Inclusion
Every Student is Seen and Safe to Learn
Designing an educational experience that works for all learners.
At The Education Collaboratory, disability, identity, and learner variability is at the foundation of our research and tools, ensuring every educational experience supports every student who will encounter it.
We partner with schools and systems worldwide so that every student is seen and safe to learn. Our goal is to move from adapting systems for inclusion to designing systems that are inclusive by default.
Our Focus
We are working to ensure that education systems work for all learners. We co-create tools and resources that empower educators, researchers, and policymakers to champion learner variability and design inclusively by default.
What We’re Building
We are working with students and educators to actively create the frameworks, toolkits, and language measures needed to make inclusion the standard design for every school. Our research includes:
- collaborative resources that empower educators and school organizations to embed inclusive principles deeply into daily communication and institutional practices.
- practical tools that translate inclusive practices into immediate classroom use.
- analyses of how disability is discussed across education, media, and policy.
- practical tools that translate research into immediate classroom use.
What We Learned
Learning conditions are measurable.
Across thousands of students and more than 100 schools, we developed and validated assessments that reliably capture the classroom and school conditions that shape how students learn and thrive.
Data alone doesn’t change practice.
Schools that engaged in our co-design cycle, including structured debriefings with their teams, were more likely to make data-backed changes than those without support.
Inclusion is a validity problem.
When data doesn’t reflect all students, school and district leaders are missing key insights on students’unique experiences and expertise that are essential to the decision-making process.
Scale requires infrastructure.
Learning conditions improve when schools have the data, tools, support, and time to use evidence well, not when they adopt a new curriculum.
What This Means
Educators
Educators can use these tools and resources to audit your classroom materials and environments and ensure your daily lessons are accessible to all learners.
Policymakers
Policymakers can use our resources to ensure policies and programs respect and empower youth with learning differences.
