I am just getting back from the 2024 South Special Education Congress in Texas. This conference was a unique experience where we could meet with district leaders regarding their most pertinent initiatives moving into the 24-25 school year.
We saw several consistent themes across our meetings.
Special Education Directors across the country are concerned with the following:
- Supporting teachers with quality pre-made curriculum resources for diverse learners and programs
- Implementing inclusive literacy solutions
- Making data-informed decisions about products and instruction
Fortunately, Clicker offers a solution.
1. Pre-made curriculum resources for diverse learners and programs
One of the biggest challenges district leaders are facing this school year is supporting teachers with a wide range of learning needs in a single class or program. We were told time and time again, “Teachers are overwhelmed by the different writing / achievement levels in their classes.”
With every Clicker subscription, districts have access to thousands of high-quality, ready-made Clicker resources created by our curriculum team, comprised of several former educators.
These resources are designed for teachers to use immediately. They have built-in reading and writing support and can also be customized based on specific needs.
2. Implementing inclusive literacy solutions
District leaders explained that staff are struggling to learn and implement several different solutions to meet the needs and literacy learning objectives for all students in their classes and programs.
Clicker is the complete writing solution, providing every student with just the right level of support and challenge based on their individual learning needs. Clicker was designed with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in mind, meaning that Clicker aims to address the needs of all learners.
We talked a lot about what I would call “the Clicker basics”: speech support, prediction, spell check and voice notes, and the ability to customize built-in (accessibility) settings.
For learners with visual needs, we can tailor the contrast and font:
For learners that would benefit from visual cues when writing, we can provide picture-support in our Word Prediction, Spell Checker and the Clicker Sets:
By embedding these options into a solution implemented for all students, every learner gets what they need to be successful, and no one feels left out by using a different solution from their peers.
3. Data-informed decisions about products and instruction
District leaders are spending valuable dollars to support teachers and students. They need to ensure that those dollars are well spent and monitor the impact of selected solutions.
Clicker Analytics is an amazing tool that works in the background to track and analyze how students generate their writing.
Data gathered via Clicker Analytics can be monitored across classes and programs to ensure Clicker is doing what it needs to at a district level: improving literacy rates and student outcomes.
Clicker Analytics also provides evidence that could be used for progress monitoring towards individual student goals throughout the year.
Analytics offers data on which Clicker tools are being used to produce writing, providing evidence that could be used for progress monitoring.
What next?
If you are looking to address some of these same needs in your district, schedule a call with us here:
Or to find out more about how Clicker is supporting diverse learners in districts across the country:
- Read how educators edit LearningGrids resources to support diverse needs
- Explore how Clicker creates an equal learning experience
- Hear from Mark Surabian about Clicker and UDL
