The need for inclusive education

The main aim of any education is providing quality education for all the learners regardless of their education level or social or religious background. Inclusive education has evolved as a movement that seeks to challenge exclusionary policies and practices with an aim of ensuring social justice in education. Universal Education has been directly advocated since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities promotes and protects and ensures the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities and to promote respect of their inherent dignity.

Education and training providers must ensure that people with disability are not discriminated against and must make changes to any practices or procedures that inadvertently or deliberately discriminate. This can be achieved by education institutions developing plans and policies that consider people with disability, in addition the institutions must ensure equality among students with disability and students without disability, this includes giving students and prospective students with disability the right to access services and facilities and the right to participate in education and training free from discrimination.

A number of policies have integrated the physical environment relating to visual display, with the digital learning environment ensuring that disabled people can take full advantage of technological learning opportunities. In other fields, for instance, the field of Applied Computing, the institutions should consider accessibility as possible to all staff and students regardless of the disability, to improve accessibility the institutions should install stair lifts, laboratories and lecture rooms for these people with specials needs amongst other amenities that will favor people with disabilities.

Having a diverse range of students has been a common challenge in many institutions, this is because the students have different characteristics that might impact their education process and later performance, consequently, teacher’s practices and attitudes are essential in understanding and managing behaviors hence improving educational processes. Behavioral management has much in common with teaching and management methods, however most teaching approaches will not engage all students at once, but developing a strategy to consistently deliver responsive lessons to diverse students is essential hence it ensures consideration to diverse learners with distinct backgrounds.  

One of the most effective teaching strategies that teachers can use is calling on each student, the practice involves asking students frequent questions while giving lessons, this keeps them engaged and enable them to share thoughts and opinions. In addition, the teachers should involve everyone by encouraging and sharing personal perspective this will develop confidence among the students. Further teaching practices that consider diverse students might in addition include the use of recent technology such as broadcasts and visual representation, for instance by the use of broadcasts that depict a range of cultures the students will process the contents more effectively when their cultures and differences are covered or have placed in the curriculum, additionally this learning strategy can foster engagement among the students.

Making Education Accessible for Students with Disabilities

A common practice for a diverse classroom is the use of cooperative base groups, establishing these groups which might consist of three to four students can be extremely beneficial to students. First, the students who have cultural and religious differences will be connected and will work collaboratively for a common cause, this strategy develops a sense of belonging where a student with self-esteem challenges feels accepted and belonging somewhere, overall the strategy has been considered the most effective strategy in terms of improving performance. Additionally instructing rehearses that consider assorted understudies may also incorporate the utilization of late innovation, for example, communicates and visual portrayal, for example by the utilization of communicates that delineate a scope of societies the understudies will process the substance all the more viably when their societies and contrasts are shrouded or have set in the educational modules, moreover this learning system can cultivate commitment among the understudies.

A typical practice for an assorted classroom is the utilization of agreeable base gatherings, setting up these gatherings which may comprise of three to four understudies can be to a great degree advantageous to understudies.

Flexible grouping is one of the most effective strategies for protecting and catering for the gifted and talented learners, this involves grouping students according to strength, interest, and needs, these groups might change frequently, flexible grouping, therefore, works to the advantage of all the students: gifted and talented and the low group, this type of grouping can have positive impacts for the children, the talented learners can, therefore, contribute a lot to the success and knowledge of the slow learners, therefore, improving performance.

The use of differentiated instructions strategies is a commonly used method to cater to students that are gifted and talented the strategy in addition caters for all the students as it involves the use of different instructions also referred to as tiered assignments, this is where the entire class studies the same course content, but individual students choose assignments at different levels of complexity meaning a talented and gifted learner would choose an assignments that fit his/her complexity with the teachers assistance , this will as well as happen to the slow learner.

Multi-level instruction is additionally a remarkable strategy to address the issue of catering for talented and gifted students. The practice characterizes teaching one primary objective or concept to the class while providing for varying outcomes for an individual student or subgroups, students become more creative when this strategy is employed hence the practice does not create boredom from the lack of challenge or disengagement in a lesson that is extremely difficult or frustrating. The main aim of this strategy is to allow the student to be successful with rigorous standards at the same time acknowledges diverse students learners characteristics. In a normal classroom multi-level instruction involves the teacher addressing one primary subject or concept to the class while allowing for varying outcomes from each students, for the talented and gifted student the strategy will allow them to achieve the objective of the lesson in a less challenging way for the slow learner the strategy will allow him to achieve the objective in a more challenging way but highly relevant.

Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners

Calling on each student encourages participation; this is one of the most straightforward approaches that any teacher can adopt in order to ensure a positive teacher-student relationship. This is because the teacher has the ability to maximize the learning ability of the student through participation developed using the call each student strategy.  In addition, the strategy will allow the student to have strong relationships hence the student has developed confidence to experiment and succeed in an environment where they are not restricted by fear of failure.

Subsequently, the effect of the teacher-student relationship extends to the social environment of the student and has immense benefits. One of the major advantages of the differentiation strategies is building a strong parent-teacher relations, one the student feels highly appreciated in class by the use of the differentiation strategies the teacher and the parent will communicate in a  respectable manner that will ensure that the relationship is beneficial. Fundamentally parent contribute intensively to the success of their children’s, most parents benefit from becoming more confident about the value of their school involvement, this cannot happen without a strong relationship between the teacher and the student. However, it is important for the teacher to communicate with the parents by considering the remarks of classroom learning activities, the student’s accomplishments and how the parent can be of help to the student at home.

Bender, William N. 2012. Differentiating Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Cole, Robert W. 2001. More Strategies for Educating Everybody’s Children. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Danforth, Scot, and Susan L Gabel. 2016. Vital Questions Facing Disability Studies in Education. New York: Peter Lang.

Ferlazzo, Larry, and Lorie A Hammond. 2009. Building Parent Engagement in Schools. Columbus, Ohio: Linworth Books/Libraries Unlimited.

Gause, C. P. 2011. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Hess, Diana E. 2009. Controversy in the Classroom. New York: Routledge.

Irons, Alastair, and Sylvia Alexander. 2004. Effective Learning and Teaching in Computing. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Kaiser, Barbara, and Judy Sklar Rasminsky. 2012. Challenging Behavior in Young Children. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.

McDeanna, and Moraah. 2014. “Education for Diversity: Making Differences”. 2003. Education and  Training 45 (8/9).

Mégret, Frédéric. 2008. “The Disabilities Convention: Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities or Disability Rights?” Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2): 494-516. doi:10.1353/hrq.0.0000.

Miller, Jennifer, Alexander Kostogriz, and Margaret Gearon. 2009. Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers (New Perspectives on Language and Education). Multilingual Matters.

Reder, Deanna, and Linda M Morra. 2016. Learn, Teach, Challenge. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Stidder, Gary, and Sid Hayes. 2013. Equity and Inclusion in Physical Education and Sport. London: Routledge.

Willie, Charles Vert, Ralph Edwards, and Michael J Alves. 2002. Student Diversity, Choice and School Improvement. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.