Instructional Planning and Delivery
Instructional Planning and Delivery
This domain tests how teachers plan and deliver accessible instruction across content areas, using universal design, explicit language teaching, and appropriate supports.
Core rules and concepts
- Plan for access from the start: identify the language demands of the lesson, preteach vocabulary and background knowledge, and provide visual representations. UDL calls for multiple means of representation, engagement, and action/expression.
- For students using interpreters, speak directly to the student, pace speech, avoid talking while writing on the board, and clarify turn-taking. The interpreter is not the student's aide or disciplinarian.
- Caption all media; use quality captions, not auto-captions alone. Provide transcripts and visual supports.
- Literacy instruction should build phonological awareness carefully, bridge ASL and English, teach morphology and syntax explicitly, and use frequent comprehension checks.
- Itinerant teachers must collaborate with general educators, co-plan, and monitor accommodations; direct service time should target IEP goals, not replace all classroom instruction.
Worked example
A fifth-grade teacher plans a water-cycle lesson with a DHH student who uses ASL. Before the lesson, the teacher preteaches condensation, evaporation, and precipitation with a diagram, shares the graphic organizer, and checks that the interpreter has the vocabulary list. During the lesson, the teacher shows a captioned video, pauses for discussion, and speaks at a moderate pace while facing the class. The reasoning: access is planned, not improvised.
Traps that cost marks
- Speaking to the interpreter instead of the student.
- Showing uncaptioned videos "because the student can lip-read."
- Simplifying content so much that grade-level standards are lost.
- Assuming the student will self-advocate without instruction.