About Us
Innovative and Sustainable Teaching Methods and Strategies to Ensure Students with Disabilities Receive a Quality Higher Education (IST), is a project based at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Center on Disability Studies (CDS) University Center for Excellence, funded by the Office of Postsecondary Education. The development of IST has been a team effort involving students with disabilities, faculty, groups representing students with disabilities, staff from disability support centers and faculty development centers within the UH system.
Goals and Objectives
The following activities outline our goals and objectives:
(a) synthesize research and information related to priority areas of need in the provision of postsecondary education services to students with disabilities; (b) develop innovative, effective, and efficient teaching, accommodation and support strategies for faculty and administrators, impacting on attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary for students with disabilities to retain and complete their program of study and; (c) deliver professional development and training sessions, within a rigorous field-test design with faculty and administrators throughout the UH system.
The targeted students include: (1) Students with hidden or non-visible disabilities, including those individuals with psychiatric, learning, environmental, cognitive, or chronic conditions; (2) Students whose life circumstances combine to make retention and matriculation difficult, such as a working parent with a disability, who often also battles poverty, lack of childcare, and a need for remedial educational courses; and (3) Students with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds and new immigrant status.
Project Descriptions
These goals and objectives are being met through:
Teaching All Students, Reaching All Learners Program
Teaching All Students, Reaching All Learners is a professional development training program designed for postsecondary education faculty and staff. Innovative ways of addressing disability and other forms of diversity in the postsecondary classroom are provided. A certificate of completion will be awarded upon successful completion of the training. Learn more about Teaching All Students, Reaching All Learners.
Mentoring Partnership Project
The Mentoring Partnership Project (MPP) incorporates faculty-student partnerships. Faculty and students are brought together in social and formal settings, in person and online. Support for an online mentoring community, student self-determination, and partnership facilitation is provided. Learn more about the Mentoring Partnership Project.
Visit Teaching All Students, Reaching All Learners to begin the professional development training program.
