What should we learn for inclusion?

All educational professionals (teachers, principals, support professionals...) who want to reflect on their professional practice, attitudes, knowledge and skills for an inclusive pedagogy can use this tool.

• To inspire professionals to reflect on their commitment to each of the values and areas of competence,
• To identify critical beliefs, understandings and practices that are relevant for professionals’ learning for inclusion,
• To guide the identification of key learning targets and to plan personal professional development.
• To discuss and develop a professional learning plan together with colleagues in the local community.

This tool was developed within the scope of ProuD to Teach All, an ERASMUS+ project aimed at supporting teachers and school leaders to effectively teach all learners. It consists of 32 items, results from an analysis of:

• international good practices, 
• country policies and professional development programs,
• a systematic review of studies implementing professional development programs for an inclusive pedagogy. 

By rating each item from 1 ‘unimportant’ to 4 ‘very important’, as a professional you are led to think on what is more important for your professional development. You become aware of other values or areas of competence that should also take part of your professional development path.

At the end, you get a brief letter which confronts your own responses with the ones obtained from other professionals across Europe and main findings of the research.

Rate each of the following items from 1 - unimportant to 4 - very important.

Concerning my practice, it is important for me...

• 1... to be aware of my own thoughts and visions on diversity and inclusion
• 2… to support learners in understanding/ becoming aware of their own social identity
• 3… to prevent and combat behaviors of exclusion and discrimination
• 4… to understand legislative and policy requirements concerning inclusion
• 5… to implement equal opportunities at school
• 6… to respond to diverse cultures
• 7… to adapt the curriculum to a diversity of learners
• 8… to understand and meet learners’ diverse needs and strengths
• 9… to select and design assessment strategies to monitor individual learners' growth and achievement
• 10… to present learning content in various ways
• 11…  to adapt activities to enhance learners’ motivation to participate
• 12…  to use a wide range of ways to communicate
• 13… to build positive relationships with learners
• 14… to understand learners' behaviors in various contexts
• 15… to manage challenging behavior in an effective manner in the classroom
• 16… to support the implementation of approaches for social-emotional learning in the school
• 17…  to promote a positive and cooperative learning environment in the classroom
• 18… to use assistive technologies for access to teaching and learning
• 19… to be effective on engaging families and partnering with families
• 20… to understand the cultural and socioeconomic contexts of families and how to provide support in the community
• 21… to understand and be able to value parents’ role in supporting their children
• 22… to incorporate a family’s experience and background into the curriculum
• 23… to plan, support, instruct and assess lessons together with another professional, in the same classroom
• 24…  to support colleagues in reflecting about practices and sharing ideas for developing inclusive practices
• 25… to contribute to a professional learning community for developing inclusive practices
• 26… to gain confidence on my own abilities and knowledge to teach all learners
• 27… to reflect on and improve my own practice
• 28… to assess the implications of national and local policies for my practice
• 29… to share and reflect on evidence-based knowledge about inclusive practices
• 30… to critically analyze theoretical perspectives on inclusion
• 31… to use outcomes about teaching and learning to improve my practice
• 32… to identify and pursue my own focus for professional development

Thank you for using this self-reflective tool!

Professionals across Europe also answered the items of this tool, including school leaders, teachers and assistants from Belgium, Latvia, The Netherlands and Portugal. That enabled to find global tendencies on priorities for teachers’ professional development. It also revealed values and important areas of competence that need to be triggered for reinforcing teachers’ competences for an inclusive pedagogy.

If you rated the items 1 to 6 and 7 to 18 higher, you show a strong commitment with ‘valuing learner diversity’ and ‘supporting all learners’.

Our needs analysis told that ‘valuing learner diversity’ and ‘supporting all learners’ are the most valued core values and areas of competence. Educational professionals across EU-countries agreed that it is very important to… 

• “… support learners in understanding/ becoming aware of their own social identity”,
• “… prevent and combat behaviours of exclusion and discrimination”,
•  “… implement equal opportunities at school”. 
• “… adapting activities to enhance the learners’ motivation to participate”,
• “… build positive relationships with learners”,
• “… understand learners’ behaviors in different contexts”,
• “… manage challenge behaviors in an effective manner in the classroom”.

If you rated the items 19 to 25 and 26 to 32 as less important, your ideas reflect a global need for increasing the attention to ‘working with others’ and ‘personal professional development’, two critical areas in teacher learning for inclusion. 

How will you use these insights in planning your (own or school community’s) professional development?

• Teacher learning for inclusion is a path supporting an effective teaching of all learners from a variety of backgrounds, with a wide range of learning differences.
• Thematic areas such as inclusion, diversity, policies, legislation, and social justice have been recognized as critical for valuing learner diversity within professional development programs (PDPs).
• For supporting all learners, thematic areas as curriculum and instruction design, differentiation (e.g., lesson planning, principles of learning and teaching) and enabling environments (e.g., support systems, UDL guidelines) are also common targets of PDPs.
• Interprofessional collaboration with teachers, researchers, and other partners, as well as personal professional development are key values and competences defining the Profile of Inclusive Teachers.
• Collaboration with families, coaching, collaborative teamwork and interagency are key themes in existing PDPs which need to be reinforced and expanded.
• Reflective practices, learning or research communities and inquiring practices focus on personal professional development. This domain should also be more widely approached in PDPs.