Hacking Inclusion: Brainstorming AI Solutions for Students with Disabilities
This interactive, facilitated problem-solving session brings educators, researchers, and technologists together to explore real-world scenarios where AI can support K-12 and 18+ students with disabilities. Participants will engage with concrete case studies across various grade levels and learning contexts, then collaboratively brainstorm, prototype, and “hack” solutions using evidence-based AI tools.
The session emphasizes human-centered design, practical implementation, and equitable outcomes. As AI rapidly enters K-12 classrooms, this session ensures that solutions are equitable, evidence-based, and human-centered. Educators and researchers collaboratively design AI strategies that genuinely serve students with disabilities—not as afterthoughts, but as the starting point for innovation.
By the end of this facilitated problem-solving session, participants will:
Understand evidence base: Know the current research on AI effectiveness for K-12 students with disabilities (unanimously positive outcomes across dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, and other SLDs)
Practice human-centered design: Apply co-design principles to identify where AI can meaningfully reduce barriers WITHOUT creating new problems or cognitive dependence
Map tools to needs: Match specific research-based AI tools to real student scenarios and learning disabilities
Prototype solutions: Collaboratively design AI-supported intervention plans addressing the five case studies
Identify equity considerations: Recognize potential risks (digital divide, cognitive offloading, privacy, algorithmic bias) and design mitigations
Build actionable next steps: Leave with concrete implementation strategies, tool recommendations, and research-to-practice pathways
Facilitated By
Gavin Watts
Associate Professor, Texas A&M University – San Antonio
Dr. Gavin Watts is an Associate Professor in Special Education at Texas A&M University – San Antonio (A&M-SA). He has been a member of the faculty at A&M-SA since 2018 and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Classroom Behavior Management, Emotional-Behavioral Disorders, and Advanced Behavior Analysis/Interventions, among others. Dr. Watts received his B.S. in Special Education from Illinois State University, his M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Emotional-Behavioral Disorders (EBD) & Early Childhood Special Education from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to entering higher education, he was a special education teacher in classrooms ranging from early childhood through middle school, in public schools around Chicago.
His current areas of research include training and supervising students with EBD as cross-age tutors to promote skills in academic, behavioral, and social-emotional domains. He is interested in exploring and developing no/low-cost behavioral interventions for students with disabilities and evidence-based practices for supporting students with disabilities, as well as students with disabilities and first-generation college students in inclusive higher education settings. He is the recent recipient of the Provosts Award for A&M-SA’s Rising Scholar (2024-2025). Dr. Watts also serves on multiple peer-review boards for high-impact journals in the field of education, is a former editor of the Texas Education Review, and is the current consulting editor of College Teaching. He has also served as a project evaluator for large-scale educational program implementation grants, with a focus on innovative (i.e., artificial intelligence; A.I.) and social-emotional-behavioral support-embedded programming.
Dr. Watts is a co-principal investigator on grants totaling over $10 million. Most recently, his team has been awarded two multi-million dollar grants to develop and expand a post-secondary education program for individuals with intellectual disabilities (TU CASA / Transition University) as well as create an innovative training program for transition specialists who will more effectively assist individuals with disabilities to obtain competitive integrated employment and independent living. Dr. Watts is also a co-principal investigator on a $1.75 million grant from the Department of Education to develop and evaluate an on-campus childcare program for underserved post-secondary populations and their families (The Campus CARES / Young Jaguars Program).
