TEACHER EDUCATION FOR INCLUSION - Aetapi

(2006) stresses that in teacher education excellence in the disciplines and methodological
competence is not sufficient and that sensitivity and emotional and relational intelligence
are essential.
On a practical level, Sigurðardóttir (2008) outlines the crucial components of inclusive
practice as follows. Students should:
38
a. Become aware of and understand the ethical and political issues associated with
inclusion;
b. Become competent to acquire relevant understanding of their students and figure
out how their varied competence calls for the appropriate individual action;
c. Master situations where they give their student groups different assignments in
parallel;
d. Be able to set a varied group of students tasks, which they can tackle in concert
despite their varied abilities;
e. Master situations where some of the students are tackling criterion referenced tasks
(set by the curriculum) while others are grappling with tasks outside the standard
curriculum.
Some writers have expressed concern about the use of standards and competences – for
example Hodkinson (2009) – who fears that they encourage a ‘technicist approach’
(Pearson, 2007, p. 26) rather than a focus on the values of the pedagogical principles that
underpin effective SEN practice.
Rao (2009) says that teacher educators need to prepare teachers for four broader roles
involving four forms of collaboration: collaboration-consultation (general education teacher
requests services of special education teacher to help generate ideas for addressing an
ongoing situation); peer support system (two general education teachers work together to
generate ideas); teacher assistance teams (teams that include special educators provide
assistance to general education teachers); and co-teaching where general and special
education teachers work together to provide service to students.
Other areas frequently included in studies of teacher competences include: differentiation,
learner involvement and well-being (Perrenoud, 2008; Vandeputte et al., 2007) working
with parents and collaboration (Ambrukaitis et al., 2004). ONFRIH (2009) sets out 10
professional skills required from all teachers, including taking account of diversity,
developing IEPs, increasing knowledge and adapting teaching. Further work on
competences has been carried out by Heylen et al. (2006), Tancig and Devjak (2006),
Hiebert et al. (2002) and Aelterman et al. (2008) discuss a new profile for secondary
teachers in Belgium and how it might help teacher education reform.
Regarding assessment in initial teacher education, Conderman (2003) suggests that the
use of portfolios can ensure that competences are met. Portfolios are widely recognised
as a useful way to gather information and report on student progress. In the Teachers for
all Children programme (Stoddard et al., 2006) an on-going professional portfolio aims to
ensure that the student has demonstrated competence in the domains of assessment,
instruction, classroom management, collaboration, systematic inquiry and professional /
ethical behaviour. Portfolio entries include self-reflections, work examples, plans with
strategies, resources and summaries of experiences.
Portfolios can support the assessment of ‘softer’ areas such as the affective aspect of
being a teacher (Phelps, 2006), collaboration and work with parents as well as academic
content and critical thinking, in particular around areas such as multicultural perspectives.
Portfolios encourage students to reflect on what went well and what could have been
International Literature Review