Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

Summary

The IPP is currently focussed on the one-year post-graduate teacher education course leading to the Post-graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE). The programme prepares teachers for primary or secondary teaching. In 2009/10, 117 secondary students, and 106 primary students completed the course. Teachers graduating from this course take up probationary teaching posts across Scotland.

This initiative coincides with large-scale curricular reform across Scotland associated with the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence, which emphasises more inclusive approaches to teaching and learning and a strong commitment to social justice.

The IPP was funded by the Scottish Government for 4 years beginning in 2006.

The initiative was implemented through collaborative planning between colleagues to explore the key issues of inclusive pedagogy, which informed the delivery of the remodelled PGDE programme.

Project object:

The Inclusive Practice Project at the University of Aberdeen School of Education aims to develop new approaches to training teachers to ensure that they:

• - have a greater awareness and understanding of the educational and social problems/issues that can affect children's learning
• - have developed strategies they can use to support and deal with such difficulties.

Staff in the School of Education are making major changes to the initial teacher education programmes for primary and secondary teachers to ensure that social and educational inclusion is addressed within the core Learning and Teaching programme rather than being an elective selected by only a few student teachers.

 This pioneering project aims to transform teacher education and continuing professional development for teachers. These new approaches are designed to enable teachers and schools to create a teaching environment where all children receive the support required to:

• - Meet their individual needs
• - Develop their individual talents

- Help them make the most of their education

Methodology

Issues and challenges

In spite of widespread support for inclusion in principle amongst educationalists, there are concerns that it is difficult to implement. One reason cited is that teachers do not know how to ‘do’ inclusion in a practical sense. A central task of the IPP has been to work with colleagues who deliver the PGDE to explore the different ways in which teachers and schools can become more inclusive of children who might have found learning and participation difficult in the past and to develop a shared understanding of inclusive pedagogy, which has been built into the programme.

Inherent within the three themes that underpin the programme are challenges to many of the existing beliefs and practices that students may encounter when working in schools. First the theme ‘Understanding Learning’ is based on the principle that difference must be accounted for as an essential aspect of human development in any conceptualisation of learning. Such a view challenges deterministic views of children’s’ abilities and educational practices that are based on assumptions of a normal distribution of intelligence.

Secondly, the theme of ‘Social Justice’ places expectations on teachers that they are responsible for the learning of all children; a stance which requires them to conceptualise difficulties in student learning as dilemmas for the teacher, rather than as shortcomings in the pupils. This approach requires that teachers reject notions of inclusive practice that are based on provision for ‘most’ alongside something different for ‘some’, but instead it requires them to extend what is ordinarily available for all learners (creating a rich learning community).

The third theme, ‘Becoming an Active Professional’ requires that teachers must constantly seek new ways to support the learning of all children. A key tenet of this principle is finding ways of working with and through others to enhance the participation and improve the learning experience of everyone in the community of the classroom. This presents a challenge to traditional divisions between ‘mainstream’ teachers who are responsible for the learning of most students and ‘specialists’ who work with some children who have been identified as having ‘special needs’. Instead it suggests that adults work together to find better ways of supporting all children.

 

Target

Teachers and future teachers

Good practice innovations

The initiative has its routes in a growing recognition that teachers were not sufficiently well prepared for dealing with the range of differences in schools of today. In the Scottish context this was associated with a policy imperative that was trying to broaden definitions of inclusion and an acknowledgement that learning support should be available to a wider group of children than those who had previously been described as having special educational needs. It was also in response to concerns about problems of under-achievement and the disengagement and marginalisation of certain groups of young people.
 
The IPP is influenced by research on achievement and inclusion in schools that has challenged the widespread perception that the inclusion of pupils with difficulties in learning will hold back the progress of others. Indeed, it is increasingly accepted that, when implemented properly, inclusive education results in benefits for all learners. Building on this research, the IPP team are engaged in a series of studies of teacher craft knowledge that are enabling us to articulate the concept of inclusive pedagogy. The study of craft knowledge combines a theoretical exploration of observed practice with focussed discussions with innovative teachers to explore how their successful practices can inform professional development for other teachers and student teachers. At the same time we will utilise this craft knowledge to inform and extend our developing theoretical understanding of inclusive pedagogy. The work relies upon a ‘a dialogic cycle of knowledge-creation’ by which researchers, teachers and students inform and challenge the thinking and practices of each other by drawing on and sharing their different types of knowledge.

Good practice achievements

Key outcomes and lessons learned
 
The key outcome of IPP is the development of new thinking within the School of Education in the area of inclusive pedagogy:
 
The IPP has adopted the concept of inclusive pedagogy, based on research of teachers’ craft knowledge that is producing new strategies to address adverse school influences in the production of special educational needs. Studies of teachers’ craft knowledge are undertaken in recognition of the complexity of teachers’ daily work and to assist in identifying classroom practices which help to increase the participation and achievement of all children without the need to identify difficulties in learning as limitations of learners, a key policy problem arising from the well-documented negative effects of marking some students as in need of something ‘different’. The inclusive pedagogical approach is specifically concerned with redressing the limitations on learning that are often inadvertently placed on children when they are judged ‘less able’ or identified as having special educational needs, both key factors in reproducing social inequality. The research is providing the basis for improved educational outcomes and improved educational provision for vulnerable learners. This is a key area for development because children identified as having ‘additional’ or ‘special’ educational needs when compared to others of similar age are often disadvantaged by poverty, cultural, linguistic or developmental diversity. These children are at high risk for academic underachievement as mainstream schools often struggle to achieve good academic and social results for them. Through its commitment to teacher education, the IPP is helping to bring about changes to teachers’ practice.
 
Delivery of courses to PGDE students are based on the principles of inclusive pedagogy, as embedded in the three course themes ‘Understanding Learning’ Social justice’ and Becoming an Active Professional’. In this way, students are educated to become ‘inclusive practitioners’ - new teachers fully versed in, and committed to, notions of inclusive pedagogy, and willing to explore its enactment in practice.

Project partners and other stakeholders

The IPP is led by Professors Florian and Rouse at Aberdeen University in partnership with colleagues in the School of Education, partner local authorities and schools, the professional associations and trade unions, the Scottish Government Education Department, the General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS) and the school’s inspectorate (HMIE).
Professors Martyn Rouse and Lani Florian are both specialised in inclusive and special education. Previously at the University of Cambridge, they have a distinguished record in research and development work for schools, local authorities and national and international agencies in the area of special needs and inclusion.

Good practice testimonial

More information

Florian, L. & Linklater, H. (in press) Enhancing Teaching and Learning: Using ‘Learning without Limits’ to prepare teachers for inclusive education. Cambridge Journal of Education.

Florian, L., Young, K. & Rouse, M (2010) Preparing Teachers for Inclusive and Diverse Educational Environments: Studying Curricular Reform in an Initial Teacher Education Course. International Journal of Inclusive Education.

Rouse, M. (2010) Reforming initial teacher education: A necessary but not sufficient condition for developing inclusive practice in C. Forlin (Ed) Teacher Education for Inclusion: Changing Paradigms and Innovative Approaches, 47-54 London: Routledge.

Florian, L. & Rouse, M. (2010) Teachers’ professional learning and inclusive practice. In R. Rose (Ed.). Confronting Obstacles to Inclusion – International Responses to Developing Inclusive Schools, pp. 185-199, London: Routledge.

Florian, L., & Rouse, M., (2009) The inclusive practice project in Scotland: Teacher education for inclusive education, Teaching and Teacher Education 25(4), 594-601.

Florian, L., (2009) Preparing teachers to work in ‘schools for all’, Teaching and Teacher Education (introduction to special issue on teacher education for inclusive education), 25(4), 553-4.

Guidance based on the work of Florian and Rouse has been incorporated into the new Scottish national HMIE school inspection manual. HMIE (2008, December) Inclusion Reference Manual. www.hmie.gov.uk/NR/.../InclusionManualDecember2008forinternet.pdf

Florian and Rouse’s research findings and publications are featured on the Department for Education website in England http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/pupil_grouping/WedOct161037372002/

Findings from the Inclusive Practice Project are currently informing guidelines from the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education. Rouse is one of two ‘experts’ (the other is from Switzerland) working on phase two of the national level indicators for inclusion project. Florian is national expert representing Scotland working on the newly established teacher education for inclusion project.

The National Framework for Inclusion in Scotland published in 2009 is heavily influenced by the work of the project http://www.frameworkforinclusion.org/

The Learning and Teaching Scotland website features videos describing the work of the IPP research

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/video/m/martynrouseinclusiveexcellentschools.asp

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/video/m/martynrouseaboutinclusion.asp

Evaluation

Formal evaluation of the project is currently underway. The evaluation is being conducted by Professor Tony Gallagher, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Future developments

The IPP team are conducting a ‘follow-up study’ of a sample of PGDE graduates. This is not an evaluation of the course in a formal sense. Instead it seeks to build on the theoretical foundations of the PGDE course to explore how these are enacted in practice, and where new teachers find the facilitators and the barriers to adopting inclusive pedagogy. Insights from this work will support teacher educators to understand the experiences of new teachers, and to reflect on how best they can be supported by their time in the university. Thus the links between the theory and practice of inclusive education are constantly being explored to develop a better understanding of how new teachers can be supported.