Inclusive Classroom, The: Strategies for Effective Instruction, Second Edition - Softcover

Margo A. Mastropieri

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9780131397996: Inclusive Classroom, The: Strategies for Effective Instruction, Second Edition

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0131397990 ISBN 13: 9780131397996

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2003

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Written by highly respective researchers in the field, The Inclusive Classroom is a book that prepares readers to feel secure in their ability to instruct K-12 learners with disabilities and other special learning needs. General instruction and classroom management skills prevail throughout the book, enabling readers to construct instructional strategies through which they will find success. Comprehensive in scope and coverage, users will be interested in reading about the following topics: inclusive teaching; collaboration; students with higher-incidence disabilities; students with lower-level disabilities; students with other special learning needs; effective instruction for all students; improving classroom behavior and social skills; motivation and affect; improving attention and memory; teaching study skills; content area teaching, including art, music, physical education, foreign languages, vocational education, and transitions. Obviously a book for educators and future educators, this resource can be a valuable read for parents of children with special needs, as well as those in the educational arena that plan curricula for those children.

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From the Back Cover:

The real strength of The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction, Second Edition, by Margo A. Mastropieri and Thomas E. Scruggs is its emphasis on practical, research-based teaching and learning strategies for general educators in an inclusive environment. The new edition of The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction directly relates content to the academic demands of teachers in inclusive general education classrooms and provides you with the tools to:

Give Your Students Practical Teaching Strategies

Classroom Scenarios demonstrate how to identify students who should be referred for special services or who would benefit from the specific teaching strategies featured in the text.
In the Classroom features offer tips, strategies, and resources that address very specific need areas, and can be practically applied to inclusive classroom situations.
Inclusion Checklists summarize the strategies described in the chapter and are particularly useful for teachers having difficulties with any area of teaching students with disabilities.

Introduce Your Students to Meaningful Technology

Inclusive Classrooms: Video Cases on CD-ROM and the accompanying activity guide comes packaged with every copy of the text. With over an hour of video footage, this new CD-ROM provides immediate access to living classroom examples of teaching and learning strategies for inclusion. These video clips, grouped by topic and classroom, give the pre-service teacher a good picture of what inclusion looks like in a preschool, an elementary school, a middle school and a secondary school.
Integrating Technology features provide up-to-date information on new technologies and how they can be employed to improve the academic or social functioning of students with special needs.
Companion Website (CW) helps students gauge their understanding of the chapter content through the use of online chapter reviews, quizzes, activities, and resources. The CW is integrated into the text with margin notes and through chapter features.

Keep Your Students Informed

Research Highlights explain the research behind certain teaching strategies developed for use with students with special needs, provide resources for further information and exploration, and tie chapter content to the research with reflection questions.
CEC Professional Standards are listed at the end of each chapter where relevant. A complete listing of standards can be found on the Companion Website.

One of the major features that will characterize classrooms of the new century is student diversity. Not only have classrooms become more diverse with respect to race, religion, and ethnicity, but also more students with disabilities than ever are being included in regular education classrooms. Data recently reported by the U.S. Department of Education indicate that nearly three-fourths of students with disabilities are now being served primarily within the general education classroom setting.

Unfortunately, today's teachers consistently report that they do not feel prepared to teach students with disabilities in their general education classrooms. Only about one-fourth believe that they possess skills necessary for effective inclusive teaching. We have written this book to give teachers a wide variety of proven and effective strategies for students with disabilities and other special learning needs.

Text Philosophy

There are in existence today a number of high-quality textbooks on inclusive education. This in itself is a notable advance from just a few years ago, and indicates an increasing awareness of the important role of inclusive education in today's schools. We wrote The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction to add our own perspective on inclusive education. According to this perspective, we believe that teachers certainly should be provided with necessary information regarding legal issues and the characteristics of students with disabilities and other special needs. In addition, however, we describe a variety of practical teaching and learning strategies that are directly relevant to the tasks and academic demands required of teachers in inclusive classrooms in today's schools.

However, we do not believe that "inclusion strategies" can be effectively implemented in the absence of overall effective teaching skills. That is, we believe that effective overall teaching and classroom management skills are necessary prerequisites for working with students with disabilities who attend inclusive classrooms. Therefore, we have described inclusion strategies within the overall framework of effective instruction and management of general education classrooms. The organization of this book reflects our perspective.

Text Organization

Part 1: The Fundamentals. The first section of this book presents the fundamentals of inclusive teaching, including information on the history of special education, the legal and political background of legislation for individuals with disabilities, and relevant, practical information on the Individualized Education Program (IEP). Chapter 2 provides specific information on strategies for consultation and collaboration with students, parents, and other school personnel, including special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and other specialized school personnel. Chapters 3 and 4 provide information on the various characteristics of specific disability areas identified in IDEA, the federal special education law, and general adaptations that can be made for each of these disability areas. Chapter 3 discusses higher-incidence disabilities, such as learning disabilities and speech or language impairments, that teachers are very likely to encounter in their classrooms. Chapter 4 covers lower-incidence disabilities, such as severe disabilities and visual impairments. Chapter 5 describes other special need areas not specifically covered under IDEA, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, at-risk students, and students with special "gifts" and talents.

Part 2: Developing Effective Teaching Skills. The second section of this book describes a range of strategies that can be applied across curriculum areas and grade levels to address special needs and particular problems. Chapter 6 describes the general teacher effectiveness strategies that have been demonstrated to be very helpful in promoting learning in inclusive settings. This chapter covers the variables most closely associated with student achievement, including engaged time-ontask, teacher questioning and feedback, and the most effective uses of praise, with specific reference to students with special needs. Chapter 7 describes behavior management strategies shown to be most effective for entire classrooms as well as for individual students. Chapter 8 provides strategies for the effective uses of peers to help accommodate diversity in classroom learning and behavior, including peer assistance, peer tutoring, and cooperative learning. These strategies can be used to transform classrooms into effective collaborative learning environments.

Chapter 9 describes strategies for promoting motivation and affect—two very critical components of successful classrooms, and a very common cause of concern for classroom teachers. Chapter 10 describes strategies for enhancing attention and memory, for entire classrooms as well as for individual students with special needs. In chapter 11 are strategies for teaching study skills, including organizational strategies, highlighting and outlining skills, listening and note-taking skills, and research and reference skills. Finally, chapter 12 describes assessment, and how adaptations can be made to accommodate the special needs of individual students as well as the classroom in general.

Part 3: Teaching in the Content Areas. The third part of this book describes specific academic areas and strategies that can promote learning in these areas for a wide variety of students. Chapter 13 describes learning in basic literacy areas, including reading, writing, and spelling, and how special problems in learning in these areas can best be addressed. Chapter 14 presents mathematics learning and effective strategies for promoting learning in a variety of different aspects of mathematics. Chapter 15 covers science and social studies learning and provides specific strategies to enhance learning for a variety of special needs areas. Finally, chapter 16 describes special strategies to improve learning and address special problems in such areas as art, music, physical education, and vocational education. In addition, strategies for facilitating transition to post-secondary, vocational, or community environments are described.

For the second edition we made numerous changes throughout the text, as a result of helpful suggestions from editors and reviewers, that we believe have greatly improved the text. These changes include more information on secondary-level and at-risk students; more reference to applications of technology and addition of a Technology Highlight feature; inclusion of Questions for Reflection for the Research Highlights (see text features); and chapter objectives. In addition, we have provided additional coverage and updated references to each chapter, to reflect findings from the latest research.

Text Features

Included also in this book are a number of special features that we hope will make it more useful and comprehensible.

In the Classroom features have been designed to address very specific need areas, and may be used directly in classroom situations. One type of In the Classroom feature, "A Feature for Teachers," includes materials intended for use as resources that can be practically applied in inclusive classrooms. The second type of In the Classroom feature, "For Sharing with Students," includes materials such as self-monitoring sheets, contracts, or study guides that can be directly utilized to provide assistance for students. In the second edition, this feature is now provided in the Companion Website.
Technology Highlight features are found in individual chapters and provide information on technological applications relevant to the content of the chapter. These features provide up-to-date information on new technologies and how they can be employed to improve the academic or social functioning of students with special needs.
Research Highlights explain the research behind certain teaching strategies developed for use with students with special needs. The descriptive nature within each Research Highlights allows the reader to verify and analyze the appropriateness of each strategy as it is used in the classroom. In the second edition, each Research Highlight contains resources for further information and Questions for Reflection, which can be answered online in the Companion Website.
Inclusion Checklists summarize the strategies described in the chapter and should be particularly useful for teachers having difficulties with any area of teaching students with disabilities. The Inclusion Checklists are also helpful for finding immediate reference for specific strategies, pinpointing difficulties teachers might be having, or planning prereferral interventions. Teachers may wish to consider the suggestions contained in the appropriate checklists prior to referring students for special education services. For example, if a teacher is considering referring a student for special education based on observed problems with attention or memory, she could first consult the Inclusion Checklist for chapter 10 for a list of possible interventions in these areas.
Classroom Scenarios are cases that model how to identify students who should be referred for special services or who would benefit from specific teaching strategies.
Very Special Arts (http://www.vsarts.org) is an international organization that promotes learning through the arts for individuals with disabilities. Each chapter opening illustration and the cover for this text are from the Very Special Arts collection and are original illustrations, completed by individuals with special talents who also have a disability.

In addition to the features discussed above, the text also contains the following:

Margin notes connect the text with further elaboration of content, and refer the reader to other...

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