Part of what drove me towards teaching was because of my own experiences in both elementary and high school. I had some great teachers who got to know me and my individual educational needs. I also had some not so great experiences where I left isolated and left behind in the content of my classes. Both of these positive and negative experience fueled my choices in what kind of teacher that I wanted to be.
In order to really implement these approaches into my classroom, I need to know my students. I know, I am mentioning student and teacher relationships again (a common topic on this blog). By getting to know each and every one of my students, I am gathering information on their needs that I can then accommodate in my classroom community and lessons.
I have done this through ‘all about me’ activities where the students have shared aspects of themselves. I have also done this through pre-assessment or formative assessment. By looking at my students work, I can see where they are in their learning and adjust accordingly. Based on the information that I gather during these different activities I have been able to make learning groups, differentiate our classroom work and adjust my content around the needs and interests of my students.
By starting off my time in a classroom with relationship building, then I am building trust and respect among my students and I. From these initial relationships, then I can best accommodate my students. My holiday celebrations, class projects and multi-cultural content will always change depending on the students in my classroom. It is important to me that every student feels welcome in my classroom.
Additional to creating relationships, since starting my educational journey in UNBC’s program, creating inclusive learning environments has been a huge goal of mine. In doing so, I have learned how important both differentiated instruction (DI) and universal design for learning (UDL) are to my teaching practice. After I know my students, I can differentiate and alter my teaching to meet the needs of all students. For example, when working on math concepts, the students might all be working on addition, but they might be working with different numbers (in the 10’s, 100’s or 1000’s) to make the learning comfortable and also meaningful for them.
My goal with using both DI and UDL is that every student has access to the learning that we are doing in the class. I never want students to feel left out or that they are drowning in the work that their peers don’t seem to be struggling as they are. For example, in Social Studies and Science when we are doing learning from a textbook, I always make sure that I am reading through a text displayed on the document camera so that struggling readers can follow along with me while others can read ahead at their desks.
I believe that in also using approaches such as DI and UDL that it builds trust and supports for students in the classroom. Often when you make multiple options available such as in the examples I have used, then the students feel comfortable coming and asking for help in the future when they have seen various approaches available to them in the past.
By getting to know my students and working my teaching around my students needs are some of my first steps to creating an inclusive classroom for all learners.
A few links to start with or refer to for Inclusive Education:
What is Inclusive Education? – from Inclusive Education Canada
https://inclusiveeducation.ca/about/what-is-ie/
What is Inclusive Education? – From Inclusion BC
https://inclusionbc.org/our-resources/what-is-inclusive-education/
Inclusive Education Resources – BC Ministry of Education
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/teaching-tools/inclusive-education
Special Education Policy Manual PDF – BC Ministry of Education
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/teaching-tools/inclusive-education
Teachers of Inclusive Education (TIE) – British Columbia
http://www.tiebc.com/
SOGI 123 – British Columbia
https://bc.sogieducation.org/