Collaborative Planning: Cooking Up an Inclusive Service-Learning Project

Collaborative planning between special education teachers and general education teachers that focuses on curriculum, instruction, and assessment can improve learning outcomes for students with and without disabilities. Service-learning is a teaching practice that can provide a flexible approach for teachers to collaboratively plan to meet the diverse learning needs of students, including students with severe disabilities who are also addressing individualized learning goals focused on life skills. This article presents a service-learning Project, co-led by the author, in which students in a media arts class and students with severe disabilities in a life skills special education class created a photographic cookbook. The Cookbook Project illustrates the collaborative planning process for a special education teacher and general education teacher at one high school engaged in service-learning.