An NCEO affiliated project, the Data Informed Accessibility – Making Optimal Needs-based Decisions (DIAMOND) project, has released an online professional development module on accessibility features and accommodations, DIAMOND: Making Accessibility Decisions for Everyone. This professional development module is the culmination of the research work conducted by the DIAMOND project, and is designed to give educators the knowledge and tools they need to make, implement, and evaluate sound decisions about accessibility features for the students in their classrooms. This module is designed to be completed at the educators own pace anywhere that there is Internet access. Bookmarking allows educators to pick up where they left off if they do not complete the entire course in one sitting.

This module guides teachers through an accessibility decision-making journey using a fun, interactive approach to learning, focusing on one of three students: Beau (a student who is struggling with some reading-related tasks), Daisy (a student with an Individualized Education Program), or Ana (an English learner). The teacher is presented with situations, allowed to make decisions about those situations based on the student’s needs, and then views the consequences of their decisions. If the teacher is not happy with the results, a different decision can be made. Additionally, if the teacher is not sure what to do, short videos of NCEO experts can be viewed. The situations that are presented cover the entire school year, including prep time for the upcoming year, mid-year review, state assessment time, and end of the year evaluation and revision.

This unique, interactive module is offered through the Minnesota Department of Education, and is hosted at the University of Minnesota. Besides the online module, registrants also receive access to reference documents, such as a glossary of terms and a crosswalk for how certain terms are used throughout the country; a set of discussion questions for groups to use after taking the online course, and links to a YouTube video collection. This collection contains all of the brief videos by NCEO experts contained in the online course, plus a continually updated list of related videos produced by NCEO. For more information, or to register for this course, visit DIAMOND: Making Accessibility Decisions for Everyone