The topic that I chose to work with this course is inclusive classroom and whether they are beneficial or distracting to students. I chose this topic because it is one that my cooperating teacher (back when I was student teaching for my bachelors degree) always talked about. She was a big advocator for this, and it has always interested me on how it would work and if all the children would benefit from this. Recently, I went back to do an observation in her class and found that she was teaching in an inclusive classroom. Spending the day with her and her students made me realize that there were some great benefits, but there were some draw backs as well.
So now, this week I am in the process of reading research papers to find out the results. So far I have found that schools with inclusive classrooms, usually but not always, have a higher quality program. All the studies I have found so far is based off whether the teacher is qualified to handle an inclusive classroom. From first glance, it seems that an inclusive classroom can work as long as the teacher is prepared to make it work.
I know that some of my classmates and I have talked about this in another course, but I am curious on what everyone thinks about inclusive classrooms. Do you teach in an inclusive classroom or have children in an inclusive classroom? What are your experiences from this?
As I find resources that I find important for this course or my topic, I will be adding them here. I am excited to learn more about inclusive classrooms and to learn from all of you!
I worked at an elementary school for many years teaching first grade. We had no special education classrooms, altough we did have a special education program. The students were all inclusive and were pulled out for about an hour or two for special education. The last year I taught, I had a moderately autistic female student. In order for her to be in my classroom, I had to run it very differently. She was very distracting to the other students at times because she often stood up in the middle of class and started singing songs, or would yell out in the middle of activities or instructions. It was a very challenging year, working with the special education teacher, the psychologist, and a behavioral specialist. I was challenging, yet beneficial to her at the same time. I could go on and on. I guess what it comes down to is that I can see the pros and cons to inclusion, and would love to hear more about what you find on the topic!
ReplyDeleteThis is such an interesting topic for me, since I have worked with children in both situations. I feel that a child can thrive in an inclusive environment and my research is on social skills of children and whether they thrive with like peers or peers that are not like them.
ReplyDeleteThank you both for your feedback! This week I tried to focus more on the research papers but didn't really get to read about teacher's experiences with this topic. Kristen, the insight that you have given me, has made me realize that I need to find more articles or websites with teacher's experiences with inclusive classrooms.
ReplyDeleteCharlotte,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who had difficulty! I'm kind of surprised that you couldn't find much on inclusive classrooms. I would think that would be a common topic right now. Anyway, I understand. I remember the articles on play from our classes, but they weren't helpful in my search.
Anyway, I just started working in an inclusive classroom. We have four autistic students. It can be very distracting because they yell, run or crawl around the room etc. Occasionally they have unsafe outbursts where they hit, kick, flop on the floor or throw things. These children are all four or five and it concerns me when they are around the two and a half year olds that just came from the toddler room. One of them got hit the other day. Luckily, she didn't get hurt. To top that off, we also have all of their helpers in the classroom. So four students means four extra adults in the room as well. Fifteen typically developing children plus four autistic children are a lot of kids to watch out for.
I think there are more disadvantages for an inclusive setting in the specific program I work in, but generally, I think it can be good for all students involved. Maybe if we had less children overall, it might work better. Also, our autistic children have different helpers everyday. They are always switching them around. I think it would be extremely helpful to our autistic children if they constantly had the same helper. It would make them feel more comfortable since they are so routine oriented. They usually just stay with us for the morning and then return to another program after lunch. I could go on and on about this, but tere is my experience so far.