Inclusive Strategies: Instructional Aid In The Classroom

Students use basic skills every day from looking at the clock to tell the time to handling money when paying and making change. Students who have jobs need to

Inclusive practice is about adapting what is being delivered to make learning accessible to everyone regardless of ability, special education need (SEN) or any other barrier that might exist. When planning to meet the needs of everyone in the group it is essential that the teacher has as much information about everyone as possible. (The City and Guilds textbook level 3 Award in Education and Training). Features of inclusive teaching and learning starts with knowing which learning styles your learners prefer, to do this you can use VARK (visual, aural, read/write and kinetic) test which was designed by Neil Fleming to help learners and teachers know what learning methods they are best suited to e.g. in the first lesson my tutor asked for us

1.1. Inclusive learning is about recognising that all your students have the right to be treated equally and fairly, have the same access to all products, services and have the opportunity to be involved and included. As a teacher you need to be aware that all students are not the same as they all do not learn in the same way, the ways in which a teacher can overcome this is using the Teaching and Learning Cycle, using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic materials (VAK) and agreeing on individual learning plans (ILPs). Other features could include self reflective exercises, quizzes and providing opportunities for students to reflect on their own

(2.RL.1) Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

An inclusive environment is a condition where everyone has an opportunity to fully participate. In education, this means everyone has the same opportunity, there should be no borders such as ethnicity, gender or disability. All students should feel valued, be able to mix and participate with all members of the group be in a safe and positive environment.

My eighth grade classroom is set in a Jr-Sr. High school and is located in the Jr. High hallway, in the rear of the high school. I have thirty-two student desks situated in rows and two small tables at the front of my room used for paper pick up. My desk and computer are in the back corner of the room. The students all have their own Chromebooks and I have a desktop computer as well as a Samsung Tablet. Google Classroom is used daily as well as many other applications suited for 1:1 schools. I also have a projector hanging from the ceiling and two large white boards located on the front and side walls of my classroom. The class that I will be focusing on in this paper is made up of 26 students, 15 boys and 11 girls. One student with learning disabilities, another is an ELL student. This class meets for 55 minutes.

Creating an inclusive learning environment is an extremely important aspect of modern education, which, according to Gravells (2008: p18), ensures that “[…] all learners are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity. Everyone is an individual, with different experiences, abilities and needs.” She also offers a brief explanation of inclusivity (2008: p18), which is “[…] involving all learners in relevant activities rather than excluding them for any reason directly or indirectly.” Inclusion has also been defined by John Tomlinson (1996: p26) as “the greatest degree of match or fit between individual learning requirements and provision”. In the other words, inclusive learning environment nurtures individual potential of all learners,

Inclusive learning is about making sure that every learner in the classroom has their needs identified and met. It is about realising that every learner will have specific individual needs and it is the job of the teacher to accommodate the needs of all of their learners. Booth et al. (2000) state ‘Inclusion is seen to involve the identification and minimising of barriers to learning and participation’ (Booth et al., 2000: 13).

Strategic readers monitor their thinking and recognize when errors are committed but they also know what strategy to use to correct the error. For example, they may need to reread the text to make sense, use context clues to understand unfamiliar words. No matter what the obstacle is, a fix-up strategy is applied. The K-W-L is a well- known teaching technique to assist in the monitoring strategy. The K-W-L chart provides the teacher and students opportunity to participate in discussions before, during, and after reading. It helps the student to ask and answer questions, identify the main idea and detail, and summarize the text (Santoro, Baker, Fien, Smith, and Chard, 2016 p. 284).

Environmental Arrangements- Most of Michelle’s lessons are presented from a U-shaped table headed by the special education teacher. Here, the student’s are expected to follow the general education teacher’s lesson. The special education teacher sits at this table and follows along with the general education teacher’s lesson plan. When it is time for student’s to perform a task/worksheet, the special education teacher “guides” the students along. The same manipulatives that are being used by the general education students are provided for the student’s with special needs. The teacher rotates her individual attention from each student at this table. Michelle has a very low voice, almost a whisper, and the special education teacher will encourage her to speak louder and to enunciate. During writing, reading, and testing, Michelle and her fellow special needs student’s are pulled into an adjacent room within the classroom. Here, the special education teacher conducts the entire lesson. The ENL teacher will push into these lessons daily. In

The purpose of this lesson is to teach my student to know what they supposed to be learning and why by using questioning strategies while reading.

Our instructional setting consists of eighteen second grade students. One student joins us for ten minute intervals throughout the day for social interaction. In the classroom, there are two English Language Learners. One student does not need to be pulled out for extra help, while the other one gets pulled out to receive extra help in math and reading. There are currently four students who are below level learners in reading. Two of those students are reading at Kindergarten levels, and the other two read well, but they are lacking in comprehension skills. For math, the same four students who are below level in reading, are also below level in math.

The entire class, both 3rd and 4th grade do a quick review, then she separates the class. While Mrs. Richards explicitly teaches new concepts to the 3rd graders, the 4th graders are completing unfinished work from the day before. Once she has explicitly taught the new concept, guided the 3rd graders through whole class practice, she introduces their independent practice, and then moves over to begin the teaching cycle with the 4th grades. As Mrs. Richards worked with the 4th grades, I was given the opportunity to assist the 3rd graders with any support they might need to successfully finish their independent math work. If any 3rd grade student finished their math work before Mrs. Richards was done with the 4th grade they move over to the computer center, where they worked with the Lexia program. This rotation between grade levels continued throughout the day, except when it came to science where both grade levels worked on the same lesson. Although Mrs. Richards’ class has a unique dynamic she still utilizes common teaching strategies such as gradually releasing responsibility on to each student, allowing the students to communicate and support each other during math, using hands on experiences during math and science, and employing the use of manipulatives to help the students understand new math concepts.

The observation was conducted at *** in an special education math class. The students were 8th grade students with learning disabilities who needed support in the field on mathematics. The classroom consisted on the special education teacher, the classroom aide, and ** students. When I walked inside the classroom, all the student had their desk facing the front of the classroom. The teacher instructed for the students to take out their chromebooks because students were beginning to become exposed to a new testing program. Ms. ** was clear in letting students know of the new program they were going to be using and to focus on the tools the program gives them to work with and how to save their answers along the process. All students were given sufficient time to walk through the new program and to ask questions on how to complete a specific task. When their time was complete, students moved on to being introduced to slope-intercept form. Students were given a video to watch to give them an over view of what it was, but also as an introduction to the new material. Ms. * exposed to the students multiple times to the material by showing students how to do it, allowing them to do it on their own, and working in groups to solve the problem. During the period the * students were with Ms. * they had the opportunity to have multiple exposure to the new material they were learning.

Student A is an eleven year old male. He has vision impairment, communication disabilities and behavioral needs. Student A is non-verbal and has difficulty communicating his needs, however he does have some accommodation. Student A is mobile when he uses a cane for his vision impairment, otherwise he holds onto his 1 on 1 aide when traversing the classroom. Student A sometimes uses braille books and is learning basic sign language. Student A is the only pupil in the class that goes to a lunch time, and he is learning the skills needed to feed himself. Student A has been a member of the teacher’s class for two years as of the observation. He had some difficulty staying on task for the lessons, in one instance he did not participate in the activity because of an incident where he was harming both himself and his personal aid.