Inclusive Pedagogy Essay
1696 Words1. Inclusive pedagogy – principles, preconditions and practices
Initially refusing the use of processes of teaching individualization for students with difficulties, the supporters of an inclusive pedagogy consider that the way to answer to differences among students consists in the application of strategies and activities which are usually undertaken in daily life and classroom routine (Florian, 2010; Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2010; Florian & Kershner, 2009), making them available to all the students.
This perspective represents a change in the thinking about the teaching-learning process; a change between an approach that favours what works to the majority of the students and that incorporates something “different” or additional ‘for those who experience difficulties’ and a teaching-learning approach that involves the creation of an environment rich in apprenticeships, characterized by lessons where learning opportunities are sufficiently accessible and made available to everyone, so that everyone is able to participate in the life of the classroom (Florian, 2010; Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2010; Florian & Kershner, 2009).
Fundamentally seeking to change the way teachers think about inclusion problems (Florian et al., 2010), the supporters of an inclusive pedagogy consider that it is useful to the learning difficulties as problems for the teachers to solve and not as problem in the students themselves (Ainscow, 1999; Clark, Dyson, Millward, e Robson, 1999; Hart, 1996). Such point of view puts off teachers’ feelings of lack of competence and preparation to teach students with SEN, encouraging, on the contrary, the importance / wish to work with co-workers, in a way to give answer to the needs and demands made by different students in terms of subjects to learn or tasks to undertake (Florian e Linklater, 2010).
According to Florian and Linklater (2010), inclusive pedagogy specifically emerges exemplified in the book Learning without Limits (Hart, Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004) in which the authors describe and analyse the relation between teaching and learning, having as main idea the concept of transformability and the pedagogic principles associated with that, namely: collaboration, trust, and all the students.
With the idea of transformability the belief in the principle that “all of the children’s capacity to learn can change and be changed to best, as result of what happens and what people make in the present” (p. 166).
This concept implies to think the relation between teaching and learning in two ways: on one side, the present is the future in terms of action; on the other, “nothing is neutral” (p. 170) in terms of pedagogic relation.
With this understanding of interdependence between teaching and learning and its effect about the student’s performance, it becomes unacceptable to predict or predetermine the student’s learning abilities or capacities.
In this sense, it becomes fundamental to develop practices with different purposes: affective, social and intellectual.
Regarding affective purposes, it matters to strengthen the student’s trust, competence and control. When it comes to social purposes, it is sought to increase acceptance, sense of belonging and of community and, lastly, intellectual purposes concern to assure access and accomplishment of significant and relevant learning to all of the students.
And, since in this perspective learning is achieved as a result of relationships within learning communities, it is fundamental to have in mind the underlying pedagogic practical principles, namely: co-agency / collaboration, everyone, and trust:
• Co-agency / collaboration. Transformability notion and the principle that, regarding pedagogic relation, “nothing is neutral”, demands that the responsibility on learning be shared between teacher and student. The central hypothesis of transformability is that teachers cannot achieve it alone. In fact, without the student’s participation, teachers cannot change nor improve learning.
• Trust. For students to accept to collaborate, teachers must trust that learning to be achieved by the student makes sense, it is possible, and they must look to find relevance and purpose in the experiences they propose to students. Trust allows a shared responsibility and it eases transformability of the students’ capacity to learn.
• Everyone. Transformability also demands that there is ethic from everyone: teachers have the opportunity and the responsibility to work to improve everyone’s learning. Considering that in pedagogic relation “nothing is neutral”, any and every teacher’s action will have an effect, positive or negative. Teachers are in a privileged position to act and change things for the better.
Florian and Linklater (2010) consider fundamental to prepare future teachers to an inclusive education and they understand that, using an inclusive pedagogy, teacher can improve teaching and learning to all of the students.
For that, according to these authors, teachers who want to have an inclusive practice must take into account the following preconditions:
1. To seek to give answer to everyone and not to the majority of the students or to some of the students.
The central idea is to create learning opportunities that are sufficiently available and adequate to everyone, so that every students can participate in the life of the classroom.
To not centre their preoccupation in individual that were identified as having “additional needs” or special educational needs; instead, to think about everyone’s learning.
To expand what is normally available to all of the students (creating a rich learning community) instead of using teaching and learning strategies that are adequate to the majority, and to have aside something “additional” or “different” for some to experience difficulties; e
To emphasize what must be taught (and how) instead of who it is supposed to learn.
2. To reject determinist beliefs about students’ capacities.
To believe in every children’s progression on learning and achieving results;
To focus teaching and learning on what the children can do and not on what they cannot do;
To use strategies variety to the constitution of students groups, in a way to support everyone’s needs, instead of grouping/separating them based on capacities (good and bad students, capable students and “less capable” students);
To use formative evaluation to support learning.
3. To adopt ways of working with and through other adults that respect students’ dignity, seeing them as full-fledged members in the classroom community. To envision difficulties to learn as professional challenges to teachers, instead of students’ deficits. This incentives the development of new ways of work.
To look and experiment new ways of working to support learning of all the children.
To work with and through other adults that respect students’ dignity, seeing them as full-fledged members in the classroom community
To be involved with the continuous professional development, as a way to develop more inclusive practices. (Florian & Linklater, 2010).
The principles and preconditions previously mention emphasize that it is in process of pedagogic decision-making that teachers can act to improve the children’s learning capacity, instead of resting on notions of fixed capacities, predetermined and immutable, in a determinist vision of human development.
Studies undertaken by Florian and Linklater (2010), having as foundation these principles, have shown that teachers do and what they do not do in their practices and, even more, refer some of the characteristics of what it is possible to observe in inclusive classrooms.
Inclusive practices – some examples that are important to note on the level of teachers’ beliefs and attitudes and on the level of pedagogic dynamics in the classroom.
On the level of teachers’ beliefs and attitudes – teachers:
Believe that everyone can learn.
Believe in the children’s potential for learning and for better learning.
Act as knowledge facilitators, letting the children be in control of their own learning.
Encourage children to move around different groups and levels.
On the level of pedagogic dynamics in the classroom:
Presence of files with topics;
Collaborative learning and learning by choice;
Opportunities for the students to discuss their learning;
School / class / individual journal on the progress of students;
Use of different strategies to help children to learn;
Learning by doing;
Self-evaluation and peer-evaluation.
2. The concept of Universal Design for Learning – how to facilitate access, participation and success/progress of all the students?
The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an assembly of principles and strategies related with the curricular development (CAST, 2014) that seeks to reduce teaching and learning barriers (Domings, Crevecoeur & Ralabate, 2014; Rapp, 2014).
Specifically, such principles and strategies allow the teacher to define teaching goals and to create materials and evaluation moulds adequate to all students, so that all of them can learn in a common educational way (CAST, 2014; King-Sears, 2014).
Ultimately, UDL has as a purpose the development of pedagogic practices that allow access to the curriculum, participation and progress of all the students, regardless of their capacities (CAST, 2012; Quaglia, 2015).
As King-Sears (2009) synthesizes, UDL is related to teaching practices to develop near the students with and without disabilities, focusing on the pedagogic dimension. Therefore, it is a curricular approach that seeks to reduce the factors of pedagogic nature that might difficult the teaching-learning process, assuring, this way, access, participation and success of all the students.
In the perspective of CAST (2011), UDL’s approach is, in addition, related with concepts described by authors as Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, and Bloom, who were concerned with the teaching-learning process, being helpful in the way to understand how one learns, the individual differences and the needed pedagogy to face those differences. The need to build “scaffolds” that favour learning, underlines Vygotsky, constitutes, in effect, one of the key-points to consider in UDL’s curricular approach.
This approach is also influenced by obtained knowledge from neuroscience, namely, systems engaged in learning. According to several authors (cf. CAST, 2011; Courey et al., 2012; Rose & Meyer, 2002), neuroscience give a solid foundation to the understanding of how the brain learns and how it is possible to promote an effective teaching. This knowledge emphasize learning as a multifaceted process, which involves the use of three basic systems, namely: affection structures, recognition structures, and strategic structures, each corresponding to a particular location in the brain with specific functions (Meyer et al., 2014).
This way, affection structures are related with learning motivation and help the individual to establish what is important to learn; recognition structures concern what we learn and, lastly, strategic structures are related to how we learn and show us how to do things (Courey et al., 2012; Meyer et al., 2014).
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