Presented at ISEC 2000

Understanding and Responding to Children's Needs in Inclusive Classrooms: A Self-study Guide for Teachers

Professor Roy McConkey - University of Ulster, Northern Ireland

Abstract

During 199912000, UNESCO commissioned a new study module to accompany their Resource Pack on Special Needs in the Classroom. This paper describes the format and content of the four-Unit module; the reactions of field-testers to it and gives suggestions for its optimal use in both pre-service and in-service teacher training courses. The Module should be available in late 2000.

Brief descriptions are also given of other training resources that have been produced in developing countries, most notably by the Guyana CBR Programme and the Special Education Unit, Lesotho. Suggestions are also made for teacher education strategies on inclusive education that go beyond the primer or introductory materials that are currently available.

Overview - This paper describes a self-study Guide that has been developed by UNESCO as part of the Teacher Education Resource Pack: Special Needs in the Classroom. Aimed mainly at serving teachers in regular schools, the Guide provides key facts about various impairments and deprivations that their pupils may experience. Drawing on experiences from around the world, information is given on changes to classroom and school environments, teaching strategies and curriculum that will enable teachers to better meet the individual needs of pupils. Particular emphasis is placed on partnership working with families and other personnel in health, social services and the community.

Rationale

"In-service training should, wherever possible, be developed at school level by means of interactions with trainers and supported by distance education and other self-instructional techniques." (p. 70)

Salamanca Statement, UNESCO, 1994

The growing emphasis on inclusive education around the world places new demands on serving teachers. Many have had little training on meeting the special educational needs of their pupils and possibly few opportunities to acquire the necessary skills in their practice. Consequently teachers often express concerns about their ability to cope with children who they perceive as different (McConkey, O'Toole and Mariga, 1999).

The Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All (2000) adopted the goal of ensuring that all children - "including … children with special needs - complete a good quality primary education by 2015". One of the key means of doing this was by enhancing "the status, morale and professionalism of teachers". Mention was also made of harnessing the new information and communication technologies to help achieve Education for All goals.

The UNESCO Teacher Education Resource Pack: Special Needs in the Classroom was designed to assist schools and practitioners to adopt more inclusive strategies for responding to children's special learning needs in regular schools and to support regular teacher education, especially school-based, in-service training. The Pack has been used in about 80 countries and has been translated into more than 20 languages. The aim is to introduce new thinking in special needs education and looks at disabilities and learning difficulties from the point of view of interaction between the learner and the environment.

Although the Pack has proved very useful in pre-service and in-service training, as well as in school-based staff development, there is an identified need to have supporting materials on disability specific questions for regular classroom teachers. This is especially needed in countries and communities where specialist knowledge and expertise is lacking and where classroom teachers have to address these issues by themselves.

It is proposed that the new Guide would serve as an Addendum to the Resource Pack as needed although it could also be used as a stand-alone module in training courses to raise teacher's awareness of disabilities and the contribution schools can make to their education.

Aims of the Guide

The Guide has four main aims:

1. To provide teachers with key facts about various impairments and deprivations and how to overcome the learning difficulties that result from them.

2. To inform teachers what they can reasonably do to adapt the classroom and school environment to overcome the barriers to learning faced by children with impairments.

3.

To describe the strategies teachers can use to cope with the diversity of children in their classrooms and show how the curriculum can be adapted to individual needs.

4. To encourage teachers to work with families and with other personnel in health and social services and in the community.

The target users of the Guide are teachers in regular schools who have children with special needs in their classes or who may have limited experience of such children but want to learn more. The Guide may also prove useful in pre-service training courses.

Content

The Guide is arranged into four Units. These are:

Unit 1: Every Child is an Individual This Unit covers: barriers to learning arising from bodily impairments and disabilities; childhood illnesses and social disadvantage. Children's Rights; Teacher's Attitudes to disability; Success stories.

Unit 2: Assessing Needs In this Unit key facts are given about hearing and visual impairments; and intellectual disability. The warning signs are described that children have an impairment; possible causes are outlined and actions described that teachers can take to overcome learning difficulties. A framework for adapting the curriculum is outlined.

Unit 3: Responding to Diversity Unit 3 outlines nine golden rules to assist teachers cope with a class of children who have diverse needs. Practical tips and suggestions are given for drawing up Individual Educational Plans; preparing lessons, providing one-to-one help for pupils and controlling behaviours. The issues of examinations and the use of special classes are discussed.

Unit 4: Working Together The final Unit reviews who is available to help. It describes how teachers can work with parents, health professionals, community workers and Disabled People's Organisations to the benefit of their pupils. Examples are given of this happening from around the world.

Format of the Guide

The guide draws on the experiences of teachers mainly in pre-school and primary education but the module should prove helpful to secondary teachers. It is written in basic English both to facilitate translation but also to assist readers for whom English is a second language.

• The Units are presented as self-study, 'open learning' materials. However the Guide is also intended to be used with groups of teachers - ideally from the same school - for example within workshop formats or as part of a training course. Hence suggestions for group learning activities are also included.
• Each Unit begins with a listing of learning outcomes which teachers should be able to demonstrate after studying the Unit.
• Photographs from classrooms in different countries are included.
• Each Unit contains examples of case studies and further details of particular topics.
• Topics are suggested for individual reflection, discussion, problem-solving so as to encourage active learning from the readers.
• Suggested methods for assessing teacher's knowledge and classroom practice are given (including self-assessments).

Examples from the Guide are given in Box 1 and Box 2. (Below)

Critical Readers

A panel of experienced educationalists from around the world was recruited to act as critical readers of the materials and where possible to make them available to teachers known to them. Their views and comments helped to shape the final version of the materials.

In general they felt that the Guide as much needed, they found it easy to read with clear presentation and appropriate content. The interactive content was much appreciated.

Many useful suggestions were made and they have been incorporated into the revised draft. Some readers suggested changes in wording; others contributed examples of inclusion and a few recommended more radical reworking of the text. Particular recommendations were:

• More case studies should be included Readers contributed examples from their experiences.
• Definitions of terms should be given. A glossary has been added.
• Avoid labelling children as much as possible. Some readers wanted the term 'Child with special needs' dropped preferring instead to emphasise the barriers children can experience. However this was not done. The Guide tries to steer a middle course in this debate as many of the teachers will be starting with a disability perspective and we hope to shift their attitudes and views towards these new ways of looking at children's problems.
• More of the content should focus on secondary schools However the reviewers provided very few examples/ideas for developing the materials to cover this point. Unit 4 was revised with this theme in mind but this may still remain a weakness of these and other materials.
• Focus more on low-income countries Some readers noted that certain recommendations were applicable only to more affluent countries and wanted these deleted. This was not done as the materials were intended to cover all settings and some of these recommendations may become possible in poorer countries in the coming years.

Effective Use of the Guide

Although the Guide has been devised for self-study by teachers, its effectiveness is likely to be enhanced by some or all of the following:

Availability of an experienced mentor: That is a more experienced colleague to guide and advise them. This could be a resource teacher within their school; a teacher from a special school or a lecturer in a teacher training college.

Support Group :A group of teachers could study the module together so that they can share ideas and concerns with one another. This could be a group of teachers within the one school or drawn from neighbouring schools who have children with similar special needs in their classes. Or it could be a group of students taking initial or inservice teacher training courses.

Reflective Practice: In each Unit teachers are asked to reflect on key questions or to undertake some activities within their classroom or school. Although the temptation is for readers to skip these, they do form an essential part of the learning experience and development of teacher confidence.

Resource Materials: The Guide gives details of various other resource materials on this topic to assist further or extended study. Particular mention is made of video packages produced in Lesotho and Guyana as they show many of the ideas mentioned in the Guide being put into action often in impoverished settings (see reference note).

Ongoing support and guidance: The Guide is only an introduction. All teachers will benefit from having some form of ongoing support and guidance whether from experienced advisers or through teacher forums organised within schools, locally or nationally.

Conclusions

The Guide will be available from UNESCO in late 2000. Plans are in hand to explore its usefulness with cohorts of teachers in selected countries. It may also be made available through the Internet or on CD-Rom. These options may be particularly suited for use in teacher training colleges and universities.

Hence new information and communication technologies may make available knowledge and insights to teachers in ways that would not have been possible a few years ago. The prospects of achieving education for all the world's children have surely increased.

References

McConkey, R., O'Toole, B. and Mariga, L. (1999) Educating teachers in developing countries about disability. Exceptionality Education Canada, 9, 15-38.

UNESCO (1994) Final Report of the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality. Paris, UNESCO.

Reference Notes

Further Information is available from:

www.eenet.org.uk about the video package: Preparing Teachers for Inclusive Education: A video-based training course - Lesotho

r.mcconkey@ulst.ac.uk about the Video Package: Introducing Children with Disabilities in Mainstream Schools - Guyana

www.unesco.org/education/sne about the work of UNESCO and the availability of the new Guide. The address is: Special Education Needs, UNESCO, 7 place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France.

Index