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Tips for Inclusive Practice

Inclusive classrooms are classrooms that revolve around individualizing instruction. This list of classroom practices for including students with disabilities can also serve as a roadmap for improving the education of all children.

The power of special education has always been its emphasis on paying attention to the individual and making education "work" for that one student. As general education classrooms include more and more different students, teachers realize the value of treating each student as different and unique.

Special educators realize that effective general education practices really are appropriate for students with disabilities, and general educators turn to special education for better ways to teach their increasingly diverse groups of students.

Inclusive schooling is compatible with many general education reform discussions. Both emphasize personalizing learning in a variety of ways. Some of the specific classroom practices recommended in national reports are:

• LESS whole-class, teacher-directed instruction
• LESS student passivity
• LESS prizing and rewarding of silence in the classroom
• LESS classroom time devoted to fill-in-the-blank worksheets, dittos, workbooks, and other "seatwork"
• LESS student time spent reading textbooks and basal readers
• LESS effort by teachers to thinly "cover" large amounts of material in every subject area
• LESS rote memorization of facts and details
• LESS stress on competition and grades
• LESS tracking or leveling of students into "ability groups"
• LESS use of pull-out special programs
• LESS use of and reliance on standardized tests

and…

• MORE experimental, inductive, hands-on learning
• MORE active learning in the classroom, with all the attendant noise and movement of students doing, talking, and collaborating
• MORE emphasis on higher order thinking and learning the key concepts and principles of a subject
• MORE deep study of a smaller number of topics so that students internalize the subjects' way of inquiry
• MORE time devoted to reading whole, original, real books and nonfiction materials
• MORE responsibility transferred to students for their work
• MORE choice for students
• MORE enacting and modeling of the principles of democracy
• MORE attention to affective needs and the varying cognitive styles of individual students
• MORE cooperative, collaborative activity; development of the classroom as an interdependent community
• MORE heterogeneously grouped classrooms where individual needs are met through inherently individualized activities; no segregation of bodies
• MORE delivery of special help to students in general education classrooms
• MORE varied and cooperative roles for teachers, parents, administrators, and community members
• MORE reliance upon teachers' descriptive evaluation of student growth, including qualitative and anecdotal observation

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