School-based teacher development for inclusive education Training Handbook (KISE)
Topic outline
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School-Based Teacher Development on Inclusive Education
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About the programme
The roll out of the competency-based curriculum in Kenya represents a significant change for teachers and teacher educators, not just in terms of what is to be taught, but in how it is to be taught, with much more emphasis on active engagement and on the importance of teaching a range of skills to all learners. There has also been an increased focus by the Ministry of Education on inclusion and inclusive education practices, as well as an emphasis on technology-enabled teacher development for better learning outcomes.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for educators to think about the learning environment outside of the classroom, as may learners are learning at home with some support from their teachers. In the context of such significant changes, ‘one off’ training sessions are unlikely to have an impact. Teachers and teacher educators need to be supported, using technology, to learn, practise and reflect upon new skills.
Through its Teacher Futures programme, COL has supported the Kenya Institute of Special Education to develop a School-Based Teacher Development Programme on Inclusive Education. In the current phase, the training programme targets some 700 teachers in 20 schools, and is likely to impact more than 21,000 learners. The course resources are available online, alongside a downloadable Training Handbook.
The programme may open for access by more teachers outside of the initial project schools in the near future.
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Introduction
Being a good teacher means being a good learner, especially when new initiatives, such as the competency-based curriculum (CBC) in Kenya, call for new teaching approaches. Traditional forms of continuing professional development (CPD), when teachers go away from school to attend courses, have been shown to have limited impact. Much more effective is school-based CPD, in which teachers work together in school to understand new ideas, try them out in their classrooms and reflect together on what they are learning. SBTD is based on the view that to implement new ideas teachers need to:
- Work together (collaborate).
- Try new approaches in their classroom (practise).
- Think about and discuss how it went (reflect) (Korthagen, 2017).
They need to do this over time. In this way, new approaches gradually become embedded. This SBTD programme will help your school to establish a culture of continuous professional learning.
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How to use this Handbook
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Effective Meetings
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What is Inclusive Education?
IntroductionIt is helpful to think of inclusive practice as operating at three different levels, or ‘waves’ (a term used in the UK and sometimes more internationally – see Sarton, E. and Smith, M. (2018). UNICEF Think Piece Series: Disability Inclusion. UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi).
In this model, inclusive education (IE) is seen as a ‘graduated response’ and is the responsibility of all teachers. Think of IE as three levels of intervention. This is described in more detail in Key Resource 16.
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Session 1: What makes an effective inclusive teacher?
The focus in this session is on understanding how SBTD works and on being an effective inclusive teacher.
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Session 2: What makes a good teacher in inclusive education?
Inclusive teaching is about attitudes and values, as well as the sort of actions you read about in the last session. For example, an inclusive teacher believes that all students can learn, given the right support.
The focus of Session 2 is on inclusive attitudes.
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Session 3: How can you make learning more active?
It is acknowledged that students will learn more effectively if they are actively involved in the learning process. The focus in this session is how to ensure active engagement.
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Session 4: How do I promote effective questioning to support better inclusive teaching?
Teachers question their learners all the time. Good questioning helps you to find out what learners know and is important in assessing their progress. Good assessment is absolutely vital for effective inclusive teaching. You are going to spend the next three sessions focusing on questioning. Firstly, the focus is different types of questions. Secondly you will think about how to respond effectively to students’ responses and thirdly, you will focus on using questioning as a way of including students with specific needs. -
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Session 5: How do I respond effectively when students answer questions?
Session 5’s focus is responding to students’ questions using questions to support individual students.
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Session 6: Using questioning to support progress
During this session the focus is on using questions to work with students with particular needs.
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Session 7: Effective explaining skills
Explaining new ideas is one of the most important skills that a teacher needs. In this session, the focus is on progressing your skills in developing clear explanations.
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Session 8: Developing your school and subject knowledge
In order to become a secondary school teacher, you will have studied your main subject (or a closely related one) to a high level. This is important: teachers need to have a good understanding of the subject they teach. However, they also need to understand how to teach the subject: they need pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). PCK is the knowledge that teachers hold about how to represent their subject to learners, taking into account their interests and abilities; it describes the ‘special’ insight that good teachers hold but that subject experts might not (Shulman, 1986).
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Session 9: How can I involve all students in lessons in my subject
In Session 1, you read the Key Resource ‘Involving All’. This session focuses on pedagogical content knowledge in the context of students with complex needs and involving them in your lessons.
Reflection point: What are the three key principles for involving all students in your lessons?
(Look back at your notes on Session 1).
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Session 10: Using ICT to develop your subject knowledge and PCK
As a subject teacher in a secondary school, you probably rely heavily on the textbook that is linked to your examination syllabus when planning your lessons. However, there are many open educational resources (OER) available for free on the internet, which will help you develop your pedagogical content knowledge (i.e. learn how to make your subject accessible, engaging and interesting for all students). The focus during Session 10 is on navigating some of this material.
OER have a special copyright license which means they can be downloaded for free, adapted, copied and reused, provided the original source of the material is acknowledged (you will have seen that the SBTD Toolkit and Key Resources that you have been using have acknowledged the TESSA and TESS-India resources, for example).
The challenge for teachers is to develop the skills to critically assess and select appropriate materials.
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Session 11: Improving teaching through Formative Assessment
The focus for the next three sessions is improving your teaching in your subject through formative assessment, active learning strategies, and monitoring and feedback.
Formative assessment is a crucial aspect of effective learning. It involves designing classroom activities that will enable teachers to make in-process evaluations of students’ progress during the lesson. Formative assessment helps teachers to identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, or skills they are having difficulty acquiring. It also helps them to work out how to best support the students in their care.
The aim of formative assessment is to collect detailed information that can be used to improve teaching and learning while it’s happening. It is “formative” because it is used to inform future planning.
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Session 12: Monitoring and feedback
In a synthesis of many different research studies about effective teaching, Hattie (2012) has concluded that providing formative, detailed feedback has more impact on students’ achievement than anything else. The feedback should be designed to highlight what they have done well and what they need to do next in order to achieve the learning goals. The focus in this session is on monitoring and feedback.
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Session 13: Improving teaching through a range of strategies
An effective teacher will use a range of different strategies to support learning. This keeps students engaged and helps the teacher to take account of the needs of different students. During this session the focus is on different pedagogic strategies.
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Session 14: Using the local environment
The focus in this session is making use of local resources. Try not to focus on the resources that you would like to have access to, but rather on the resources that you DO have access to and how you might make better use of those.
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Session 15: Engaging with parents, carers and other support services
Teachers have an important responsibility to involve parents in school life. Where teachers have concerns about a child in their class, establishing a dialogue with parents/carers is one important part of addressing the problem. The focus of Session 15 is on how to engage effectively with parents and carers.
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Session 16: Continuing professional development
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