Inclusion Strategies and Interventions, Second Edition. Toby J. Karten
appropriate interventions, services, and classroom placements.
Inclusion has been a unifying concept for special and general education, with students benefiting from the supports when teachers adapt and gain new strategies to reach a broader range of learning profiles (Ford, 2013; Jung et al., 2019; Karten, 2017c). For example, when special education practices enter the classroom, general education teachers can see the benefits of differentiated instruction (DI). When general and special education teachers collaborate, they view all learners as worthy of achieving solid educational foundations in the inclusion environment.
General and special educators have collaborative eyes, hands, and minds on how to provide responsive instructional methods, materials, interventions, and supports. General and special educators working together use screening, progress monitoring, and assessments to plan for and support advancements. If schools place students with disabilities in general education classes without the appropriate structure and learner-specific adaptations, then teachers cannot support their individualized learning goals. An inclusion setting with specific, individualized organization; adapted curriculum; and differentiated teaching and learning strategies with embedded supports provides not only access to learners but also a path to their achievement. For example, a student in fifth grade who is reading two grade levels lower than his or her peers cannot independently read and solve mathematics word problems if the teacher doesn’t read the problems aloud or if the student can’t access text-speech digital tools. If a high school student with autism has difficulties transitioning from one class to the next, he or she may require a peer mentor, modeling, increased time, a social script, or a visual schedule. In addition, students who are academically advanced also need differentiated instruction and appropriately leveled, multitiered supports to honor their academic needs and skill sets. Therefore, the teaching and learning in inclusion classrooms is intentional and explicit for students of all skill sets.
Inclusion interventions honor the belief that all students are capable of meeting high expectations when teachers offer them the appropriate and individualized supports to achieve their highest potential. Neuroscience supports multiple types of engagements, representation, and actions and expressions for learners (CAST, 2018). Inclusion interventions, therefore, must connect instruction to each student’s unique needs. This often requires the teacher to use differentiated instruction to provide diverse ways to deliver the content, instruct, and assess. The teacher does not offer identical instruction to the whole class; instead, he or she attends to the learning needs of small groups and individual learners (Tomlinson, 2014). Differentiated instruction uses each learner’s prior knowledge, interests, strengths, and abilities to help the teacher determine how to prepare an inclusion classroom for student success.
This book focuses on helping educators maximize learning for an array of student differences in their inclusion classrooms. Interventions are meaningless unless teachers connect them to the individual profiles of unique students. Education is never exclusively about the subjects that educators teach; it is also about who is in the classroom. Each individual classroom, with its own diverse and unique student population, defines the lesson delivery, depth of concepts, intervention strategies, and types of collaborative structures, pacing, and curricular decisions teachers must make. Savvy inclusion educators always remember that inclusion classrooms consist of individual learners.
In This Second Edition
When the first edition of this book was published in 2011, inclusion was not as prevalent. Thankfully, diverse learner levels are now the norm in general education classrooms. This edition emphasizes how educators can collaboratively increase student engagement and performance in inclusion environments, minus the stigmatization. The strategies and interventions in this second edition include how teachers can implement specially designed instruction (SDI) in their inclusion classrooms without diluting the instruction for learners with and without exceptionalities, nor frustrating or inundating the general or special educators, students, and families.
The ultimate objective is to view inclusion as a collaborative way to better leverage and ultimately achieve higher learner outcomes in school and beyond. This second edition highlights best professional practices, while still honoring the curriculum demands that correspond to learners with and without exceptionalities. This includes partnerships between general and special educators; academic and behavioral supports and interventions; defined roles and responsibilities; and the division of tasks for co-teachers, assistants, interventionists, inclusion coaches, related service providers, families, and of course, students.
Since publication of the first edition, legislative and professional initiatives on inclusion have had a significant impact on education (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). This book covers those changes as well as revised and updated special education terminology. The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (2004b) has led to an increased amount of time that students with exceptionalities spend in the general education classroom to receive their free and appropriate public education (FAPE). This edition expands the impact of a student’s least restrictive environment (LRE), where students with exception-alities who have individualized educational programs (IEPs) receive the majority of their educational services and supports.
The LRE continuum has a range of environments that are more and less inclusive ones, as illustrated in table I.1. Even though legislation does not use the term inclusion, the general education (regular) classroom is the least restrictive one on the LRE continuum. As we continue the inclusion discussion, we will explore how the LRE needs to be appropriately matched with a student’s individual skill sets.
Table I.1: Least Restrictive Environment Continuum
This edition also delineates how to organize a multitiered system of supports (MTSS) in K–12 inclusion classrooms, including lesson or unit examples, tools, and resources. This system includes ongoing planning, instruction, facilitation, professional development, and reflection to achieve ongoing inclusion successes. Differentiated instruction and proactive planning as common practices offer heterogeneity in the inclusion classroom with universally designed lessons (UDL) that connect to pedagogy. The book also addresses the impact of social-emotional learning (SEL) on academic performance (for example, monitoring learners’ social, emotional, and behavioral competencies; promoting the students’ skills with and without exceptionalities as strategic learners with increased coaching and facilitation; and employing mindful and restorative practices).
This edition provides a steady pulse on practical, easy-to-follow K–12 curriculum and inclusion models, instructional practices, and learner connections. You’ll find data-based individualization to apply the evidence-based academic, behavioral, social, and emotional supports with age-appropriate interventions and routines for academic and nonacademic structures throughout. This book includes updated online resources, along with additional tables and figures for collaborative lesson planning, instruction, and assessment across grade levels, disciplines, and learner skill sets. A new edition is imperative since inclusion stagnation is never an option. Inclusion moves forward with educator knowledge, preparation, and collaborative can-do, will-do strategies and interventions.
About This Book
This text is divided into three parts. Part one focuses on promoting learning in inclusion classrooms. Chapter 1 offers information regarding the legislation that applies to inclusion classrooms and introduces students in these classrooms. It also discusses the unique abilities students possess, providing the foundation for the rest of the book. With this baseline knowledge, chapter 2 then describes ways for educators to organize the inclusion classroom utilizing principles such as multitiered systems of support, differentiated instruction, understanding by design (UbD), universal design for learning (UDL), multiple intelligences, multisensory approaches, peer mentoring, and cooperative learning. This chapter also