ULS as a Special Education Teacher
May 27, 2025

ULS as a Special Education Teacher

Amanda Jagears | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Unique Learning System

I use News2You daily during social studies with my high school special education students, and I use the ULS transition band while working with my high school students in the area of life/job skills. I have 9 students total. I also use News2You and ULS during extended school year/summer school.

Pros

  • differentiated reading levels with picture support
  • constantly updated articles and materials
  • ease of login for students with disabilities
  • broad variety of topics
  • easily accessible games for students of all cognitive levels

Cons

  • Features for planning units are very confusing and time consuming when it is only a small part of my curriculum
  • The transition band has a lot of great surveys and topics, but there needs to be more for students that will not work independently at a job when they leave school. Right now is more focused on students that will work in competitive employment.
  • I use the assessment and benchmarking piece a bit, but I don't assign things to my students to do independently because I don't really understand how to do it outside of planning a full unit.
  • gives me more data to share with shareholders
  • I save at least an hour of planning time for IEPs
  • benchmarking makes tracking reading levels a breeze
The planning tools are overwhelming for me, so I have not used it in that capacity. I have used it more as a supplement to my social studies and life skills classes, as well as additional benchmarking for my students' reading levels. Assessments for the few units that I have used for social studies are perfect for students with varied cognitive abilities and are simple to access. My students love the N2Y articles and expect them every day in social studies class.
I have utilized the transition assessments for informal data collection for transition IEPs this year and it has been a game changer. Stakeholders love to see more data, especially when we are planning for a student's adult life, so having many points of information has been useful and it has simplified my IEP writing process.
Planning units has been overwhelming to me and it took me months to become comfortable with navigation. For teachers that have difficulties with technology I would think that the user interface would be even more overwhelming and cause them to not use ULS at all.

Do you think Unique Learning System delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Unique Learning System's feature set?

Yes

Did Unique Learning System live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Unique Learning System go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Unique Learning System again?

Yes

ULS is well suited for whole group lessons for students with cognitive disabilities who have varied reading levels. Joey's Locker has some great games that match up with the N2Y articles, though the word search doesn't work with touch boards and a few of the games are too simple for my student population. The transition band for high school students has a ton of surveys that are helpful with planning for careers and independent living, but I wish there was more for our students that will not be working or living independently.

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