International perspectives - Dissertation Example

Some of the important models of inclusion education are described below (Anon., n.d.). Models of Inclusion Some of the important models of inclusion education are described below. The Teaming Model for Inclusion Education emphasises team work and has in place a special education teacher for every grade level team of teachers. This specialist teacher provides information, instruction strategies, revision ideas for tests and assignments, and strategies to promote acceptable behaviour in the class (Anon., n.d.). In the Co – Teaching Model for Inclusion Education, the special and general education teachers work together and teach the students by turns.

This enables the learning experience to become important and tangible. This model prepares teachers, by means of student assessment, discipline, and instruction planning and delivery (Anon., n.d.). There are several obstacles to Inclusive Education; such as, negative attitudes, invisibility in the community and in school, cost, physical access to classrooms and facilities in the school, size of classes, impoverishment, discrimination on the basis of gender, and emergency and refugee situations (Anon., 2002). In the Adaptive Learning Environment Model (ALEM), special education students are integrated into the classroom.

This model was propounded by Wang and is quite complicated. The objective of this model is to produce school learning environments that permit every student to acquire fundamental academic competency and enhance their confidence to address the intellectual and social requirements of school (Lazarus, 2010). In addition, this model is a blend of the following features. First, an exploratory learning component that includes an array of learning activities that are expected to enhance the capacity of the school to address the learning needs at the individual level.

Second, a prescriptive learning component of hierarchically organised, highly structured learning activities (Leiding, 2009). Moreover, the ALEM model is characterised by instruction that is planned for the individual students. The pace of learning is adapted to the needs and capacities of the students. Classrooms in this model permit free movement and simultaneous activities. The learning content is sub – divided into small portions, in order to accommodate students with special needs. The students of this model have to plan and supervise their individual learning.

In addition, they are made accountable for managing and completing their learning tasks in a timely manner (Lazarus, 2010). In general, inclusive education consists of isolating and discarding actual and latent sources of exclusion. This includes attaching importance to the opinion of stakeholders in the school community. It includes a philosophy of acceptance that respects and values all. The process of inclusion does not admit of culmination and it can be developed to gradually increasing degrees.

Inclusion is the outcome of longstanding educational innovation and denotes improvement of schools at several levels for students (Gillies & Carrington, 2004). Inclusive education has to be viewed within the context of the policy relating to education. Undoubtedly, the UK Government adopts a qualified approach to inclusion, and this was disclosed by the Green Paper on Excellence for all Children (Department for Education and Employment, 1997).