In the text as well as websites such as this, the idea of inclusion in the classroom comes up. It is viewed in some instances as keeping some students at a slower pace in the classroom; but it is also viewed as being helpful to those students with disabilities to experience a classroom setting with their peers sans disabilities. Although this issue seems to be controversial in every way, and I can see both sides of the argument. I think as an educator you should vow to make sure that you are engaging with your students on all levels- and not single any student out. One of our texts states that there are laws to support inclusion in the classroom (McNergney)and that schools however, are given the option to have special education classrooms, and are not required to "include" these students in regular classrooms.
Another website I found discusses 5 Methods of Inclusion and one of the methods, called the Alternative method best exemplifies the positive and negative factors of inclusion. With this style of teaching, there is a larger group with one teacher and a smaller group faced back to back to the other group. The smaller group (if rotated with a mix of all students) is effective to introduce total inclusion. However, what this article does point out,
"In turn, the Alternative Teaching method can cause students to feel alienated or secluded from their classmates, especially if the teachers have a tendency to choose the same students to be in the small group and don’t properly rotate them. Additionally, teachers need to coordinate the appropriate lessons to make sure that all students are getting the same material delivered to them and that they aren’t missing valuable information while receiving extra help."
The idea that inclusion could negatively impact the learning of students is clear from this article, but I am still not entirely convinced that inclusion can be so destructive.
No comments:
Post a Comment