Introduction
To create an inclusive classroom environment and meet the needs of students with disabilities, the first thing I need as a teacher is an understanding of the students’ specific disabilities. I need to understand if students have psychomotor disabilities, hearing impairments, or visual impairments — this information is fundamental to developing an optimized curriculum. In addition, it is important to know what accommodations and devices the student uses to learn and what special needs they may have. Identifying weaknesses and vulnerabilities that the student may encounter while learning is also valuable information. We need to know how the student copes with tasks of varying difficulty and whether the disability interferes with success. Information about family support and communication relationships with parents or caregivers is also valuable because it creates opportunities for quick communication when problems arise.
Opportunities to Restructure the Instructional Process
It is critical for the teacher of an inclusive classroom to create an accessible environment where all students feel comfortable and safe, and have their needs met (Bryant et al., 2019). Creating such an environment requires adherence to several principles that can ensure the success of an inclusive environment. In particular, this includes providing clear and transparent instruction to all students in a variety of media, whether it is verbal instruction or printed and audiovisual materials. The teacher should adopt a strategy of gradual reduction of support for students with disabilities so that tasks are based on a slow increase in complexity. Additional technology may be needed to facilitate instruction to meet the student’s limited needs. It is also necessary to support the desire for interaction among students to allow for delegation of responsibility and to receive feedback that can be used to adjust the learning process to better meet the interests and needs of the class.
Meaningful Assessments
The teacher provides ongoing assessment of a student’s skills and knowledge, including summative and formative assessments. These assessments serve several meaningful roles in the inclusive classroom. First, it provides the teacher with information about the student’s progress and dynamics, and if performance deteriorates, the teacher can respond to change and provide additional support to both the group and the individual student. Second, the assessment allows for the identification of students’ weaknesses and allows for further improvement in vulnerable areas of progress. Third, a child’s grades may be of interest to parents, creating an additional channel of communication between parents and teachers. Fourth, a student’s poor performance may indicate an ineffective teaching strategy, which is helpful to the teacher, who can adjust teaching practices to better meet the needs of the classroom. Thus, assessments are a critical tool in the classroom to optimize, personalize, and improve the educational process.
Conclusion
Because students with disabilities require special attention in inclusive classrooms, interaction with their families can provide additional information and more comprehensive support (Bryant et al., 2019). Such interactions can be based on involving parents (caregivers) in the educational process and collaboratively adjusting the educational plan to address the student’s needs that the teacher may not be aware of. In addition, regular communication, reporting the results of grades and attendance are also forms of interaction — during such communication, the teacher can receive dynamic information in real-time about the problems and barriers faced by the student, as well as the parent’s (caregiver’s) vision of the goals and conditions of the inclusive classroom. Formats of interaction, in addition to formal communication by phone or messenger, may include regular workshops and meetings with parents, as well as activities that involve family participation.
Reference
Bryant, D. P., Bryant, B. R., & Smith, D. D. (2019). Teaching students with special needs in inclusive classrooms. Sage Publications.