Open Educational Resources: Education

This resource provides educators with a large assortment of tools to support the educational planning and instruction of all students with a range of learning needs that span from students with special needs, English Language Learners, and gifted and talented students. The Guidebook is especially useful for pre-service teachers during their practicum semester as it provides a comprehensive, step-by-step process for the teacher evaluation cycle that is now part of their practicum evaluation process prior to their endorsement for certification. Additionally, the Guidebook is crafted using the frameworks from the three evidenced-based research areas for the improvement of teaching and learning: UDL, PBIS and SEL.

The IRIS Center is a national center dedicated to improving education outcomes for all children, especially those with disabilities birth through age twenty-one, through the use of effective evidence-based practices and interventions. The site contains extensive, cost-free educator learning modules that contain research-driven content. It provides educators with certificates for cost-free professional development that includes coordinating topic notes and resources to use in their classroom.

Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports offers educators a complete tired system of interventions to supports students academic behaviors as well as their social emotional needs inside the learning environment. Users need only to click on the characteristic student behavior they wish to remediate and the site then shifts to a listing of common characteristics associated with the selected behavior and asks if these traits describe the students. By clicking on the “Yes” button, the user is brought to the Tier I intervention page that houses a comprehensive listing of interventions to choose from. By clicking on the desired intervention, the user is again provided with the rationale for the intervention and a selection of explicitly taught interventions to choose from. The site offers users Tier II and Tier III interventions as well and follows the same protocol for selecting the support that is needed for each student. Additionally the site offers “data collection” templates, meeting templates, and other documents to help progress monitor the remediation of the students’ behavior. The site also offers various referral forms that schools can use to create the PBIS structures for their building and to identify students of need or shift students from one intervention tier to another.

Rewordify is powerful, free, online software that helps teachers to differentiate their lessons and helps to improve reading, learning, and teaching.