Create Inclusive, Thriving Learning Environments for Students with Special Education Needs

In classrooms all across the U.S., there are students like Alex, who is articulate and bright but has a severe form of dyslexia. In the traditional classroom, Alex is constantly humiliated by being asked to read aloud or failing time-sensitive quizzes, leading him to believe he is "stupid" and causing him to shut down. The compelling part: He excels when using speech-to-text software or discussing concepts verbally, which the traditional paper-and-pencil model ignores.

There are also students like Maya, a student with Autism Spectrum Disorder who is included in a general education history class. She is a history expert, but when the teacher changes the schedule unexpectedly or assigns a group project, she has a meltdown due to the shift in routine and social demands. The teacher, though well-meaning, lacks the specialized training to de-escalate or offer a quick, appropriate accommodation.

Over 7.5 million students—approximately 15 percent of all public school enrollment—received special education and related services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the 2022-23 school year. This number has steadily increased over the last decade, placing an ever-growing strain on traditional, one-size-fits-all classroom models (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2024).

Enter into the picture next gen learning (NGL). This shift in educational practice and structure aims to prepare all students for success. It is a broad concept encompassing models that move beyond tradition, one-size-fits-all schooling. NGL is known for its student-centered, mastery focused, and technology enhanced approach to education. Alongside this, there is a mutually reinforcing strategy that connects the “what” of modern education reform with the “how and why” of equitable design. This is known as designing at the margins. This is the idea that designing for the most complex needs first results in a more robust and inclusive system for all learners.

Keeping this in mind, let’s look at how next gen learning strategies, by focusing on personalization and flexibility, offer significant potential to create truly inclusive, thriving learning environments for students with special education needs, despite inherent challenges.

The Core Challenges for Special Education in Traditional Schooling

The challenge for traditional, fixed-pace, and uniform curriculum models is that they are fundamentally designed for the "average" student in a predictable learning environment. This rigidity makes it nearly impossible to accommodate the sometimes intense and varied needs of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or those in contained classroom settings.

Let’s look at some ways that traditional classroom settings can harm students with exceptional needs:

Failure to Support Individualized Pace and Mastery

• Fixed Pacing: The curriculum moves to the next unit on the calendar regardless of student learning, causing students with IEPs who need more time to fall further behind and students who need acceleration to become disengaged. Since IEPs mandate mastery or competency-based learning, instruction must continue until each student demonstrates proficiency in their individualized goals. This means that students with IEPs often struggle to thrive in fixed pacing environments, where the pace of instruction does not adapt to their unique learning needs.

• Uniform Assessment: Standardized, high-stakes, end-of-unit tests are the primary measure to gauge success in a classroom. These tests often focus solely on content recall and a single right answer. When it comes to students with exceptional needs, the IEPs mandate accommodations and modifications for assessment (e.g., small-group testing, read-alouds, simplified language, reduced answer choices) which the standard test format often cannot provide without invalidating the score.

• Credit Accrual: Credits for graduation are often given based on "seat time" (number of hours spent in class), penalizing students who may need to take longer to master content or require a different structure to receive services.When we look at successful self-contained classroom models, these often require additional time to integrate therapy, life skills, or functional academics, which the fixed hourly schedule and seat-time requirement prohibit.

Inability to Provide Multiple Means of Engagement and Expression

• Teacher Led Lectures: The primary mode of instruction is the teacher lecturing and the student completing a worksheet or passively taking notes, heavily relying on auditory and visual processing. IEPs often require specialized instruction based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. This involves presenting information in multiple ways (such as visually, through movement, or by listening), allowing students to express their understanding in different forms (like speaking, creating videos, or drawing), and using strategies that keep students engaged.

• Standard Textbooks: Most curriculum relies on grade-level textbooks with dense text, complex vocabulary, and few differentiated supports. Many students, particularly those in contained settings, require materials at multiple reading levels, the use of assistive technology, or simplified graphic organizers that a standard textbook package does not inherently provide.

• Lack of Context: The curriculum is often academic and abstract, disconnected from real-world application. For students focused on transition, functional skills, or vocational goals, the curriculum must be highly relevant and contextualized, requiring extensive modification of content that is often too time-consuming for a teacher working within a uniform model.

The good news is that there is a solution to these challenges. To deliver on the next gen promise, educators must proactively design learning environments that provide multiple means for students to access content, remain motivated, and demonstrate their mastery, moving away from inflexible, standardized approaches. Universal Design for Learning allows for multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement.

How Next Gen Learning Strategies Promote Accessibility and Inclusion

Next generation learning (NGL) builds on the ideas of inclusive education by focusing on making learning accessible and welcoming for every student. Instead of adding accommodations after lessons are made, NGL designs incorporate flexible lessons from the start. NGL uses different teaching methods centered on students to remove obstacles, value all kinds of learners, and provide fair ways for everyone to succeed.

Competency-Based Learning

This approach allows students to progress at their own pace, which is essential for addressing learning gaps and different processing speeds. As Robert Barnett writes in Meeting Every Learner’s Needs, “When we teach one lesson to all of our students every day, we are intentionally failing to meet the needs of those who are ahead or behind.” A mastery focus ensures that students fully acquire skills before moving forward. Those who need more time can take it without penalty, while students who grasp concepts quickly can advance, so pacing never becomes a barrier. Competency-based learning provides clear competencies and rubrics, offering precise targets—especially helpful for students who struggle with unclear expectations or abstract grading. These clear goals give students control over when and how they show what they’ve learned.

Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is a flexible teaching method where students engage with meaningful, real-world tasks. A core strength of PBL lies in its support for accessibility and inclusion because it offers varied ways for students to demonstrate mastery. Instead of relying solely on traditional tests, students can choose how to show what they’ve learned-like making a video, giving a presentation, or writing a report-allowing students to leverage their individual strengths and preferred modes of expression. Because projects connect to authentic situations, students find the work more engaging and maintain higher motivation. This flexibility ensures that learning is accessible to a wider range of learners, promoting an inclusive learning environment.

Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) focuses on students asking their own questions and exploring answers. This approach boosts engagement and helps build deeper understanding. IBL supports inclusion by encouraging student independence and using different ways to present information. It lets students choose what to investigate, giving them ownership of their learning. Students gather information from many sources like texts, interviews, and experiments, which exposes them to diverse ways of learning.

Tech-Enabled Learning

Technology is what makes the flexibility of next generation learning possible. Digital tools like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and adjustable fonts—often required by IEPs—help students access learning in ways that work best for them. Learning management systems make it easier to tailor content and provide support that fits each student’s needs. These tools also give teachers real-time data to offer targeted help or challenges, ensuring every student stays engaged. Technology allows students to show their learning in different ways, such as through videos or digital art, supporting Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Additionally, assistive technology provides communication tools for students who are non-verbal or have difficulties expressing themselves.

Community and Industry-Supported Learning

Connecting the classroom to external partners (mentors, internships, real-world sites) makes learning relevant and accessible by providing authentic contexts and opportunities for career exploration and transition services that are required by law for older students with IEPs.These partnerships provide compelling, real-world challenges that increase engagement and motivation for students who may not thrive in purely academic settings. This type of learning also offers opportunities for students to practice/demonstrate skills in an authentic environment providing an alternative to traditional assessment thus building essential life and career skills.

Strategies for Implementing Next Gen Learning in Special Education Settings

To successfully implement next generation learning in special education, we must go beyond just meeting requirements. Instead, NGL strategies should be used as a clear guide to actively design strong, inclusive learning experiences.

Intentional Universal Design Learning Integration

It's not enough to have the NGL strategy; the lesson must be designed from the start with UDL principles in mind. This can include:

• Proactive “Pre-Teaching” in Multiple Formats: Before a unit starts, identify key vocabulary and concepts that may be barriers. This may require using varied media such as videos with captions, graphic organizers, text-to-speech options, and use of manipulatives.

• Choice Boards: Allow students to demonstrate mastery through oral presentations, digital creation, writing analysis using assistive technology, a physical model, or another option.

• Relevance and Autonomy: Explicitly connect lesson content to students' Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals and personal interests. Offer structured choices in learning activities (e.g., choice of research topic, peer-to-peer or individual work) to foster a sense of ownership.

• Deep Collaboration: Effective NGL requires consistent, shared planning time between general education and special education teachers to translate UDL principles into practice and ensure IEP goals are embedded into the general curriculum. This may look like co-planning, IEP goal integration, and station teaching models.

Data-Driven Differentiation

This strategy allows teachers to focus on individual growth and mastery over pace. Data is key to ensuring differentiation is timely and relevant.

• Continuous Progress Monitoring: Implement frequent, low-stakes formative assessments (digital quick checks, exit tickets) that capture data on specific skills, not just final scores. This aligns with the IEP review process.

• Targeted Intervention: Use the assessment data to group and regroup students flexibly. Differentiation in an NGL setting means providing a different means to reach the firm goal, rather than lowering the goal itself.

• Student Data Notebooks: Empower students to track their own progress toward academic and behavioral goals. This shift to self-monitoring is a powerful metacognitive strategy that builds self-awareness, especially for students with learning differences.

Focus on Soft Skills and Self-Regulation

The ultimate goal of school is to develop "expert learners"—students who are resourceful, knowledgeable, and strategic. This requires explicit instruction in non-academic skills.

• Executive Function Instruction: Teach organizational and planning skills explicitly using UDL's Action & Expression guidelines. Strategies include: providing planning templates and checklists for every project, using timers and visual schedules, and modeling how to break down large tasks.

• Self-Regulation Strategies: Build in frequent opportunities for students to reflect on their learning process. Use prompts like: "What was the most challenging part of this task?" and "What support did you choose to use today?" This helps students identify effective coping and learning strategies, strengthening the affective network (UDL Engagement).

• Goal Setting: Work with students to set short-term, measurable goals tied to their IEP, teaching them how to monitor and adjust their own effort and strategy based on performance feedback.

Challenges and Opportunities

Implementing next generation learning (NGL) models in special education settings offers a pathway to inclusion, but it is not without hurdles. The following section outlines both the challenges that require systemic solutions and the unique opportunities that emerge when NGL principles are correctly applied.

Challenges

• Teacher Training: The transition to an NGL environment demands significant pedagogical change and requires new skills. Ensuring general and special education teachers are trained in the relevant technology and pedagogical shift can prove a burden for some districts.

• Resource Equity: NGL is heavily reliant on flexible digital tools and low student-to-teacher ratios to be effective. Ensuring access to necessary technology, software, and class-size ratios, especially in under-resourced schools, can prove to be detrimental to these schools’ budgets.

• Measuring Progress: One of the most significant implementation challenges lies in measuring progress. NGL's strength is its flexible assessment, allowing students to demonstrate competency through varied means (portfolios, presentations, projects). However, while this may match requirements for IEP accommodations, this can clash with the standardized, compliance-driven IEP goal-reporting and state accountability measures that often rely on traditional metrics.

Opportunities

• Meaningful Integration: NGL naturally facilitates integration by shifting the focus from fixing the student to fixing the environment. Because NGL lessons are designed with UDL flexibility for everyone, special education students can move out of isolated, contained classrooms to learn in general education environments with meaningful, embedded supports—not just accommodations. This integration allows all students to benefit from the same flexible instruction and promotes a classroom culture that values diverse thinking.

• Beyond Compliance: Perhaps the greatest opportunity of the next gen promise is the chance to move beyond compliance. NGL shifts the educational purpose for students with disabilities from merely achieving minimal benchmarks to actively cultivating excellence. By offering multiple means of engagement and expression, NGL enables students to demonstrate talents and strengths that might be masked by traditional assessments, empowering them to become purposeful, motivated, and strategic expert learners—the true goal of inclusive education.

When next generation learning is planned from the start to include everyone, it becomes the essential way to create a truly inclusive education system. By using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles—offering different ways to engage, learn, and show what students know—NGL removes barriers that often isolate special education students. This changes education from just providing accommodations to building a learning environment that works for all students.

I issue a direct challenge to educators, administrators, and policy-makers: Your priority must be the substantial investment and training in NGL models. Specifically, you must view every NGL adoption—from competency-based learning to new technologies—through the critical lens of special education accessibility. This means funding deep co-planning for general and special education teachers, ensuring resource equity for all schools, and evolving accountability metrics to value flexible, mastery-based demonstrations of learning. The success of our most complex learners is the true measure of our system's quality.

The next gen promise is not just about a better curriculum; it is about human potential. When we embrace NGL and UDL, we stop asking students to change to fit the system, and instead, we build a system that flexes to fit their genius. The transformative potential lies in giving every single learner—regardless of their starting point—the tools and the agency to master their learning and truly thrive in a future they design.

Photo at top courtesy of Thrive.