Explores high-impact instructional strategies that promote access, equity, and deep learning for all students.

Backward Design for Inclusive Learning

Course Overview: This course introduces the principles of backward design through the lens of inclusive education. Participants will learn how to plan units and lessons that begin with clear, flexible goals and design pathways that allow all students to access, engage with, and show understanding of the intended learning. Grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), this course supports educators in aligning outcomes, assessments, and instructional strategies in ways that reflect human variability.

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Assessment Design for Diverse Learners

Course Overview: This course focuses on designing assessment practices that are inclusive, meaningful, and responsive to learner diversity. Participants will explore how to build assessment tasks that are flexible, culturally relevant, and aligned with instructional goals. Emphasis is placed on using assessment to inform instruction, support student growth, and provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding.

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Inclusion in Assessment and Reporting Systems

This course addresses how schools and districts can embed inclusive principles into system-wide assessment and reporting practices. Participants will examine how traditional systems can inadvertently marginalize learners and explore how to develop more equitable structures. Focus is placed on rethinking grading, adapting reporting language, aligning with inclusive IEP practices, and building professional learning around system shifts.

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Building Background Knowledge for Deep Understanding

This course explores the role of background knowledge in supporting student understanding, engagement, and equity. It examines how students arrive with diverse lived experiences, cultural frames, and prior knowledge—and how inclusive educators can intentionally build background knowledge to level the playing field. The course emphasizes multiple entry points, pre-teaching strategies, and responsive planning that values students’ existing assets.

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Concept-Based Learning in Inclusive Classrooms

​This course introduces concept-based learning as a powerful approach to deepen understanding, promote transfer, and create inclusive learning pathways. Grounded in the belief that all learners can engage with big ideas, concept-based instruction focuses on the “why” behind content, helping students connect knowledge across disciplines and contexts. The course explores how inclusive educators can design for complexity without sacrificing accessibility.

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Visual and Multimodal Teaching Strategies

​This course explores how visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modes can be integrated into instructional design to support access, engagement, and understanding for all learners. Multimodal strategies move beyond text-based approaches, offering students multiple ways to connect with and express learning. The course emphasizes how intentionally designed visuals and sensory-rich tools can enhance inclusivity for students with diverse needs, including language learners and students with disabilities.

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Flexible Grouping and Learning Pathways

​This course equips educators to design learning experiences that honour student differences through intentional, flexible grouping and adaptive learning pathways. Moving beyond fixed ability groups, participants will explore structures that allow learners to collaborate, lead, and receive support in fluid ways based on task, interest, and need. The course provides strategies for co-creating goals, offering choices, and ensuring all students experience success in inclusive environments.

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Dialogic and Discourse-Rich Teaching

This course explores how meaningful dialogue and academic discourse can transform inclusive classrooms into vibrant communities of thought. Grounded in the belief that all students have valuable contributions to make, participants will learn strategies for fostering oral language development, encouraging multiple perspectives, and co-constructing knowledge through conversation. The course emphasizes how discourse supports cognitive development, language acquisition, social connection, and deep understanding across all subject areas.

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Scaffolded Independent Practice

​This course focuses on designing and delivering scaffolded independent practice that supports all learners in building confidence, competence, and autonomy. Participants will explore how to gradually release responsibility while providing flexible supports that enable diverse learners to work independently. The course highlights how clear goals, chunked tasks, accessible materials, and feedback loops can create meaningful opportunities for practice without compromising high expectations or learner dignity.

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Play-Based Learning Across Ages and Abilities

This course explores the power of play as a vehicle for learning, relationship-building, and inclusion across age groups and developmental stages. Participants will examine how play-based learning supports student agency, regulation, creativity, and deeper understanding when intentionally designed to be inclusive of all learners. The course also addresses how to balance curriculum outcomes with playful inquiry, especially for older students and those with complex needs.

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Storytelling as Pedagogy

​This course explores storytelling as a powerful pedagogical practice that fosters connection, cultural knowledge, memory, and meaning-making. Participants will examine how personal, oral, visual, and narrative forms of storytelling can deepen learning, support inclusion, and affirm diverse ways of knowing. Through inclusive design strategies, educators will learn to invite all learners—regardless of language, ability, or background—into the storytelling process as both listeners and storytellers.

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Weaving Indigenous Ways of Knowing into Teaching

This course invites educators to respectfully and meaningfully integrate Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing into their teaching practice. Participants will explore how land-based learning, oral traditions, relational approaches, and cyclical understandings of time and knowledge can enhance inclusive pedagogy. The course emphasizes collaboration with Indigenous communities and Knowledge Keepers, and supports participants in examining their own assumptions while fostering cultural safety in classrooms.

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Inclusive Learning in Rural and Multi-Grade Settings

​This course addresses the unique opportunities and challenges of implementing inclusive practices in rural and multi-grade schools. Educators will explore how to design instruction that meets diverse needs within mixed-age classrooms, leverage community partnerships, and build inclusive school cultures despite limited resources. Special attention is given to the leadership role of teachers and administrators in fostering collaborative, flexible, and creative solutions to support all learners in small school contexts.