Week 3: Everyone can do something
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 teachingAllow 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’.
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