THEME
Making Progress-Least Restrictive Environment and Disproportionality
UPDATE
New Equity Assistance Center at Arizona State University
NOTICE
New NCCRESt Professional Learning Module Available Online
SPOTLIGHT
simSchool- Extending School Experiences to Include a Virtual Reality
PEOPLE IN EDUCATION
Dr. David Gibson
Michael Remus
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society, Second Edition by James A. Banks
Collaborative Action Research: Developing Professional Learning Communities edited by Stephen P. Gordon
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
Library of Inclusive Education
RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE
Co-Teaching
FEATURED NIUSI-LEADSCAPE PRINCIPAL WORK
NIUSI-LeadScape Principal- Gloria Williams
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Martin Luther King, Jr.
FEATURED WEBSITE
National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST)
DID YOU KNOW
National Center on RTI Center Webinars Available Online
UPCOMING EVENTS
TASH in Nashville, TN December 3-6, 2008
FOR STUDENTS
Google Notebook
Making Progress-Least Restrictive Environment and Disproportionality
Educating children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment is important to ensuring they are seen as equals to their peers without disabilities. Defined broadly, inclusive education focuses on ensuring that a variety of groups who have been traditionally excluded from formal schooling are able to access a variety of opportunities to learn in schools. The thrust to make schools more inclusive is exhibited everywhere. It can be seen through the work of professionals such as Michael Remus, Director of Student Support Services of Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona, who has worked to make schools more inclusive for more than thirty years, and David Gibson who uses technology as a tool for informing people about the benefits of including all students in the classroom. There are also non-profit organizations throughout the nation promoting inclusive practice, such as the Equity Alliance at ASU, the National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST), TASH, and SimSchool, all of which are run by a blend of advocates, practitioners, and families. Although we still have a long way to go in creating inclusive educational systems, we have made great progress. In this month's eQuiNews we would like to share some success stories with you about individual and group efforts centered around inclusive practices. We hope you enjoy this issue!
New Equity Assistance Center at Arizona State University
We are pleased to announce the award of The Equity Alliance at Arizona State University (ASU) through the US Department of Education's Equity Assistance Centers Program! For over a decade, we at the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt) and National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) have been dedicated to improving education for all children. Throughout the years, we have collaborated with practitioners, educational leaders, families, and scholars throughout the country on issues surrounding culturally responsive inclusive practices. Our new role as The Equity Alliance at ASU will allow us to both continue our work addressing educational equality issues for all students through high-quality, innovative technical assistance and professional development as well as within the district and school levels of Region IX, the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada. We look forward to continuing to serve you and strive to reach a time and place where all students have access to high quality opportunities to learn, and where their cultural, linguistic, and experiential differences are valued.
New NCCRESt Professional Learning Module Available Online
The National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt) has released its newest professional learning module, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice, designed to help educators understand and create a classroom atmosphere and curriculum that integrate and respond to the vast diversity of cultures present today in our schools. There are three academies within this professional learning module:
- Academy 1: Understanding Cultural Responsiveness explores what it means to be culturally responsive and how to apply this concept to education
- Academy 2: Culturally Responsive Classrooms provides guidelines for how to create culturally responsive classrooms
- Academy 3: Culturally Responsive Curriculum focuses on the ideas of content integration and knowledge construction through curriculum review and redesign
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice is just one of the useful professional learning modules available from NCCRESt. To view other modules, visit: http://nccrest.org/professional.html.
simSchool- Extending School Experiences to Include a Virtual Reality
What is simSchool? simSchool is an online simulated classroom experience with students from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of characteristics. The participant plays the role of teacher by making a series of instructional decisions and responding to student comments and questions. The teacher can witness how students respond verbally and behaviorally, can review students' academic and personal backgrounds, and view their academic and affective responses to the instructional choices the teacher makes.
simSchool was designed to provide pre-service teachers with a safe environment for experimenting and practicing new techniques, especially methods of addressing different learning styles, and wide variations in academic and behavioral performance of students. The objective of a simSchool user is to align their instructional tasks and conversations with the capabilities and learning styles of the simSchool students in order to learn how to reduce barriers to learning and engender positive academic outcomes.
This month, we have decided to introduce you all to a very talented individual with whom we have had the privilege of working. David Gibson works in the field of education technology, constantly exploring ways to improve education through the use of technology to personalize education, giving students more power and choice in learning. His most recent work has focused on games-based educational principles, locating those principles and designing educative experiences that are inspired by them, convening other people with a similar interest. Two of David's current projects illustrate this concept, the Global Challenge Award and simSchool (see Spotlight section for more details).
The Global Challenge Award (GC) is an innovative non-profit education program founded in 2005 to prepare high-school students to thrive in the 21st century by providing the tools and confidence to solve the planet’s most pressing problems. By forming international teams to solve global problems, students learn that the future belongs to those with skills in science, technology, systems thinking, global collaboration, and communication. GC empowers them to believe that they can make a difference not only on their own lives and national economies but on the planet itself.
With two successful years of operation, GC has enrolled over 4,000 students from 50 countries and more than 400 of them have dedicated 150 hours each towards the program and received scholarships worth approximately $200,000 combined. The focus is to reach under-represented student communities and in the last 2 years, the program has been made up of 60% women and included over 75% non-White participants with significant numbers coming from low income families. Successful students have developed many innovative solutions during their time in the GC program and have continued to stay in touch with each other during college to further build on their creative ideas. GC aims to engage 2 million students across these and other countries on an annual basis by 2012. Their benchmark is various online tools and digital games that engage millions of kids worldwide.
Michael Remus, Director of Student Support Services for Deer Valley Unified School District near Phoenix, Arizona, is not your typical special education director. In his district, every special education student spends at least part of every day in the general classroom and is only pulled out if his or her IEP calls for a service that must be performed in a specific location. A long-time believer in inclusive practices, Remus has put that belief into practice in every district in which he has worked. Remus says he became interested in inclusive practices because research indicated that was best practice. After more than 30 years of working with students, he is convinced it is the only method that makes sense. He has repeatedly shown that educating all students together benefits ALL of them and improves their test scores - a key concern for all schools.
Concerned that some districts "dumped" special education students into the general classroom without putting services and supports into place to make them successful, in 1998 Remus co-authored More Than Shared Classrooms, explaining the benefits of inclusive practices and offering suggestions to make it successful. Although intended primarily for parents, the book has been in high demand by teachers and other school personnel. This highlighted one of the issues Remus had discovered for himself - teachers who oppose inclusive practices usually do so because they have no idea how to make it work. That led to several more books specifically for educators, including a best practices manual called Puzzled About Special Education One of the most popular is a booklet called High Expectations for All Students A Toolkit for Charting the Course that addresses topics like grading, staff scheduling and teacher workload equity. Click here to order these and other publications.
For the future, Remus is once again thinking of writing a book for school districts. It would be a detailed blueprint to help them change their system to one that is inclusive. The idea came from the many requests he gets to consult with districts all over the United States. This would let him help other districts while concentrating on his own.
Remus has already changed the lives of thousands of special education students during his career. It is encouraging to think his books will continue to help others make all students successful.
Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society, Second Edition by James A. Banks
This new edition contains three additional chapters the first did not. James A. Banks provides an argument for effective citizenship education for students. He posits that assisting students in acquiring knowledge, skills, and values that are culturally responsive will help them interact effectively with their communities. Of more importance, Banks states, is the ability for students to use these skills to strive for social justice not just in their immediate presence, but around the world. Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society, Second Edition, by James A. Banks is a must-read for educators and families searching for ways to promote youth involvement in community.
Collaborative Action Research: Developing Professional Learning Communities edited by Stephen P. Gordon
Action Research is the process of conducting research within schools with the goal of long-term school improvement. Stephen P. Gordon explains in his book, Collaborative Action Research: Developing Professional Learning Communities, exactly what action research is and what it entails, and guides readers through an action research model so that they may use the book as a resource for conducting their own research. This book is essential for education researchers looking for ways to conduct applied research aimed at creating change on a grand scale.
Library of Inclusive Education
The Hong Kong Institute of Education's Library of Inclusive Education is a great resource for people looking for any research related to inclusive education. They have compiled approximately 100 articles published in international journals with topics ranging from how to organize inclusive education and parental perspectives to more complex topics such as those that target specific disabilities like Autism and Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. To visit the library, visit: http://www.lib.ied.edu.hk/rss/feed/ebsco_incledu.html
Co-teaching is the practice of pairing two teachers together to take responsibility for meeting the educational needs of children in the classroom. There are several types of co-teaching. Five have been identified:
- One teacher guides instruction and the other aides children individually throughout the instruction period.
- Setting up the classroom by creating stations, whereby each teacher attends individually to students at the stations.
- Parallel teaching occurs when each teacher teaches the same material to different groups within the classroom.
- Alternative teaching is when a small subset of students is taken aside for more specialized instruction.
- Team teaching describes classrooms where each teacher shares the responsibilities of instruction and role as lead teacher.
The practice of shared instruction allows special educators to teach beside the general education teacher, enhancing instruction. Students benefit from this type of teaching because it creates inclusive classrooms where children with disabilities are learning the same material as those without disabilities, albeit with extra support.
To find out more about co-teaching, visit the following websites:
FEATURED NIUSI-LEADSCAPE PRINCIPAL WORK
NIUSI-LeadScape Principal- Gloria Williams
Dr. Gloria Williams, principal of Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee, has been an inspiring member of our LeadScape community of practice. In the fifteen months that she has been involved in LeadScape, she has made great strides in building inclusive practices and beliefs at Manassas High. A year ago, the only core class that was co-taught so that students with disabilities could remain in general education classes was one section of Algebra 1A. This year, students are able to attend co-taught classes in English and mathematics in both 9th and 10th grades. The co-teaching model at Manassas is one of strong, equal partnership with seamless sharing of instructional duties.
In addition to steadily increasing the availability of co-taught classes, Gloria and her team are working to increase access to general education classes for Manassas students with severe disabilities. By carefully constructing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), Manassas multidisciplinary teams are providing services to students in the true spirit of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), utilizing support teachers, paraprofessionals, and peers to allow help to students with severe disabilities access the curriculum in general education classrooms to the greatest degree possible.
Manassas is leading Memphis' high schools in their efforts to implement inclusive practices at the high school level, and Gloria Williams has been a powerful force in making inclusive education work at the secondary level.
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST)
The National Center for Urban School Transformation (NCUST) is an organization housed at San Diego State University that is dedicated to improving achievement in urban schools. Their website contains information on research, principal coaching, and strategies for improving instruction. Educators searching for more sources of information regarding improving academic achievement in urban schools will find this resource particularly useful.
National Center on RTI Center Webinars Available Online
Have you missed one of the National Center on RTI's webinars? Don't worry! The National Center on RTI is now uploading all of their webinars to their website so that you can reap the benefits of the information even if you are unable to attend the live showing. Past webinars include What is Response to Intervention and Planning for the Implementation of RTI.
Visit their website to find out more information: http://www.rti4success.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=18&Itemid=75
TASH in Nashville, TN December 3-6, 2008
The TASH Center for Equity, Opportunity, and Inclusion, will hold their upcoming conference on Social Justice in the 21st Century in Nashville, Tennessee December 3-6, 2008. Conference participants will be exposed to ideas and discourse on issues of social justice. In particular, the focus of the conference will be on achieving participation of every member of society in ensuring that those with physical, mental, or psychological disabilities are also fully included. The information presented at this conference will be important to all who endeavor towards equality.
National Education Association (NEA)
The National Education Association (NEA) was founded in 1857 for the purpose of improving education. Today the volunteer-based professional organization has the largest membership of any professional employee organization. In addition to the support that the NEA provides to teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty, they also provide assistance to parents and families. On their website, under the "Parents and Community" tab, is an entire section devoted to how parents can be involved in their child's education.
Over the years, Google has come up with some innovative tools to enhance productivity and support group collaboration. Among these include Google Docs, an application which we have previously featured. Just one of the many other Google tools we have found useful is Google Notebook. Google Notebook is an application that allows users to keep track of internet resources that they are browsing by adding them to a "Notebook". Not only can you keep track of websites, but you can add comments to your findings and choose to "share" them with others as either "collaborators" or "viewers". Students will find this application useful in looking for online resources to papers and projects and creating bibliographies. Visit Google Notebook to view the demo and start your own "Notebooks"!
eQuiNews reflects the collaborative relationship between the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt), the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), NIUSI-LeadScape, and the Equity Alliance at ASU Region IX Equity Assistance Center. With a new issue every month, eQuiNews can communicate with the broadest audiences and provide the most innovative, vital and current information on issues in education, school reform, cultural diversity, disproportionality, inclusive practices, and much more. eQuiNews will keep you informed of the work of these projects as well as other news and information in related fields.
For questions or comments on this newsletter, please email the editor of this newsletter - Kara Sujansky (kara.sujansky@asu.edu).
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