Building Capacity with Assistive Technology in Teacher Education
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22044567 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alicia M Drelick (0000-0002-4485-5858, Rowan University), Brent C Elder (0000-0003-2638-6143, Rowan University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 418 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Education Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/educsci16030418 |
| OpenAlex | W7134815982 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 38 |
Assistive Technology (AT) is legally mandated via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504, and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), but remains unevenly implemented in K-12 schools, in part due to teachers having limited preparation for selecting and using AT in inclusive classrooms. In this practice-oriented article, we describe how we designed two co-taught courses to systematically embed AT within a special education teacher preparation program. Guided by Disabilities Studies in Education (DSE) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), we organized instruction around the AT Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (AT-MTSS), positioning service teachers as being responsible for various assistive technologies. In this article, we outline course structures and assignments, including accessibility labs grounded in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG); structured labs for text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and AAC tools; field-based AT consideration and intervention using the SETT Framework; and an emerging focus on ethical consideration around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in special education. We describe an emerging co-teaching practice, “One Teach–One Tech” through which we pair methods-based instruction with a real-time model of AT. We argue that the intentional embedding of assistive technology in pre-service programs is critical to expanding technology-assisted instruction and realizing the access promised to students under policies (i.e., IDEA, Section 504, and ESSA)
Assistive technology · Focus group · Special education · Special section · Teacher education · Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research · Hearing Impairment and Communication
Presuming Competence
Unpacking teachers’ intentions to integrate technology
Disability Studies in Education
Co-Teaching
Toward Inclusive Education? Focusing a Critical Lens on Universal Design for Learning
A DisCrit-Informed Person-Centered Approach to Inclusive Education in Italy
Predicting preservice teachers' intention to use technology-enabled learning
From attitudes to practice
| Highly cited | No |
|---|