Successful Collaborative and Inclusive Practices

Abstract

As teachers, it is our job to educate each and every one of our students. It is important to take into consideration the composition of your classroom when teaching your students. Teachers need to be aware of individual needs and teach accordingly. Some teachers might find this difficult because they do not know how to teach in an inclusive environment. What are successful collaborative and inclusive practices for both general and special educators to use in a general education inclusive classroom with primary and intermediate age students? This is the question that will be partially answered in this paper. Two instruments were used to collect data: an observation form and teacher survey. All subjects are tenure teachers in a suburban school district who teach in inclusive classrooms. The students in their classrooms range from your "typical" student to students who have disabilities. The results of the paired sample t-test showed no significant differences between the observation form and the teacher surveys. After looking at the observation form results and the teacher survey results, it is apparent that teachers have a good sense of how to teach inclusively and what they need to do to help improve their teaching. Further research still needs to be conducted on how to get the teachers all of the resources they need to successfully teach inclusively.