The Resource Teacher Role In Universal Design For Learning Classrooms

Dr. Jennifer Katz receives international award for new book

Dr. Jennifer Katz

Dr. Jennifer Katz received the 2014 Exceptionality Education International (EEI) Book Prize Award for her book Resource Teachers: A Changing Role in the Three-Block Model of Universal Design for Learning on May 27th at CSSE-SCÉÉ  held at Brock University.

Resource Teachers is the follow-up book to her highly acclaimed Teaching to Diversity: The Three-Block Model of Universal Design for Learning, which has been recognized for its practical strategies for ensuring that all students can:

• Engage with course content;
• Demonstrate their knowledge;
• Develop a sense of belonging in increasingly diverse classrooms.

Resource Teachers was nominated for the EEI Book Prize Award as it offers resource teachers a way to see themselves differently. Jacqueline Specht, the EEI editor, stated, “Resources Teachers helps resource teachers understand how to support teachers in the inclusive, universal design for learning (UDL) classroom, rather than seeing themselves as educators whose sole responsibility is to teach those students who have been identified with special education needs. This model of support is needed in order to move towards a truly inclusive schooling environment.”

The EEI Book Prize Award is a peer-reviewed award and consists of a certificate and the winner’s name & book summary printed in an issue of Exceptionality Education International. This annual award is given by the journal to books that are judged by a panel from an international selection of reviewers.

The award is supported by the Canadian Association of Educational Psychology and will be presented at CSSE in Ottawa.

Exceptionality Education International (EEI) provides a forum for research and dialogue on topics relevant to the education of people with exceptionalities and how barriers to the full participation of all people in education can be reduced and removed. People with exceptionalities are those from groups who have been traditionally marginalized in education as the result of ability, culture, ethnicity, gender, identity, language, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. (Taken from the EEI journal website)

Allison Dunfield