Abstract
Teacher education programs in the United States are being challenged to undergo major changes that will insure that all beginning teachers are prepared to teach all students. The classroom teachers of today must prepare all students to meet society's complex demands. Not only must teachers address the growing demand for academic excellence, but they are also becoming increasing responsible for meeting the needs of students with disabilities or students who are at-risk for school failure. Teacher education programs are now charged with the responsibility of training both general and special education teachers to teach in inclusive settings.
This paper addresses the needs identified in the literature on preparing all pre-service teachers to work in inclusive settings, outlines successful strategies from a small teacher education program for preparing beginning teachers, both in general and in special education, to work effectively in inclusive settings, and presents the challenges to providing an inclusive teacher training program in terms of the need for faculty collaboration and the co-teaching of courses, course load considerations, and the necessity of administrative support.
Teacher education programs in the United States are being challenged to undergo major changes that will insure that all beginning teachers are prepared to teach all students. The classroom teachers of today must prepare all students to live and work successfully in a complex world. Not only must teachers address the growing demand for academic excellence, but they are also becoming increasing responsible for meeting the needs of students with disabilities or students who are at-risk for school failure. Teacher education programs are now charged with the responsibility of training both general and special education teachers to teach in inclusive schools.
Over a quarter a century ago after years of neglect and segregation the Education of All Handicapped Children's Act (EHA) mandates that to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or other care facilities, are educated with children who are nondisabled. This landmark legislation in the history of educating children with disabilities in the United States established that segregated educational settings for students with handicapping conditions should be used only when it has been established that "education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily."
However, even as schools were encouraged to mainstream students in a variety of school settings according to the provision of EHA's "least restrictive environment" (having students with disabilities educated with their same age peers as much as possible), little changed occurred in the way higher education institutions were training preservice teachers. For the most part general education and special education preservice teachers were trained separately. Little attention was given to preparing all teachers to work together to effectively teach students with and without disabilities in inclusive schools. This resulted in a duel education system in which general education teachers took responsibility for the teaching/learning of "typical students" and special education teachers took responsibility for the teaching/learning of special education students. Left out were a growing number of students without labels who found little support from the large group orientation of general education and who were not eligible for support from special education because they didn't qualify for a "label". Overtime these students without labels often received the informal label of "at-risk" for school failure (Montgomery & Rossi, 1994).
EHA was reauthorized and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990. In 1997 the amendments to IDEA called for improving outcome results for students with disabilities and called for general education teachers to be more involved with students who had disabilities. These practices required that general and special educators work together to meet the needs of all students in the school setting. The term for supporting students with and without labels who were being excluded from general education settings or who were failing miserably in general education was full inclusion. A widely accepted definition for full inclusion is that it means that support services come to a student with a special education label who has been placed in a general education classroom (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 1999). A strength of the model is that a student without a label could for the first time also have access to modifications that might enhance their learning and or participation in the general education inclusive setting.
About the same time of the reauthorization of IDEA in 1990 more teacher education programs in the United States began to address the issue of preparing both general and special education teachers in collaborative programs or in infusing coursework into the curriculum that prepares teachers to more effectively teach all students (Blanton, Griffin, Winn, & Pugach, 1996). The realization that mainstreaming students with disabilities into general education classrooms was not working because teachers weren't prepared and/or willing to teach special education students was finally being addressed. At the foundation of this change was the need to provide all preservice teachers training and field experiences with inclusive practices so as to prepare them to teach inclusive schools and classrooms.
Review of the Literature
The literature on preparing all teachers to teach all students suggests that that preservice teachers first and foremost need the methodological expertise to educate all children well (Bradley, King-Sears, & Tessier-Switlick, 1997; Peterson & Beloin, 1998; Pugach, 1996; Salend, 1998; Pugach & Wager, 1993). Studies have indicated that when teachers are trained to use a wide variety of methods to teach subject area material that they are successful with a wide number of students in their classroom. In other words "good teaching is good teaching" and it is the foundation for preparing teachers whether they are being certified to teach typically developing students or special education students across all grade levels.
In terms of curriculum considerations, departments of education should replace special education categorical courses with courses that emphasize student needs, learning theories, and best instructional practices. (Brantlinger, 1996; Corbitt, Kilgore, & Sindelar 1998; Foley & Mundeschenk, 1997; Evans, Harris, Adeigbola, Houston, & Argott, 1993; Pugach, 1996; Webber, 1998). Rather than training preservice special education teachers to define and teach students by a categorical label such as learning disabled or mentally retarded, train teachers to support students with a variety of labels or disabilities according to their individual needs not their label. Practices like this ensure that special education teachers have the expertise to support students with identified learning and behavioral needs in ways that optimize student learning in inclusive schools.
As part of the training process to teach preservice teachers to work together collaboratively, higher education faculty should model teamwork across departments or programs in higher education settings (Foley & Mundschenk, 1997; Heston, Raschke, Kliewer, Fitzgerald, & Edmiaston, 1998; Reinhiller, 1996). Firsthand experiences with faculty members from different areas or departments who co-teach courses or supervise inclusive field experiences can lead to preservice teachers gaining a better understanding of the collaborative process and its benefits.
Collaborative consultation practices should be integrated throughout the coursework for both general and special education majors (Bondy, Ross, Sindelar, & Griffen, 1995; Reinhiller, 1996). Early in the common coursework taken by general and special education preservice teachers they should be given assignments that require them to collaborate and consult with each other. Further opportunities should be included in advanced coursework to again allow them to experience the benefits of sharing their individual expertise with each other to enhance the quality of support and learning experiences that can be provided to the students they will be teaching.
iences that can be provided to the students they will be teaching. Opportunities for preservice teachers to work collaboratively with other adults in school and community settings should be provided. Field activities such as team teaching, co-teaching, and professional development activities provide needed experiences (Pugach, 1996; Reinhiller, 1996; Winter, 1999). These kinds of field experiences should occur with practicing professionals who are working in successful inclusive settings.
More Inclusive Training at the College of Mount St. Joseph
In the late 1990's the state of Ohio in which the College of Mount St. Joseph is located moved from teacher certification to teacher licensure. As the faculty in the department developed new programs of study to meet the new licensure requirements, the majority of the faculty worked collaboratively to incorporate the teaching of more inclusive best practices and strategies into the required coursework for all education majors. Table I show the various licensure programs offered by the College and the course work that specifically addresses inclusive practices.
Challenges to Providing Inclusive Teacher Education Training
Many of the major obstacles to creating more inclusive teacher training programs have to with the long history of maintaining separate training programs for special education and general education (Pugach, & Warger, 1993). Higher education faculty members who were trained in separate general education or special education teacher training programs are often reluctant to embrace the more inclusive training of their
| INCLUSIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD: Preschool - 3rd grade | Courses: SED 215 Human Exceptionalities IEC 250 Developmentally and Individually Appropriate Practices IEC 420 Working with Families IEC 410 Critical Issues in Early Childhood and Special Education |
| MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: 4th - 9th grades | Courses: SED 215 Human Exceptionalities SED 430 Teaching in Inclusive Settings |
| ADOLESCENT AND YOUNG ADULT: 9th - 12th grades | Courses: SED 215 Human Exceptionalities SED 430 Teaching in Inclusive Settings |
| MULTI-AGE SPECIALIST: Preschool - 12th grade | Courses: SED 215 Human Exceptionalities SED 430 Teaching in Inclusive Settings |
| INTERVENTION SPECIALIST: Kindergarten-12th grade | Mild/Moderate Needs or Moderate/Intensive Needs Courses: SED 215 Human Exceptionalities SED 430 Teaching in Inclusive Settings EDU 380 Multi-Age Curriculum and Methods EDU 330 Phonics and Linguistics EDU 340 Emergent Literacy and Beginning Reading EDU 360 Foundations of Literacy |
majors. Some higher education faculty members may verbally agree with inclusion, yet not have the skills to incorporate best practices in their teaching. The willingness of current faculty to actively support inclusion and to update needed skills is a major concern when attempting to provide more inclusive teacher training.
Administration support is also critical to providing more inclusive teacher training programs. Faculty load is controlled by the administration in an institution of higher education. An issue that arises with the practice of co-teaching courses or supervising field experiences of students across programs is how teaching load is divided, and is the institution willing to pay two professors to teach the same course in order for preservice teachers to be exposed to co-teaching and/or collaborative practices.
Finding field sites that support collaborative practices is another challenge to providing more inclusive teacher training. In many cases practicing teachers are not modeling the skills that preservice teachers need to teach effectively in inclusive schools. Many teachers were certified to teach before full inclusion was a reality and have little or no training in collaborative practices or in best practices for reaching and teaching all children.
In conclusion, there are numerous issues to be resolved if we are to prepare all teachers to teach all children. While the challenges are many, we are beginning to address the issues and there is hope that teachers who can reach and teach all children will staff schools in the years to come.
References
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