Collaboration In Inclusive Classrooms

This book is designed to teach preservice and advanced education professionals how to work with others to develop successful inclusive education programs for students with unique learning needs. The content, examples, and related skill-building activities enable readers to develop the essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to serve as leaders in this effort. In addition to successful collaboration, careful consideration has been given to other important issues related to program development such as staffing, instructional planning, ongoing classroom support, and IEP development. Issues addressed at the district, school, and classroom levels. KEY FEATURES: An emphasis on essential program features required for lasting success in inclusive education. Careful consideration of the change process as schools attempt to modify their traditional support service delivery options. Strategies to facilitate school-home teamwork in the development student IEPs based on collaborative service delivery structures. This book is appropriate for educators with a wide variety of professional roles and leadership responsibilities including general educators, special educators, education specialists, administrators, and related services providers such as school psychologists, counselors, speech and language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, and English-as-Second-Language (ESL), reading, and gifted education specialists. In addition, it is designed for use in staff development efforts and as a personal reference for practicing professionals.

Discover motivating, personalized learning strategies that all of your students will love! Build an active, responsive, and inclusive classroom where every student benefits. Through step-by-step directions, reproducible handouts, classroom-tested examples, and specific guidelines, teachers and teacher teams will discover 60 activities to help you: Quickly and easily modify and adapt design instruction for diverse learners, including students with cultural, language, learning, physical, or sensory differences Transform lectures and whole-class discussions through dynamic, student-centered learning experiences Immerse students in discussion, debate, creative thinking, questioning, teamwork, and collaborative learning Flexibly co-plan and co-teach with a variety of school professionals The revised edition of this bestselling resource includes step-by-step directions, reproducible handouts, classroom-tested examples, and specific guidelines. Discover quick and easy ways to help all learners participate, contribute, and learn with this unique guide! "This book is a gold mine of strategies to increase engagement, participation, and JOY for all students in inclusive classrooms. The examples and implementation suggestions make is easy for K-12 teachers to select and apply strategies that make learning meaningful and fun." —Barb Gruber, Inclusion Facilitator Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education "One of the many things I appreciate about this new edition is the range of its examples. Regardless of grade level or subject area, all K-12 teachers will find relevant gems here." —Kelly Chandler-Olcott, Associate Dean for Research Syracuse University

Shortlisted for the NASEN/TES 2007 Book Award Increased partnership between professionals, particularly through the integration of services, indicates a major opportunity for child and parent participation, but one that seems in danger of being side-stepped. Drawing on substantial research evidence, this book looks at reasons for this situation; what is happening now, what developments and initiatives have been tried and what can be done to develop a culture of participation? Some of the main threats to participation are discussed in this book including: Has ‘partnership’ ever been? Who is excluded from 'partnership'? Which discourses have made participation illusive and what are the implications – theoretical and practical - for how we move forward? Partnerships for Inclusive Education includes a helpful framework map which guides critical thinking towards the development of a culture of collaboration and presents original and stimulating ideas to open up the complex processes that can frustrate participative practice. Combining socio-cultural ideas with post-structural thinking gives this book a strong yet accessible theoretical basis, making it a valuable resource to both an academic and a professional educational audience.

Using marriage as a metaphor, this lighthearted, highly practical, and teacher-friendly resource helps general education teachers and special service providers successfully set up, conduct, and maintain co-teaching partnerships.

As a result of the mandates of the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA), inclusive practices have become the norm for addressing the needs of all learners. In addition, these mandates require that steps must be taken to guarantee that all students are successful in all school settings, regardless of ability. Possibly now more than ever, educators should be experts in building collaborative relationships for inclusive settings. The perceived positive benefits of collaboration among teachers for inclusive settings creates a topic of interest. Research has begun to focus on the study of the deep, or integrated, collaborative relationships between special education and general education teachers and the use of inclusive learning communities to support practice. Building Integrated Collaborative Relationships for Inclusive Learning Settings provides background information on special education law, inclusion, and strategies for integrated collaborative relationships that include the creation of inclusion professional learning communities and a map for intended collaboration. Moreover, the book provides insights and supports professionals concerned with the evolving environment of schools and education and how to best meet the needs of all learners. This book is intended for teachers, special education teachers, counsellors, professionals, and researchers working in the field of education, and inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students looking to improve their understanding on how to build and maintain practices to support inclusive learning settings.

High-leverage practices are key to collaborative co-teaching in an inclusive setting. Collaboration and co-teaching are concepts that have long been central to inclusive education. More recently, evidence-based and high-leverage practices (EBPs and HLPs) have gained recognition as highly effective tools to improve student learning and behavior, in both general and special education classrooms. In this reader-friendly text, two of the nation’s top experts in co-teaching provide a unique guide to implementing EBPs and HLPs through collaborative teaming practices. Melissa Jenkins and Wendy Murawski position collaboration as the bridge by which both HLPs and EBPs can be more effectively utilized for the success of all students in the classroom. Filled with strategies, practical examples, reflection questions, and tools like decision-making flow charts, their easy-to-use handbook belongs on the desk of every teacher working in an inclusive environment.

"Rich with contributions and proven strategies from teachers who work in inclusive school settings, this resource demonstrates how to create a successful collaborative team through building teamwork skills, developing problem-solving methods, implementing action plans, using collaborative teaching, and improving communication skills among team members." "Team members will find the included reproducible forms indispensable in planning and implementing inclusion support programs and in organizing and compiling information for IEP meetings. This guide is written for teachers, with teachers, and is a valuable resource for any member of a collaborative team."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Instructional Collaboration in International Inclusive Education Contexts looks at the instructional collaboration between special education and general education in international educational contexts and the role this plays in enabling inclusive education.

Inclusive Education includes two sections: readings and cases. The readings present approaches for creating inclusive classrooms and schools; their purpose is to give prospective and practicing teachers background information in curricular, instructional, assessment, and collaborative problem-solving strategies that foster inclusive education. The Casebook consists of "An Introduction to Cases" and 14 teaching cases based on actual events as experienced by the case authors that describe in rich detail the experiences of parents, students, and teachers related to inclusive education. Most of the cases pose problems or dilemmas to be resolved--including the struggles of parents seeking inclusive education for their children; students' attempts to succeed in general education classrooms; special educators', principals' and teachers' experiences as they collaborate in moving toward inclusive programs; and teachers' concerns for the future success of their students.

The second edition of The SAGE Handbook of Special Education provides a comprehensive overview of special education, offering a wide range of views on key issues from all over the world. The contributors bring together up-to-date theory, research and innovations in practice, with an emphasis on future directions for the role of special education in a global context of inclusion. This brand new edition features: " New chapters on families, interagency collaboration and issues of lifelong learning " The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities " Policy reform proposals " Equity and social justice in education " The impact of new thinking on assessment " Issues and developments in classification " The preparation and qualifications that teachers need The Handbook′s breadth, clarity and academic rigour will make it essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students, and also for practitioners, teachers, school managers and administrators.