The Teacher′s Guide to Inclusive Education

750 Strategies for Success!

Peggy A. Hammeken

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781890455101, 9781483347196
• eBook ISBN: 9781452261331
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Formerly published by Peytral Publications

The Teacher?s Guide to Inclusive Education: 750 Strategies for Success! provides practical, teacher-tested strategies appropriate for all students in the inclusive classroom, including learners with special needs, at-risk students, and youngsters who need additional support.

This guide covers topics such as reading, written language, and organizational skills, and includes 100 reproducibles to aid in communication, lesson planning, student behavior, accommodations, assessments, and more.

"If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you obviously have never been in bed with a mosquito!"

Michele Walker

Chapter One

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Inclusive Education

Special education is a service that provides support for qualifying students. The law requires that students who receive special education services participate with their peers in academic and nonacademic activities unless there is a justifiable reason and this reason is documented in the student’s Individual Education Program (IEP). The IEP must address all aspects of the student’s life, including academics, social and emotional issues, the student’s transportation and even extracurricular activities. In order to exclude the student from the academic areas in the classroom, the IEP Team must consider the benefits of related services, modifications, adaptations and additional school supports. Some of the supports and services provided to a student may include curricular and environmental changes, team teaching, use of technology and alternative instructional strategies, to name only a few. Not all students will be included in the classroom environment, but with additional support and services, many more students will. A continuum of services is still available, but no longer is a student automatically placed into a separate classroom or resource room when the student qualifies for special education services.

Chapter Note:

On page 31, you will find a complete list of the reproducible forms referred to throughout this chapter. The reproducible forms are located in the Appendix.

So how is an inclusive program created? Federal law provides the guidelines, but schools have the flexibility to develop a program that fits the individual environment. There is no blueprint for an inclusive education program, as the program is developed based on the services required. Therefore, since each individual student has specific documented needs, the compilation of the type and amount of service (direct or indirect minutes) and additional support (paraprofessionals) is what determines the structure of the program. Proper implementation takes time, preparation and extensive planning. Whether you are in the preliminary planning stage or have an inclusive program in place, you will find information in this chapter to help with your stage—and all stages—of the program development.

Ideally, inclusive education programs are developed during the spring for the upcoming school year. When planned in the spring, some schools opt to develop a Leadership Team. This team usually includes administrators, teachers and support staff. The role of this team is to oversee the initial planning stage and present the findings to the remainder of the staff. During the planning stage, the general and special educators can group and place students into the classrooms, and when the new school year begins, all systems are in place and ready! This is the ideal situation—but often not the reality. A more realistic scenario is that when teachers return to school in the fall, they are asked to implement an inclusive program and to provide service to students. Often the students have already been randomly placed into classrooms. The students have been scattered between so many different classrooms that it is physically impossible for the special education teachers to provide the direct service that is documented in the IEP. In order to provide the documented direct service to students, the students often end up back in a resource room or learning center, as it is the only way to meet the required documented minutes listed in the IEP. When educators find themselves in this situation, they do the best they can and try to stay in compliance with the IEP but often are unable to do so.

Often when inclusive education is new to a school, a leadership team is developed to lay the foundation for the program. If this approach is taken, it is crucial that the special education teachers have a strong and realistic overview of the students, their needs and the support currently available when working through the details. This is important, as a program is designed not only with the needs of the students in mind but also within the context of the number of educators and paraprofessionals available. In an ideal world, schools would have unlimited budgets, staff and support services available. But, in the real world, this is not the case. Therefore, the initial “pilot” group of students is often determined by the special education department and administration. The reason for this is simple. General education teachers are familiar with the amount of direct/indirect service provided in their individual classrooms but usually do not have a panoramic view of the entire program—nor would we expect them to. Therefore, the initial data is frequently gathered and compiled by the special education department. Once the information has been compiled, the special education department will have specific data as to the number of classroom teachers needed to accommodate the students in the general education setting.

As mentioned previously, there is no required blueprint for program development, but this chapter will outline a basic plan from which to work. Some schools may select and implement several of the ideas, others will follow it step-by-step and some will decide to modify the entire plan. Some schools decide to create a Leadership Team, whereas in others, the teachers involved group students and create workable schedules. The ideas presented in this chapter are only guidelines and should be modified and adapted to meet your current situation.

Planning for Inclusive Education

Every school is unique. Whether your school is large, small or somewhere in the middle, a plan is needed. The most common transition scenarios are as follows. In heavily populated schools with large special education departments, several special education teachers generally volunteer to transition the first year, while the others continue to teach in a self-contained environment and to provide service to the students who will transition the upcoming year. Other schools opt to transition all students at the same time. A number of schools prefer to initiate the transition during a natural break in the school calendar. Natural transition times may include third grade (as many students are referred and placed in second grade), the first year of middle school or the first year of high school. The program continues as the student enters fourth grade or the second year of middle school or high school. As students transition between schools, it is a perfect time to create a transition IEP and prepare for the new school year. Often, administration is willing to work with the special education department to determine the best timing.

Whether inclusive education is implemented on a small scale or with the entire special education population, the time to begin is now! The following section provides a basic outline to use. As mentioned earlier, some schools will opt to follow this plan step-by-step, others will select the components they feel will work in their environment, and some may simply use it as an outline and will develop everything on their own.

Restructuring the Special Education Department

One of the greatest changes with inclusive education is the restructuring of the special education department. Therefore, it is important for the special education team to sit down together to discuss the individual views related to inclusive education. Some teams prefer to develop a set of questions in advance so each member will have time to think about it previous to the meeting. Other teams develop the questions together and work through them together. To get started, a list of questions is provided here. Form #1, Planning for Inclusive Education: The Special Education Team, is found in the Appendix along with the other forms referenced in this chapter, also lists the questions and may be reproduced for those who would like to provide the questions in advance.

As a special education team, discuss the following questions to obtain the various viewpoints related to inclusive education.

• How many special education students are currently in the program? Approximately how many students are at each grade level or subject area?
  
  
• As a team, what is our preference? Should the program be implemented with a small group of selected students, or would it be better to transition students by grade level? Should the entire special education population transition at the same time? Is there a target group of students that we would like to transition first? Do we have a choice?
  
  What is our rationale for selecting the previous transition method?
  
  
• Do we have sufficient support staff (paraprofessionals)? For the upcoming school year, do we anticipate a growth or decrease in support staff?
  
  
• Considering the amount of support staff we currently have, are we using these vital members of the team to the fullest extent? Do the support staff have blocks of downtime in the current schedule? Do the support staff arrive too early or too late in the day to maximize student support? Is there flexibility in the schedules so they can be staggered and have some paraprofessionals arrive earlier and others later in the day to maximize student contact?
  
  
• As a team, how can we provide a continuum of services for students? Do we have sufficient special educator staff to provide service to students, both in a pull-out program (if needed) and in the general education setting?
  
  
• If the decision is made to transition a percentage of the students, which special education teachers would like to work in an inclusive classroom the upcoming year? Do we have a choice?
  
  
• After discussing the previous questions, what are the biggest obstacles that we will encounter?
  
  
• Additional comments and concerns.

At this time, it will be difficult to answer all of the previous questions, but it is important to discuss them. If the decision is made to develop a Leadership Team, it is possible that one or two teachers will represent the entire special education department, so it is important to receive input from everyone.

Some school districts will delegate money for consultants to assist in the development of individual programs, which offers certain advantages. First, a consultant is able to provide examples of various models developed in similar settings. Issues can be addressed objectively, as the consultant is not directly involved with the school system. But, in the end, the most successful programs are developed by individual schools, after visiting area schools, working with consultants and compiling all of the data. The real inclusive education “experts” are the people who work in the school environment and are involved with the students on a day-to-day basis. The reason for the success of these programs is simple. The administration, educators, support staff and parents understand the needs and the unique dynamics of the building climate, which strongly influence the program. So whether you are involved as an individual or part of a committee, you are now an “expert.” No one knows or understands the school climate, the students or the staff dynamics better than the people working within the building.

Establishing a Leadership Team

Schools approach inclusive education in many ways. Prior to the initiation of the program, often schools will establish a Leadership Team. This team may include general and special education teachers, administrators and parents. Some schools also include specialists, such as counselors, psychologists or other staff members who are able to provide a broad perspective of the special education population. For example, the music and physical education teachers have always worked in inclusive settings, as students consistently have been included in these areas. These teachers are able to provide insight relating to how specific children work together in large group s...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• A Word from the Author
• Introduction
• Chapter One / Inclusive Education
• Chapter Two / Working Together in the Inclusive Classroom
• Chapter Three / General Information about Special Education
• Chapter Four / Reading
• Chapter Five / Daily Assignments
• Chapter Six / Written Language
• Chapter Seven / Spelling
• Chapter Eight / Mathematics
• Chapter Nine/ Organizational Skills
• Chapter Ten / Giving and Receiving Instruction
• Chapter Eleven / Classroom Assessments
• Chapter Twelve / Student Behavior
• Appendix
• Resources