Inclusive Instruction and Individualized Education Planning

Co-teaching as an educational technique for inclusive instruction has been examined by Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2017). This has been made necessary by changes in policy and ensuing changes in legislation. However, some people have erroneously perceived co-teaching as a scheme to cut costs, misrepresenting the authenticity of the practice (Nichols, J., Dowdy, A., & Nichols, C. 2010). Many stakeholders have mentioned the effectiveness of the models in increasing individual learning results, students’ attitudes, and behavioral development among special learners. Nevertheless, numerous studies have demonstrated valuable advantages from the system. Individualized Education Plan (IEP) refers to a document that provides guidelines for teachers, educationists, and parents with a framework for identifying individual learning goals, the means to achieve them, subsidiary services, and duty and responsibilities of various stakeholders in providing individualized learning (PBC, 2009).

Therefore, there are numerous benefits that accrue to learners engaged in inclusive learning that are beyond monetary resources or alleged quick fixes.

Sections of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)

An Individualized Education Plan (IEP) refers to a document that provides guidelines for teachers, educationists, and parents with a framework for identifying individual learning goals, the means to achieve them, subsidiary services, and duty and responsibilities of various stakeholders in providing individualized learning (PBC, 2009).

Consequently, its components may include among others; attributes of the target, likely learning needs, current status in curricular learning, current stage in individual biological and social development, identified gaps between the current status and the desired status, recommended actions, and stakeholder responsibilities. Depending on the level of detail, the plan could contain various stakeholders’ attributes e.g. parents/guardians (McElderry, C. G., & Cheng, T. C., 2014).

Individual’s attributes

These include an individual’s bio-data, medical information, and the attributes’ likely impact on learning.

Learning needs

Based on the individual’s assessment, there are certain specific needs that may inspire the style and material to be used in handling the individual. For instance, when there are certain medical conditions, the question of teaching and learning methods, ergonomics, and such other details come into play.

Current status in curricular learning

This information refers to the level of current academic performance, as well as performance in other activities pertaining to a particular subject. Performance implies the rate of progress in learning. The current status may define the basis of the intervention; since the assessment elaborates why the learner needs attention in a particular subject, what their strengths and interests are, and what his/her parent’s/guardian’s/self’s concerns are as pertains the area of learning. Some of the parameters to be assessed in this area include but are not limited to; language development, academic development, cognitive development, and such other parameters.

Social and Physical development

Social development depicts how the learner relates with other people. It also entails assessing the learner’s feelings about him/herself, as well as how they adapt to different social contexts.

Physical development refers to the student’s motor and sensory development, physical health, physical abilities, and physical skills which provide an indication of the child’s possible influences on the learning process. Consequently, an assessment of physical development would look at the child’s strengths and limitations, as well as the desired levels in order to identify needs.

Needs assessment

After examining the latter aspects, a learner’s attributes and strengths are juxtaposed with the learning requirements that are either desired or required. Based on this comparison, some learning gaps are identified that would inspire the individualized education plan. This is done through identifying particular materials, methods, or devices that would help a learner to bridge his/her learning needs to attain the desired level (Salas, L., 2004). In this process, it is also determined whether a child needs individualized interventions or whether the present classroom model can be enhanced to cover such a learner/learners. In some cases, assistive devices could be applied specifically to the individual without necessarily changing the classroom setup. Examples of common interventions provided to address some needs include but are not limited to; special services for English learning, devices for students’ speech or hearing, Braille for visually impaired, and such other devices.

Stakeholder responsibilities and criteria for measuring success

This simply refers to the duties and responsibilities for each individual or groups of individuals involved in planning and administering individualized teaching and learning. The role of the parents/guardians, the institution, government, and other stakeholders is defined. In this section, a plan could also mention the expectations of the system on the students.

In an IEP whose progress would be tracked on a short-term basis, its goals would be broken down into well-defined objectives, each with elaborate criteria for measuring success.

Team teaching Models

Social Interaction models

These models are used to develop skills that enable individuals to work in groups. The results are twofold: Social interaction models help individuals to obtain standard academic achievements while at the same time providing skills necessary for interacting with groups; a concept associated with Slavin, Johnson, and Johnson, known as cooperative learning. The main advantage of this model is that it is effective on learners when an explicit instruction model is used towards attaining a score on a standardized examination of basic skills (Huitt, W., 2003). Another advantage is that it assimilates role playing in order to enhance social behavior and social values.

Behavioral systems

The underpinnings of this method are observable skills and behavior of the learner. Just like social interaction methods, they have a high positive impact on standardized tests of basic skills. The main advantage is that it leverages on observed behavioral needs of the learner. The drawback is that there are more effective systems to be used for inclusive learning than itself. This is because it is more effective in behavioral effectiveness more than cognitive effectiveness. It can therefore not be engaged in isolation, without other models if the learner has numerous needs.

Cognitive Systems

This is a method associated with Koffka, Kohler, Lewin, Piaget, Ausubel, Bruner, and Gagne. It entails enhancing of a learners thinking process including formation of ideas, remembrance, processing of information and decision-making. The main intention in learning is to ensure that learners develop the requisite capacity and basic skills to learn better than before the interventions. The main advantages are; it supports cognitive development, it is suitable across age groups, and it equips a learner with more capability of learning than with simply the learning itself. Consequently, a demerit becomes that it does not necessarily fill in knowledge gaps but suffices only in enhancing capability.

Team teaching models appropriate for modification in inclusive settings

Teaching approaches that meet the needs of students with different circumstances such as learning styles, backgrounds, abilities etc. are referred to as being appropriate for inclusive learning (Nichols, J., Dowdy, A., & Nichols, C., 2010).

According to these scholars, these methods use a collaborative approach between the regular teacher and the special education teacher to ‘pull in’ special needs students into a regular classroom. These models are known as co-teaching models or collaborative teaching models. Some of the models are further discussed below.

Student Grouping Models

These entail clustering students with and without special needs into groups for purposes of peer-to-peer discussions and instruction. A study by Solis, M., Vaughn, S., Swanson, E., & Mcculley, L. (2012) revealed that students with special needs placed in groups had great support for working with partners and groups rather than learning within an entire classroom setting. Therefore, the idea is to mix special and regular students in the same groups rather than simply mixing them in a class. Notably, the study also revealed that learning outcomes for mixed groups were higher than those of special and regular students learning in separate classrooms. The success of this method was however conditional on the following; availability of training material for various students’ needs, availability of training time, time for lesson and curricular planning, teachers’ perceptions, learners’ perceptions, and attitudes and beliefs on co-teaching strategies. Overall, student grouping was observed by the study as a highly effective model.

One teaching, One Assist (Drift)

According to Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2017), the ‘Drift’ method entails normal teaching by one teacher while the special education provides the requisite education as required by the student. As such, it is used in the context of a mixed (inclusive) classroom. There are three most salient circumstances that necessitate this method: First, when one teacher is stronger and more comfortable with the curriculum, he/she may assume the leading and teaching role, while the less experienced or less comfortable teacher assists the learners. The second scenario is when a student or a group of students need one-on-one assistance in the lesson. The third scenario is when a school intends to introduce co-teaching as a new practice. The major demerits are; the model gives more power to the leading instructor which may result to learners perceiving some teachers with higher regard than others. Secondly, it is difficult to assist more than one student at a time.

Alternative Teaching Model

In this model, the learners are placed within the same classroom under the same curriculum. However, the specialized instructor isolates the needy students for specialized instruction for a comparatively limited period of time to address their special needs. As such, the learning remains inclusive since beyond the specialized training, the teacher(s) follow the same timetable and curriculum for both categories of learners (Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A., 2017). This method is recommended for a number of scenarios. They include; repeating a lesson that has already been taught, teaching a lesson yet to be taught but one in which particular learners need a head start, assessment of skills for a group of learners, improving mastery of particular skills. Consequently, the main merit of this method is that special needs learners benefit from being placed with regular learners without lagging behind. The demerits include; stigma due to ‘pull out’ as special needs learners are grouped together, difficulty in establishing clear criteria to ‘pull out’ learners, and difficulty in assimilation of knowledge by special learners prior or immediately after being pulled out.

Inclusive classroom settings

An inclusion classroom is one that contains both regular and special education students. An appropriate inclusion classroom is one in which the two categories of learners are not segregated. Ideally, having special and regular learners combined without segregation improves their social interaction skills, creates comfort for learning, and eliminates stigma. However, a strategy is required to address the needs of the special learners. Most of strategies identified by experts require the instructor or an additional resource to have special education competencies (Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. 2017).

It follows, therefore, that inappropriate placement of special learners is one in which, for instance, there are no instructional competencies in the class to handle special needs. Another example is one in which the special needs learners are isolated for the majority of the learning period. The isolation here refers to physical separation e.g. having them sit in one corner of the classroom. Most studies examined in this discourse have shown benefits in mixing the learners.

Conclusion

Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is refers to a framework for addressing learners with special needs through providing guidelines for understanding their development status, the desired status, their gaps, and recommending appropriate measures to enhance improved learning. Learners with such needs were traditionally isolated and handled in special classrooms. However, co-teaching strategies have recently been embraced to ensure that they learn alongside regular students. Contrary to common perception by some stakeholders, co-teaching is not a ploy to simply reduce resource: Instead, empirical studies have provided evidence to show that there are benefits to learners who are taken through these systems. They also benefit from learning from peers, developing interactive abilities, and eliminating stigma.

References

Huitt, W. (2003). Models of teaching/instruction. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date], from www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/instruct/instmdls.html

McElderry, C. G., & Cheng, T. C. (2014). Understanding the Discipline Gap from an Ecological Perspective. Children & Schools, 36(4), 241-249. doi:10.1093/cs/cdu020

Nichols, J., Dowdy, A., & Nichols, C. (2010). CO-TEACHING: AN EDUCATIONAL PROMISE FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES OR A QUICK FIX TO MEET THE MANDATES OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?. Education, 130(4), 647-651.

PBC (2009). Individual Education Planning for Students with Special Needs, A Resource Guide for Teachers,

Salas, L. (2004). Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) Meetings and Mexican American Parents: Let’s Talk About It. Journal Of Latinos & Education, 3(3), 181-192.

Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2017). Making Inclusion Work With Co-Teaching. Teaching Exceptional Children, 49(4), 284-293. doi:10.1177/0040059916685065

Solis, M., Vaughn, S., Swanson, E., & Mcculley, L. (2012). Collaborative models of instruction: The empirical foundations of inclusion and co-teaching. Psychology In The Schools, 49(5), 498-510.