Week 3: Everyone can do something

1. Introduction

Welcome to Week 3.

In classrooms all over the world educators face challenges as they work out how to teach to include every child. This week you will be focusing on this statement: Everyone can do something to support excluded children, even without specialist training.

Despite all the challenges of large classes and limited resources, many teachers keep finding new creative strategies to overcome these barriers and provide quality education, often with active teaching and learning.

“The question that needs to be addressed is not whether to include children, but how to do it effectively and in a timely fashion.

UNICEF (view source)

The ‘Wave model of intervention’ theory you met in Week 1 highlights the importance of all teachers taking responsibility for making all classrooms inclusive. You are here because you too want to take responsibility for supporting inclusive teaching.

This week builds on Weeks 1 and 2, where you learned about the big picture at global and national levels about why inclusion is an important policy and part of quality education. This week you are going to focus on the how by considering what happens in the inclusive classroom as part of quality education, for example how active teaching and learning and learner-centred attitudes can be put into practice.

This week you will:

explore key active teaching and learning strategies teachers can and do use in the classroom
identify some of the features of inclusive learning and teaching
consider how to involve all learners
relate these strategies to some of the inclusivity challenges highlighted in Week 1.

1.1. Activities for the week

Activity number	Title	Details	Time
3.1	What does active teaching look like?	Reflecting on what active teaching looks like.	1 hour
3.2	Observing teaching	Review the World Bank ‘tool’ for observing teaching	30 mins
3.3	‘Involving All’ in action	Watch two video clips and look for evidence of the principles of involving all	30 mins
3.4	Using the minimum criteria to improve teaching	Analysing an example of a lesson and suggesting how to make it more inclusive	30 mins
3.5	Minimum criteria and learner-centred teaching	Analyse a video using the criteria and apply them to your own teaching	30 mins
3.6	Challenges in inclusive teaching and learning	Film clip of Lydia reflecting on the challenges in Kenya	15 mins
3.7	Inclusivity challenges	Consider a list from lecturers at KISE and analyse a case study	45 mins
3.8	Supporting learners with specific needs	Analyse a video clip	30 mins
3.9	Reviewing your learning	Write a blog post	30 mins

2. Everyone can do something: what does inclusive teaching look like?

Everyone can do something to support excluded children, even without specialised training. You may be thinking about your own classroom support or supporting others to become inclusive teachers. One way to do this is with active teaching, which engages all learners and gives them the opportunity to talk about their learning. Active teaching is part of learner-centered education (LCE), which you considered in Week 2 as you developed your own list of minimum criteria.

Perhaps you have experience of supporting colleagues to make their teaching more active, or you may have only begun to think about how you would make a change? The first activity this week will deepen your understanding of active teaching strategies before you go on to consider the reasons why change is challenging.

Activity 3.1 What does active teaching look like?

Allow approximately 1 hour in total for the 3 parts of this activity.

What does an active classroom look like?

Part 1

Imagine you step into a classroom in a new school and you walk around looking and listening.

For each of the following statements write ‘yes’ (active, learner-centred teaching) or ‘no’ in your notebook. If you are unsure, write ‘maybe’.

Reveal response

1. Learners always work in silence	No
2. Teacher moves around the room helping different learners with different tasks	Yes
3. Learners talk in pairs or in groups and sometimes work in silence	Yes
4. Learners copy from board for most of the lesson	No
5. Teacher always stands at the front	No
6. Learners have time to think and process information before answering	Yes
7. Teacher dictates from the text book	No
8. Learners feel afraid to give a wrong answer or make a mistake	No
9. Learners go outside collecting things for an investigation	Yes
10. Teachers always ask closed questions with a yes no right or wrong answer	No
11. The teacher knows about learners lives and finds examples they can relate to	Yes
12. The learners feel safe to ask questions to show they are curious and to learn from mistakes	Yes

These examples of active teaching and learning are just a sample, and you will experience many more. There is no one right way because everyone is different and it depends on your learners.

Part 2

Now think about this list. Make notes in your study notebook on:

What active learning you have used and what worked well and why.
What behaviours or activities are easy to notice?
Which attitudes are more difficult to detect and why?

Part 3

Choose two of the ‘wrong’ behaviours (i.e. 1,4,5,7,8,10). What advice would you give to a teacher who persistently uses those approaches for long periods of time?

For example – instead of dictating from a textbook or having students copy from the chalkboard, a teacher could write a passage with missing words that students have to fill in; draw a diagram that students have to label; write a set of questions about the topic for students to answer (if they have a textbook available). If students work in pairs they can talk about the answers and learn from each other.

Write your suggestion in the Week 3 forum. If you are a secondary school teacher try and give a subject-specific answer which will help others.

3. Observing active teaching

When you observe teaching, you can tell a great deal from what the learners are doing: their demeanour, their involvement and how the teacher and learners relate to each other. It is important to remember that the nature of the task is important as well. Just because students are working in groups the lesson is not necessarily ‘learner-centred’ – the task may be too easy or too hard and may not support learning.

It is more difficult to detect a teacher’s underlying attitudes. Teachers have to make all sorts of rapid, ‘in the moment’ decisions during a lesson. Sometimes, after observing teaching, it is helpful to be able to ask the teacher why they did certain things.

The World Bank has produced a classroom observation tool ‘Teach’, which draws on a growing body of evidence of what constitutes effective teaching practices in a primary school (Molina et al., 2018).

Link to PDF

In the next activity you will review the tool in the context of the ideas discussed so far and apply it to your own situation.

Activity 3.2 Observing teaching

Allow approximately 30 mins for this activity.

The observation tool is summarised here

Reflect on the following questions in your notebook, and then be prepared to make a forum post.

The World Bank observation tool defines nine criteria to observe:

Supportive learning environment
Positive behavioural expectations
Lesson facilitation
Checks for understanding
Feedback
Critical thinking
Autonomy
Perseverance
Social and collaborative skills

For each one use the summary to write down in your study notebook what sorts of things you might expect to see in an inclusive classroom in your secondary subject, or for the primary age group that you teach . For example (secondary science): lesson facilitation clear instructions for practical work, activities for students to do which stretch and challenge their understanding, the teacher providing support and challenge as necessary by moving around the room. Critical thinking – open questions that extend thinking, opportunities for discussion, choice for students about what to do and how to do it, meta-cognition (students being asked why they chose something, or what they found hard).

Which one is the most difficult to define? Write your ideas for that one on the Week 3 forum and comment on at least two other posts.

In a critique of the tool, Rafael Mitchell (2019) argues that inclusive education requires teachers to pay attention to how students are organised, and recognises the fact that peer support is important in supporting disadvantaged students. He says that the ‘tool’ should include this aspect of classroom organisation. Drawing on your own experience:

Do you agree with this critique and why?
How might you modify this tool to focus more effectively on the inclusivity of the classroom? Write your thoughts in your study notebook, or , if possible, discuss your ideas with a colleague.

3.1. Optional readings

If you are interested in learning more about the tool, you can read the original paper, and Mitchell’s critique.

The original paper: : https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/30929/WPS8656.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Rafael Mitchell’s (2019) critique of the tool, arguing that it does not take account of evidence from classroom in sub-Saharan Africa: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/208234804/Student_organisation_in_SSA_evidence_to_inform_the_World_Bank_s_Teach_observation_instrument_Mitchell_2019_.pdf

This blog explains how it was used in Rwanda, and the importance of training researchers to use the tool so that the findings were consistent across a number of different people:

https://www.ukfiet.org/2020/using-the-teach-classroom-observations-tool-in-rwanda/

4. Being observant, flexible and focusing on self-esteem

Being observant, flexible and focusing on self-esteem, you will now think about other ways of supporting learning for all and involving all. Some of these are not as easy to spot as active teaching because they are about teacher attitudes towards learners and teacher skills. Do you know teachers who are:

Observant > Flexible > Self-esteem

^{Figure 1}^{Three skills to look out for in an active
teacher}

Observant

Effective teachers are observant, perceptive and sensitive; they notice changes in their students. If you are observant, you will notice when a student does something well, when they need help and how they relate to others. For example, you might notice a change in a student’s mood which could be because of home problems, or you might notice a new pupil is having difficulty concentrating or listening because of language or hearing problems. There is always a reason for a student’s behaviour. Involving all requires that you notice your students on a daily basis, paying particular attention to students who may feel marginalised or unable to participate. In the following example notice how Rachel creates opportunities to observe Martha so that she can work out how to help her.

Examples from practice

Social studies teacher Rachel took on a new Form 6 class at the beginning of the school year.

After a few days, she noticed that Martha often gave strange, sometimes irrelevant answers to questions and that the other children laughed at her. She asked some of the other teachers about Martha and they told her that she was ‘mad and badly behaved’. Rachel set pair work and group work for her class so that she could observe Martha and talk to her while she was working. Rachel noticed that Martha was often excluded when in a group but worked very well with Joseph and Precious in a pair. She realised that Martha had a speech impediment and found it difficult to formulate sentences before she spoke.

She asked Martha which activities she enjoyed the most and discovered that she was very talented in music and dancing.

Rachel created an opportunity for her class to prepare a dance to illustrate a historical event. Martha had a starring role and her confidence improved. As she became more relaxed and earned the respect of her peers, her speech began to improve as well.

Flexible

Inclusive teachers are flexible and responsive. They notice things that aren’t working in their classrooms for specific students, groups or individuals, and they are prepared to change their teaching style or even stop a specific activity if necessary. Flexible teachers build variety into their teaching because they recognise that students learn in different ways: some by reading and writing, some through talking about their ideas, others learn by drawing. A flexible teacher offers choices and different ways to learn and achieve. You can even use everyday examples from your students’ lives to give them a feeling of personal involvement in their own learning and help keep them interested.

Raising self esteem

Inclusive teachers also show respect for the children in their care and focus on making the student feel valued and cared for. You have the power to build or destroy the self-esteem of every student you teach. Self-esteem is what helps students build positive relationships and become comfortable with themselves.

In the next activity you will see examples of all three inclusive teaching approaches in action

Activity 3.3 ‘Involving All’ in action

Allow approximately 30 minutes for this activity.

Watch one of the the video clips and record examples for these three principles in action, or any other ways in which the teacher involves all students.

Record your ideas on the Week 3 forum and comment on two other posts.

Shows a lower primary maths lesson

Shows a secondary English lesson

5. Inclusive teaching

Inclusive teachers are observant, flexible and nourishing. They will also plan engaging lessons, which meet the needs of learners. The minimum criteria which you met in the previous section, provide guidance on this – things that all teachers can do to support inclusion.

Here are the minimum criteria again:

Lessons or training sessions which actively engage learners

Mutual respect between teacher and learner (adult and child, or adult and adult)

Lessons or training sessions which build on prior knowledge and understanding
Opportunities for dialogue and considering open questions
Learning that is relevant to children’s (or professionals’) lives
A curriculum which supports the development of a range of skills
Assessment which gives credit for a range of skills.

The next activity will show how relatively small changes can make a big difference. You will need to use your responses to Activity 2.5 in which you converted these statements into questions in the next activity.

Activity 3.4 Using the minimum criteria to improve teaching

Allow approximately 30 mins for this activity.

Read this account of Kevin’s biology lesson in a secondary school and then respond to the questions which follow in your study notebook.

Kevin was a student teacher. His tutor had come to observe his lesson to Form 2 on the structure of the leaf. Kevin started the lesson by doing the register. He then explained that they were going to learn about the structure of the leaf. There was one textbook between every two students.

He wrote the title on the chalkboard and started to dictate some notes. Due to his inexperience, he was not very good at dictation and went too fast. The students realised that what he was saying was in the textbook, so they just copied that instead. After ten minutes, Kevin paused and asked a few closed questions. Only a few students put their hands up, as the rest were still copying.

He dictated a bit more. When he reached the end of the passage, he pointed to a poster on the wall which showed a diagram of the structure of a leaf. The same diagram was in the textbook and he asked them to copy it down. He stood at the front and watched them.

Kevin’s tutor looked out of the classroom window and was able to identify 5 different types of leaf in the school grounds.

When most had finished copying the diagram, Kevin asked some more closed questions. The answers were all on the diagram, so a few more students put their hands up.

At the end he asked the class, ’Do you understand?’ and they chorused the reply – ‘YYes, we understand’.

Why do you think Kevin is teaching like this?
What do you think it would be like to be a child in his class?
Use the minimum criteria to suggest three small changes he could make to lesson to make learning more active?

5.1. Being more inclusive

In his lesson, Kevin could have:

brought different types of leaf into the classroom (e.g. from trees in the school grounds),and asked his students to work in pairs to identify what they had in common (engaged students/related content to their lives/surroundings)
asked his students to read aloud from the book and then answer questions on the text in their pairs. They could have then swapped work with another pair and reviewed each other’s work (providing the opportunity to talk about their work)
moved around the room while they were working and supported individuals as necessary (opportunity to build on prior learning/provide individual support)
drawn a diagram of the leaf and asked them to work with a partner to add labels and an explanation of the function of each part of the leaf (opportunity to develop thinking skills/relate learning to everyday life).

Reflection point

Are there any small changes such as these that you could make in your own teaching?

5.2. Everyone can do something – what can you do?

In this course, you are being encouraged to focus on ways in which all teachers can support a range of learners in the classroom. In the next activity, you have the opportunity to apply the minimum criteria to your own teaching.

Activity 3.5 Minimum criteria and learner-centred teaching

Allow approximately 30 minutes on each part of this activity

Part A
Look again at one of the clips from Activity 3.3. This time use the minimum criteria to analyse the inclusivity. You can watch the one you did not choose in Activity 3.3, or watch the same one again.

Part B
Now think again about a lesson you have taught or observed recently. Think about each of the criteria above and identify two or three ways in which you could have made the lesson more learner centred. Relate your analysis back to the reasons why learners might feel excluded and highlight what you would do to involve all students.

Choose your best idea and share it on the Week 3 forum. Also comment on two other posts.

In your responses, you perhaps suggested things like open questions that learners discuss in pairs, group work, using local resources or organising a role-play or a debate. Next week you will be introduced to resources that will help teachers plan classroom activities to actively engage learners.

6. Challenges in inclusive teaching and learning

In Week 1 you heard Daniel explain his vision for inclusive teaching. Implementing this vision is demanding, but hopefully by breaking the problem down and thinking in terms of the continua introduced in Week 2, you can see ways in which you can make progress along the continua by introducing small changes in your practice. This could include open questioning, more group work and pair work, organising peer support and so on – strategies that have been exemplified this week. In the next activity you will hear Lydia talking about the challenges in implementing inclusive education.

Activity 3.6 The challenges of inclusive education

Allow approximately 15 mins for this activity.

View transcript / Download PDF

Listen to Lydia talking about the challenges of inclusive education in Kenya. As you listen, summarise the four points that she makes in your study notebook.

Reflecting on your own context, to what extent would you agree with Lydia?

This course is designed to highlight the skills, attitudes and values all teachers need to develop as effective, empathetic and encouraging practitioners, able to help all learners learn. In the second course in this series there will be more information on assessment and information sharing, and on organising on-going school-based training for inclusive teaching and learning. In the next section, however, the focus is on the specific inclusivity challenges that teachers face.

7. Tackling specific inclusivity challenges

Inclusivity is more important than it ever has been in today’s ever-increasingly global, multicultural and politicially sensitive times, yet including everyone can be challenging. During a workshop on inclusive education, lecturers at the Kenyan Institute for Special Education identified some of the common inclusivity challenges that teachers face. They are:

Poor learning behaviours
Low literacy levels
Poor speech and language
Hearing impairment
Low numeracy levels,
Visual impairment
Being in a large class
Physical disabilities
Specific learning difficulties
Difficult home lives
Hunger and/or poverty.

Activity 3.7 Inclusivity challenges

Allow approximately 45 mins for this two-part activity.

Part 1: Thinking about your context

Identify the three challenges which are most significant in your own context. Share these on the Week 3 forum with one idea about how to tackle each one.
Which of the challenges you have listed require input from specialists?
For each of these, write down in your study notebook two or three things that a class teacher could do to support those children if specialist help was not available?

For example, for a visually impaired child, the teacher could write larger, identify a ‘buddy’, and ensure they are sitting at the front. For a physically disabled child a teacher could review the lay-out of the classroom to ensure they can move about safely.

Part 2: Case study

Read Case study 2: Difficult home circumstances.

Identify the ways in which the teacher is inclusive and supports Mogas and write them in your study notebook.

7.1. The Wave model in action

In part 2 of Activity 3.7, waves 1 and 2 of the Wave model were in evidence:

Mogas was excluded from learning; he lost his parents (he was an orphan), lacked resources and was displaced.

The teacher noticed his behaviour and was careful how he reacted.
The teacher made an effort to raise his self-esteem by praising him.
The teacher organised his classroom so that Mogas could benefit from peer support and gave himself opportunities to talk to him during lessons.
The teacher and the school were flexible in how they applied the school rules about lateness in order to support Mogas.
Although the teacher alone made an enormous difference to Mogas’s way of life and his prospects for the future, by involving colleagues and working collaboratively, even more progress was able to be made.

7.2. Everyone can do something …

Inclusive teaching requires practice and careful planning. In this section you have been introduced to some key principles and concepts that will help you to develop as an inclusive practitioner and to help others do so. In the final activity below, you will watch a film taken in South Africa. This teacher has four learners with ADHD. This is an invisible condition in that the children have no obvious physical issues, but they find it difficult to concentrate and can get frustrated very easily.

The teacher in the film refers to the fact that she collaborates with colleagues to help her support these children (Wave 2 in the model), but as you will see from the film, there is also a great deal that she can do on her own in her classroom to support the learning of these children.

Activity 3.8 Supporting learners with specific needs in a mainstream classroom

Allow approximately 30 mins for this activity.

Watch the following video from 3:50 to 6:12:

As you watch, write down in your notebook all the strategies that the teacher uses to support the learners with ADHD. Which of these will also benefit the other learners in the class?
Reflect on your own experience of learning and teaching. Think of a learner with a specific learning disability that you have encountered and identify two ways in which that learner could be supported in a normal classroom. Write a short post on the Week 3 forum stating the learning need and the actions that were/could be taken.

8. Reviewing your learning

In this section the focus has been on what inclusive teaching looks like. You have considered some of the common inclusivity challenges and what can be done to support all learners. You have applied the principle of being observant, flexible and focusing on self-esteem alongside the minimum criteria for inclusive teaching in order to recognise and support inclusive teaching. Next week you will be introduced to more resources that will support you in developing active learning and teaching approaches.

Activity 3.9 Reviewing your learning

Allow approximately 30 minutes for this activity.

Instead of the weekly quiz, for this week’s summative activity write a short paragraph (about 200 words) summarising what you have learned this week about inclusive teaching following ‘Wave 1’ of the Wave model for ‘inclusive, quality-first teaching for all’.

Link to blog

9. Looking forward

There are many inclusivity challenges facing teachers, some of which involve students with a physical disability or specific learning difficulty, some of which arise from teachers’ working conditions (large classes, lack of resources), and some of which arise from a learners’ home environments. This week you were introduced to three principles for inclusive teaching: being observant, being flexible and being nourishing (supporting self-esteem). You have also used the ‘minimum criteria’ for learner-centred education in order to analyse teaching and identify possible improvements. Often the changes required are very small – like moving away from the front of the room or enabling learners to talk in pairs – but over time, they can have a significant impact. Next week you will have the opportunity to expand your ‘toolkit’ even further.

Go to Week 4

References

Mitchell, R. (2019) ‘Student organisation as a facet of teaching quality in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence to inform the World Bank’s Teach observation instrument’. Paper presented at UKFIET 2019, Oxford, United Kingdom [Online]. Available at https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/208234804/Student_organisation_in_SSA_evidence_to_inform_the_World_Bank_s_Teach_observation_instrument_Mitchell_2019_.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2021).

Molina, E., Pushparatnam, A., Rimm-Kaufman, S.,Ka-Yee Wong, K. Teach Classroom Observation Tool: Evidence-Based Teaching Effective Teaching Practices in Primary School Classrooms. World Bank Group Policy Research Working Paper 8656 Downloaded from Accessed on 12/01/2021 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/30929/WPS8656.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

TESS-India ‘Involving all: lower primary maths’ (2015) YouTube video [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV7fILQPTxg&list=PLLjfVZ89nnNI7lEZRdanOTVxzuosUW0Bp&index=14&t=177s (Accessed 9 January 2021).

TESS-India ‘Involving all: secondary English’ (2015) YouTube video [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm2hp-hNEI4&list=PLLjfVZ89nnNI7lEZRdanOTVxzuosUW0Bp&index=16&t=82s (Accessed 9 January 2021).

UKFIET (2020) Using the Teach classrooms observation tool in Rwanda [online]. Available at https://www.ukfiet.org/2020/using-the-teach-classroom-observations-tool-in-rwanda/ (Accessed 9 January 2021). Posted by Laterite | Oct 2, 2020

UNICEF : Sarton, E. and Smith, M. (2018). The challenge of inclusion for children with disabilities – experiences and implementation in Eastern and Southern Africa Chapter 7 in Chakera, E. Tao, S. (Eds) (The UNICEF Think Piece Series: Innovative Thinking for complex Educational Challenges in the SDG4 Era. UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi. P2 https://www.unicef.org/esa/sites/unicef.org.esa/files/2019-04/EducationThinkPieces_7_DisabilityInclusion.pdf (Accessed 12/02/20121)

World Bank Group (2018) ‘Measuring teaching practices at scale: results from the development and validation of the TEACH classroom observation tool’, by Molina, E., Farwa, S. F., Ho, A., Hurtado, C.M., Wilichowksi, T. and Pushparatnam, A. Policy research Working Paper, Teach classroom observation tool [Online]. Available at http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/464361543244734516/pdf/WPS8653.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2021).

World of Inclusion (2017) ‘Developing inclusive education in South Africa: Teaching’ YouTube video, added by World of Inclusion [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsP7fpeTUHk (Accessed 9 January 2021).

Site:	OpenLearn Create
Course:	Inclusive Teaching and Learning
Book:	Week 3: Everyone can do something

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Date:	Thursday, 18 April 2024, 6:28 AM

Week 3: Everyone can do something

Table of contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Activities for the week

2. Everyone can do something: what does inclusive teaching look like?

Activity 3.1 What does active teaching look like?

3. Observing active teaching

Activity 3.2 Observing teaching

3.1. Optional readings

4. Being observant, flexible and focusing on self-esteem

Activity 3.3 ‘Involving All’ in action

5. Inclusive teaching

Activity 3.4 Using the minimum criteria to improve teaching

5.1. Being more inclusive

5.2. Everyone can do something – what can you do?

Activity 3.5 Minimum criteria and learner-centred teaching

6. Challenges in inclusive teaching and learning

Activity 3.6 The challenges of inclusive education

7. Tackling specific inclusivity challenges

Activity 3.7 Inclusivity challenges

7.1. The Wave model in action

7.2. Everyone can do something …

Activity 3.8 Supporting learners with specific needs in a mainstream classroom

8. Reviewing your learning

Activity 3.9 Reviewing your learning

9. Looking forward