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Whole Schooling
The Journey Towards Schools
Where Diverse Students Learn Together Well

CHAPTER 5

Provide Support and Collaborate

Learning tools. Tools for analysis, discussion, and planning you may use in class, professional development, and in your own practice as a teacher.

  • Solo vs. team exercise. Use Activity Tool 5-2 to help individuals think about how well they function as a member of a team.
  • Support system: Assessment and goal setting. Activity Tool 5-3 allows respondents to assess the effectiveness of the support system in their own school based on exemplary principles and practices discussed in chapter 5. The tool can also be used to help school staff set goals for improvement.
  • Strategies of support for inclusive teaching. Using categories of support discussed in chapter 5, use Activity Tool 5-4 to ask respondents to assess the types of supports being provided in a school they know. This tool can also be used to discuss goals for improvement.
  • Planning for heterogeneous student distribution. Activity Tool 5-5 provides a blank form which groups can use to plan for heterogeneous classes in a school.
  • An inclusive continuum of services. Activity Tool 5-6 allows respondents to summarize support services needed by three students with very different disabilities and discuss the overall support that emerges from the needs of these individual students.
  • Classroom support personnel for teachers and students. Activity Tool 5-7 asks respondents to assess the present support available in a school, list support staff, #'s, describe their role, and consider ways that roles could be shifted to improve outcomes.
  • Role Of Support Teachers. Respondents use Activity Tool 5-8 to review and revise a role description for a support staff person ­ special education, Title I, or other support teacher and discuss the rationale for the role they describe.
  • Inclusive Models Of Related Services. Respondents use Activity Tool 5-9 to describe the role of related services professionals including personnel such as speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and others and discuss the implications of their findings.
  • Methods Of Teaching Together. Respondents review approaches to co-teaching and discuss preferred methods for instructional teaming using Activity Tool 5-10.
  • Issues for collaborative teaching. Respondents review issues in collaboration between teachers and articulate how they might prefer to handle these issues in their own practice using Activity Tool 5-11 a and 11-b.
  • Principles and practices for inclusive co-teaching: Some dos and don'ts. Using Activity Tool 5-12, respondents review this chart of dos and don'ts, items they have observed in a school, and discuss issues.
  • Strategies for planning time. Respondents review list of strategies for developing planning time for collaboration, list positive and negative aspects of each strategy, for a school they know, develop a recommended approach, and provide a short rationale using Activity Tool 5-13.
  • Collaborating support teacher schedule. Respondents use Activity Tool 5-14a and 5-14b to develop a schedule for a support teacher who works with 3-5 classroom teachers listing key considerations in developing this schedule.
  • Scheduling support in a general education class. Activity Tool 5-15 allows respondents to develop a schedule for collaboration and support, identifying the . types of support personnel, sketching a teaching schedule, and developing an optimum schedule for support staff.