Based on your reading from this week and your personal/professional experiences, explain and discuss the following:
Many, if not all, classroom environments today have diverse students. Some of these students may be from othercountries, speak different languages, be academically delayed, or have a disability. Reflect on classrooms you have taughtin, observed, or participated as a student in. Determine some ways accommodations for classroom instruction can beimplemented to meet student needs. Describe a specific method and explain its effectiveness.
Hello, dear colleagues.
One of the main outcomes of inclusive education is the development of life skills, or social competencies (interaction skills,self-help, productive activities, etc.) (Flores & Monroy, 2015). We can distinguish 3 types of technologies aimed at improvingsocial competence: direct teaching of social skills; formation of social skills through imitation, organization of group activities,including play activities. In direct social skills instruction, the teacher teaches children appropriate behavior through rules andexamples (Taylor, 2015). Acceptance of rules is very important for all children, but it must be a conscious one that is connectedto their personal experiences. Before children start working frontally or in groups, the caregiver can discuss rules for children'sinteraction with each other as a group. For example, "take turns talking," "listen to each other," "ask questions if something isnot clear. It is very important to teach children to agree on the rules if a conflict situation arises how to behave each child, whatto take as a basis. A child learns a rule better when he/she controls another person, be it an adult or a child. If a rule is brokenby an adult, it should be celebrated in the same way as if it was broken by a child. It is obligatory to praise the pupils forcomplying with the rules. The child must necessarily receive positive reinforcement of his activity. Formation of social skillsthrough imitation involves mutual learning of children, when a child who is more competent in some area becomes a rolemodel for other children. Learning by imitation is important for any child, but it is especially important for teaching childrenwith mental retardation, for children with autism spectrum disorders. Therefore, it is believed that learning in heterogeneousrather than homogeneous groups is more effective. If children do, for example, physical education at the same pace doing thesame activities, a child with ASD will form a certain skill faster. When organizing group activities, such as duty, preparation for aholiday, group work, assistance with tasks, moving around the group (organized for blind children or children with mobilityimpairments), the teacher
- plans group activities for children that promote effective social interaction;
- selects participants for the group (i.e., children with disabilities and socially competent peers);
- introduces this activity;
- in the course of the activity, offers ideas for interaction when necessary.
D. Mitchell identifies reciprocal (paired) learning as one of the leading technologies of inclusive education in (Mitchell, 2008),which is a situation when one child teaches another child under the supervision of an educator. Mutual learning is useful whenit is necessary to develop skills through repetition, or at the stage of consolidation of acquired skills and knowledge. It is rarelyused at the stage of initial training. This technology is additional to other teaching methods. Usually a more successful pupilteaches a less successful one, and the children who play the role of a teacher develop skills of self-study, control andevaluation, which, in turn, is a condition for development of learning activity. At the same time the child playing the role of apupil, in the process of joint work with a peer, learns the necessary material and acquires experience of overcoming difficulties.Thus work on overcoming of other's difficulties helps to understand one's own difficulties. Pairs can be both the same age ordifferent (the older one teaches the younger one); another variant is that all children in the group are divided into pairs andcarry out the duties of instructors and trainees.
I had a similar experience and it turned out to be quite successful. At the lesson the tenth-graders worked with the fifth-graders.
Children with disabilities can also act as tutors; this greatly increases self-esteem, especially if they work with younger children.Peer-to-peer technology is based on the assumption that children can learn a lot from each other. Including a child withlearning and behavioral difficulties in paired work should be done gradually. In domestic pedagogy, the tasks of didacticsaccessible to all children when organizing collaborative learning are solved by socio-game technologies (Shuleshko & Ershova,2019). Their use allows the successful inclusion of children with disabilities in the conditions of the general school, helps allchildren to acquire the skills of interaction with peers and at the same time creates a favorable environment for each child forindividual development at their own pace.
Sociogame technology contains didactic games, based on theatrical exercises, yard games, and educational games that not only develop attention, will, memory, speech, wit,movement coordination, and more, but also form skills of business interaction of classmates with each other and with theteacher teaching them, which is especially important in an inclusive education setting.
With the help of socio-game technology:
The educational program is mastered in the form of a game;
the rules of conduct and roles in a social group (a mini-model of society) are mastered and then transferred to "big life";
the possibilities of the groups and collectives themselves are examined - what can be achieved through collective work;
the skills of joint and collective activity are acquired, and the individual characteristics of the pupils, necessary to achieve thegoals of the game, are refined;
accumulation of cultural traditions contributed to the game by participants, teachers, involved additional means - visual aids,books, ICT technologies.
The concept of "pedagogical game technologies" includes a fairly extensive group of methods and techniques of organizingthe pedagogical process in the form of various pedagogical games. Unlike games in general, the pedagogical game ischaracterized by cognitive orientation. Game form of classes is created by means of game techniques and situations, acting asa means of inducement, stimulation to learning activity.
Technologies of assessment of achievements in an inclusive approach
The subject of assessment is both the achieved educational results and the process of their achievement, as well as themeasure of awareness of each pupil of the peculiarities of their own learning process. Along with integral assessment (for thewhole work carried out, for example, in the form of portfolios, presentations, exhibitions, etc.) a differentiated assessment (isolation of individual aspects of work, such as the formation of calculation skills, expressiveness of reading, listening skills,ability to formulate and ask questions, etc.), as well as self-assessment and self-analysis of students is used. The choice of theform of current assessment is determined by the stage of training, general and special learning objectives, specific learningtasks, the purpose of obtaining information. Together with the teacher-psychologist, the tutor shall think over such strategy ofwork with the whole group. In the event of training and evaluation of the results of the activity of the pupil with specialdevelopmental needs, the teacher should use such forms and techniques which correspond to the child's capabilities and are acondition for preserving his or her physical and mental health and emotional balance. Thus, the differentiated and individualapproaches to learning will be realized (Bray & McClaskey, 2010).
References
Bray B. and McClaskey K. (2010) Personalization vs Differentiation vs Individualization
https://my-ecoach.com/online/resources/925/PersonalizationvsDifferentiationvsIndividualization.pdf
Flores, R.P., Monroy, G.V., Fabela, A.M.R. (2015, October 28). Compensatory policies attending equality and inequality in Mexicoeducational practice among vulnerable groups in higher education. Journal of Education and Learning, 4(4), 53-63.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jel.v4n4p53
Mitchell D. (2008) What really Works in Using Evidence-based Teaching Strategy
https://www.academia.edu/37967852/David_Mitchell_2008_What_really_Works_in_Using_Evidence_based_Teaching_Strategy
Shuleshko E.E., Ershova A.P., Bukatov V.M. (2019) Sociogame technology as a means of preschool child development in theconditions of the FGOS preschool.
https://les-skazka.86.i-schools.ru/files/2018-2019/master-klass-dlya-pedagogov/8_Socio-igrovaya_tehnologiya.pdf
Taylor, B.K. (2015, January 14). Content, process, and product: Modeling differentiated instruction. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 51(1),13-17.
