INCREASING INCLUSION IN THE HETEROGENEOUS SECONDARY SOCIAL SCIENCE CLASSROOM THROUGH EXISTING RESEARCH-BASED STRATEGIES

This study focused on providing a strategy designed to support secondary social science teachers in providing instructional support for students with diverse learning profiles. The approach centered on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to enhance inclusive practices for a heterogeneous population of students. The approach included an embedded reading intervention and a focus on critical literacy approaches. The embedded reading intervention was designed to provide differentiated instructional approaches using a district-approved digital reading platform that allows for student autonomy through choice of the Lexile level for content-based reading sessions that generally occurred once a week. The embedded reading support involved regular conferencing with students to review individual reading data and provide strategies for approaching the reading tasks. The embedded reading program was designed to replicate an action research approach through the regular assessment of performance data. Secondly, a critical literacy approach was used to engage students in diverse urban settings. Protocols, in the form of self-audits, were conducted to provide a reflective opportunity to evaluate the curriculum for criticality and inclusivity. The self-audit provided a vehicle to ensure critical approaches to literacy were engaged throughout the school year. It may serve as a model for supporting other underserved student populations in other contexts and may serve as a foundation for further study. Justice, equity, and inclusion are underlying tenets of the study, which use the principles of UDL.