you work collaboratively, it's really important
that everybody gains shared understanding
of whatever problem it is that you wanna solve,
and we invited early childhood folks
from many different states
who have a really deep understanding
of preschool instruction,
we brought together folks with great knowledge
of assistive technology and AEM
and inclusive practices,
but because Step Up AT resources kind of meet
at that intersection,
it just made it that easy
for Michelle and I to demonstrate authentically
exactly what our project, our collaboration,
all those states together,
what they were striving for,
using the videos.
So taking a really deep look
at what is actually happening in the classrooms
and what kind of AT is really out there
I think was very impactful,
so we all were able to have that shared understanding
of what we were going to do,
and where we're going to go from there.
-: Yeah, absolutely.
Jani, Michelle, when we worked through that experience
with these early childhood educators,
we really focused on this three-tiered instructional model
and trying to illustrate these inclusive practices
within that three-tiered instructional model.
Can you tell us more about what that model is,
and how we leveraged it to structure our discussions,
and how we really kind of brought these practices to life?
-: So when we were thinking
about assistive technology,
accessible educational materials, and inclusion,
we were thinking about it similar to the pyramid model.
So at the base of the pyramid,
where you're serving most of your learners,
we were thinking about,
when we were demonstrating our assistive technology,
we were showing examples of assistive technology
that could be used across a broad range of learners,
and at the bottom of the pyramid, it was,
most of your learners fall within that bottom pyramid,
but then there are some in the middle of the pyramid
that might need just a little bit of help,
and so we demonstrated the use of assistive technology
and accessible educational materials
that could fit that middle tier
of providing support for that middle tier of students.
And then in the top are the few students
that need extra support, or specialized support,
and we demonstrated how you could use assistive technology
to support those students
that needed more individualized, specific help.
But the interesting thing about the pyramid model,
and when we were showing the different examples
of assistive technology
is that depending on
who you're using the assistive technology with,
or for what purposes,
the assistive technology cuts across
the universal, the some, the few,
and so the idea behind the three-tiered model
was that yes, you can use assistive technology
at these various levels, to promote inclusion,
but many times, it's the same type of assistive technology,
it just depends on who are you using it with
and for what purposes.
So there's a lot of overlap.
The point that we were making
is that we can use assistive technology
and accessible educational materials,
teachers can use these tools
to help support instruction for all students,
but for those that need individualized or specific help,
we can individualize the assistive technology
and the accessible educational materials
for those few students who need that very specific help.
-: This was such a key takeaway for so many participants.
It was like, "Oh, yeah, we do that. Oh, yeah!"
There were these light-bulb moments
as we like to say, right?
But there were some other pretty key takeaways
that we and our state and local partners captured
during our time together
as part of this learning experience.
Austin, can you kind of maybe
just share a few of those takeaways with us?
-: Absolutely, Michelle and I like to call them
the magic three (laughs),
because there's always three big things
that you can take away,
and I think we captured it in our work as well.
You know, the first one is collaboration.
Nobody was meant to tackle this on their own,
and so we like to say
bringing people to the table, right?
So it's getting all those perspectives together
and filling in those knowledge gaps,
because together, we're stronger,
we're more powerful with that knowledge.
I like to think that when we bring those people to the table
we have a,
creating a small army
of believers (laughs) in inclusion, right,
and we're strengthening them every day.
I guess the second one we would say
is the role of policy.
Hitting those highest levels,
we know, when we're talking about systems change,
that's what's gonna be the most impactful,
so, you know, looking at that knowledge about AEM and AT,
knowing that that drives policy,
and then, again, coming together
to talk about where those gaps are.
And that plays into the third takeaway,
which is that professional development, right,
because when you are finding those gaps
and getting those people together,
that's when the creativity takes place,
that's when we can get some really creative solutions
around spreading the good word,
that's how I like to say it,
spreading the good word on assistive technology and AIM,
and really bringing in,
or getting out those perspectives
to a greater audience,
and then putting the money behind it,
because that's what's going to get us moving,
is to look for that funding
and make some of these things a reality.
So I would say I think those are the three things,
and I really feel like
our state partners, they really got that.
-: Absolutely, and we, as this group,
had some key takeaways as well,
and those key takeaways, really,
are feeding, maybe, our next steps and our excitement
for the future of this partnership together
as federally-funded projects and services
that are being provided by OSEP.
So Jani, what are some things,
how are we learning from this
and taking it forward into the future?
-: Yeah, that was part of the fun of this I think, wasn't it?
We were able to learn about each other's systems.
Like, for example, I didn't realize
that there was an accessibility lead in each state,
and that early childhood leaders
could reach out to those folks as resources,
identify lending laboratories,
and other kinds of resources for families,
and so because this was new to me,
I figured it was new to my colleagues, as well,
in early childhood inclusion,
and so we connected with the Head Start work group
on disability services and inclusion,
so Maggie, and Michelle, and Austin,
you all came and did a presentation for that work group.
Michelle and Austin came
to our inclusion community of practice
and shared some of the Step Up AT videos,
and that group was so excited
to be able to know about those videos
and use them in professional development going forward,
and I think we were able to share some of our work
around the inclusion indicators
that have hopefully been helpful
to the work that you all do,
thinking about accessibility in a broader sense.
So going forward,
I hope we can continue those partnership efforts.
We did a joint presentation
at the OSEP leadership conference this summer,
which was a lot of fun,
and we've been talking about maybe a national webinar
to share some of our lessons learned
and how we've been able to crosspollinate our learning
across the different sectors within our field.
So I'm excited about these future plans.
-: A lot of really great opportunities lie ahead,
opportunities that, again,
we were all aware of our own buckets of opportunities,
but when we...
It's that collective intelligence, right?
When we collaborate and we build together,
we find new opportunities to make those connections.
It's been a lot of fun.
To kind of wrap things up,
how can people stay in touch with you all,
again, thinking about that collective intelligence,
how could people follow you and stay in touch
and learn learn more
about the great work that you all do?
Jani, let's start with you.
-: So I am on LinkedIn,
so I put that link in the show notes.
I also have some resources that might be helpful
in the show notes.
There's a link to my book, which is called
"Every Child Can Fly:
An Early Childhood Educator's Guide to Inclusion,"
as well as some national resources.
There is a policy statement on inclusion
that our membership organizations have put together,
as well as a joint position statement on inclusion
from the Departments of Education
and the Departments of Health and Human Services,
and those early childhood technical assistance
inclusion indicators
that I mentioned
are also linked in the show notes.
So, hopefully, those will be helpful.
-: Awesome; Michelle, Austin,
how can folks stay in touch with you all?
-: So the first thing they should do
is go to www.stepupat.org.
That is the hub
for all the resources that we offer on assistive technology.
Now, we're a toolkit,
so, you know, in addition to videos, we have modules,
and some of those modules can help you
or people that you know
right in the thick of things
coach their own staff, their own teachers
in assistive technology
and accessible educational materials.
But if you are at any walk of life
and you want to take some of those modules
and learn a little bit deeper
about how that plays out in the early childhood classroom,
all of our materials are free.
You sign on, but those are open to you.
We have all sorts of resources, paper resources,
that you can get electronically at our website as well.
And you can find us, too.
We have mentor coaches on our team,
so if you've got specifics,
we can pinpoint those for you as well.
-: So many great resources. Thank you all for sharing.
I'm gonna throw one more in.
At the AEM center, we have our early childhood synthesis
of knowledge development findings.
This synthesis summarizes
the knowledge development activities
that inform our critical components for early childhood.
It's a literature review
and a few other really insightful pieces of information.
Check it out at aem.cast.org.
We'll put the direct link to that resource
in the show notes.
Well, thank you all for being here today.
We appreciate the partnership, continued partnership,
and opportunities to work together
to ensure that all children have access
to equitable learning opportunities.
Thanks again.
(lively music)
-: Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of "The Accessible Learning Experience," brought to you
by the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials
at CAST.
You can find us on the web at aem.cast.org.
There, you'll find show notes, with links
to all of the resources mentioned on each episode.
Thanks again for listening,
and remember, accessibility is everyone's responsibility.
(lively music)
The contents of this podcast were developed
under a cooperative agreement
with the US Department of Education.
However, those contents do not necessarily represent
the policy of the US Department of Education,
and you should not assume endorsement
by the federal government.