What Really Works in Special and Inclusive Education

Using Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies

David Mitchell, Dean Sutherland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429687358
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

This fully revised and updated third edition presents teachers with a range of up-to-date evidence-based strategies they can use to tackle the challenges of inclusive education. An essential resource for the busy educator, each of the twenty-nine strategies explored in this book has a substantial research base drawn from a range of countries, a strong theoretical rationale and clear guidelines on their implementation, as well as cautionary advice where necessary.

Key features of the third edition include:

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• An easy to follow structure divided into four categories: behavioural approaches, social strategies, cognitive strategies and mixed strategies

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• Eight new chapters, focusing on topical areas such as neuroscience, social and emotional education, visual learning and communication and the transition from school to post-school environments

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• Updated chapters that consider the most diverse and up-to-date research in education, psychology, health and technology

Whilst the focus of this book is on children with special educational needs, the strategies are universally applicable, making this essential reading for all classroom teachers, school leaders, teacher educators and students, educational psychologists, special needs coordinators and consultants and educational researchers.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Along with parents, educators are at the heart of ensuring a good quality of life for learners with additional learning needs, regardless of where their education takes place. The central idea in this book is that, to enhance their performance, educators could, and should, be drawing upon the best available evidence as they plan, implement and evaluate their teaching.

On the whole, students with additional learning needs have low levels of academic achievement

Despite low academic achievement being one of the chief factors in identifying children with additional learning needs, there is surprisingly little information on their actual achievement in official educational statistics. However, at least two countries, the US and the UK, have begun to disaggregate their school achievement data to enable some conclusions to be drawn. For the most part, these are a cause for concern. In the US,¹ almost two-thirds of students with disabilities scored at or below the 25th percentile on standardized tests of reading and mathematics. Among the various categories of disabilities, 73 per cent of students with learning disabilities scored below the 25th percentile, as did 85 per cent of the students classified as having mental retardation or multiple disabilities.²

In the UK, the 2009 Lamb Inquiry similarly reported that ‘educational achievement for children with SEN/D [special educational needs/disability] is too low and the gap with their peers too wide’.³ It attributed this to the long-term effects of the overall educational system and a society that places insufficient value on achieving good outcomes for children with SEN/D and that too many schools focus the best teachers on children with the highest abilities. As well as low achievement, the Lamb Inquiry drew attention to the disproportionate exclusion of children with SEN/D from schools, noting that they were eight times more likely to be excluded than their peers.

Notwithstanding the paucity of achievement data at a country level, there is ample evidence of low achievement among various groups of learners with additional learning needs, including those with learning disabilities,⁴ deaf and hard of hearing diagnoses,⁵ and traumatic brain injury.⁶

Another indicator of low achievement among learners with additional learning needs is their disadvantage when it comes to employment (see Strategy 27). Even in developed countries, employment rates for people with disabilities are very low. In a US study, for example, among all working-age (18–64) people with disabilities, only 21 per cent said they were employed full- or part-time, compared with 59 per cent of working-age people without disabilities. In England, an overview of disability and the transition to adulthood noted that disabled children (a) were at high risk of growing up in poverty, (b) were less likely than non-disabled to achieve adult goals in employment, economic independence, personal autonomy and independent housing, and (c) were less likely than non-disabled to live independently of their parents.⁷ These problems are caused or accentuated by situations in which many children with disabilities do not attend school or they drop out at primary or secondary education level, undoubtedly causing them to sequentially be unemployed or underemployed.⁸ Even those who complete their secondary education are at risk for unemployment or underemployment resulting from low expectations and discrimination from employers and the community. This is both a social and an economic loss, which must be actively addressed and redressed.

There is a gap between research and practice for learners with additional learning needs

Although the body of evidence in education is not without problems and much remains to be investigated, we believe that it has produced a useful and reliable knowledge base about effective teaching practices for learners with additional learning needs. Unfortunately, it is clear that there are significant gaps between what researchers have found and what educators practice,⁹ with many practitioners frequently identifying barriers to their adopting evidence- based practices.¹⁰ In the US, for example, the 2002 President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education bemoaned the lack of emphasis on ‘aggressive intervention using research- based approaches’.¹¹ Two recent UK reports take a similar line, noting that information based on academic research has only a small to moderate influence on teachers’ decision-making.¹² The researchers found that teachers were much more likely to draw ideas and support from their own experiences (60 per cent of respondents), or the experiences of other teachers/schools (42 per cent), when deciding on approaches to support pupil progress.

At least in part, the gap between research and practice is due to the fact that much relevant research is not available to educators in a readily accessible form – a situation we hope this book will go some way to rectifying. In Chapter 36 we will take up the challenge of implementing evidence-based teaching strategies.

What is meant by evidence-based teaching strategies?

Briefly, we define evidence-based teaching strategies as clearly specified teaching methods that have been shown in controlled research to be effective in bringing about desired outcomes in a delineated population of learners.¹³ In the next chapter, we will elaborate on this definition and present some critiques of evidence-based education.

Our aim in this book is to assist you, as an educator, to increase your effectiveness by using the best available evidence to help your students to become effective learners. Ultimately, the effectiveness of your teaching is judged by

•the value you add to your learners’ store of information, concepts, skills and values;

•the degree of independence your learners are able to exercise in managing their own learning now and in the future; and

•the extent to which you develop a sense of well-being in learners.

As an educator, you play a vital role in helping learners to develop these attributes.

In drawing up the strategies described in this book, we emphasize from the outset that we are not arguing for a single strategy or blueprint that all educators should use with learners with additional education needs – or any other learners. Indeed, learners’ needs are so varied (even within particular categories of disability) that one size will not fit all. Rather, the most effective programmes are those that incorporate a variety of best practices. Our strong advice is that you develop a repertoire of such strategies nested within your own philosophy, personality, craft knowledge, reflective practice, professional wisdom, and, above all, your knowledge of the characteristics and needs of your students and your knowledge of local circumstances.

While we are strong advocates for policy-making and educational practices being based on sound evidence, we also recognize that real life decision-making often involves factors other than evidence. According to Philip Davies,¹⁴ these include:

•experience, expertise and judgement of decision-makers, including teachers;

•resources, which draws attention to the need for cost–benefit analyses;

•values, including ideology and political beliefs;

•habit and tradition, which present a major challenge for evidence-based policy and practice;

•lobbyists, pressure groups and consultants that may use evidence, but often in a less systematic and more selective manner than that used by supporters of evidence-based policy and practice;

•pragmatics and contingencies including the procedures of the policy-making process, the capacities of institutions (e.g., schools), and unanticipated contingencies that arise.

While we have presented a range of separate strategies for your consideration, we recognize that, faced with diverse learners, it is quite usual for teachers to simultaneously employ a range of strategies. Perhaps the best-known multipronged strategy is Success for All. According to its proponents, this strategy was in use in more than 1,300 schools in forty-eight states in the US in 2008, as well as in schools in Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel and Mexico.¹⁵ It is built around the idea that every child can and must succeed in the early grades, no matter what this takes, to prevent academic deficits from appearing in the first place. The major elements of Success for All are as follows:

•A school-wide reading curriculum: During reading periods, students are regrouped across ages so that each reading class contains students at the same reading level.

•Tutors: In grades 1–3, specially trained teachers and paraprofessionals work one-to-one with any students who are failing to keep up with their classmates in reading. Tutorial instruction is closely coordinated with regular classroom instruction. It takes place for twenty minutes daily.

•Quarterly assessments: Information is obtained on reading progress, which is then used to suggest alternative teaching strategies, changes in reading group, the provision of tutoring, etc.

•Solutions Team: A Solutions Team works in each school to help support families in ensuring the success of their children, focusing on parent education, parent involvement, attendance, and student behaviour.

•Facilitator: A programme facilitator works with teachers to help them implement the reading programme, manages the quarterly assessments, assists the Solutions Team, makes sure that all staff are communicating with each other, and helps the staff as a whole make certain that every child is making adequate progress.

An early study of Success for All found that for students in general, effect sizes in favour of the programme averaged around half a standard deviation at all grade levels. Importantly, effect sizes (ES) for students in the lowest 25 per cent of their grades were particularly positive, ranging from ES=+1.03 in first grade to ES=+1.68 in fourth grade.¹⁶

Several other research studies have investigated the impact of two or more teaching strategies on learners’ academic achievement and social behaviours, without giving them a programme name. Furthermore, UK evidence shows that teachers who are effective in teaching disadvantaged learners demonstrate skills in a ‘bundle’ of strategies.¹⁷ For example, they:

•Have excellent organizational skills: teachers have clear learning objectives for lessons and make sure th...