Nowadays, the need to improve Internet accessibility brings the assessment of e-learning formats effectiveness to immediate attention of researches in inclusive higher education. This project aim was to understand the specifics of implementation of an online marathon for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students who learn a foreign language. The authors noticed some differences in the dynamics and activity of DHH students doing online courses in different formats. There was no statistically significant difference in the amount of homework submitted on time between the two formats. However, when students participated in the online marathon, the number of students who completed most of the assignments on time, and the frequency of the submitted assignments increased. The number of completed assignments increased steadily during the online marathon, while the number of submitted assignments decreased in the middle part of the electronic learning course. The microcourse which was designed and implemented in the online marathon format for DHH students at the M.T. Kalashnikov IzhSTU was included in the list of the “Marathon of Best Practices for Applying New Technologies for Education, Training, and Socialization of Students with Limited Health Abilities and with Disabilities in the Universities of the Russian Federation.”
Keyword(s) : inclusive education
Development of Inclusive Culture among Teachers in Educational and Sanatorium Type of Institutions
The relevance of the research on this problem is driven by the fact that currently, the Republic of
Belarus is actively implementing the ideas of inclusive education. The inclusive approach gives every
child, including those with special needs, the right to be included in the general education system at
all levels: to research together with their agemates in kindergartens and schools, to attend clubs and
studios, to rest in recreation camps. One of the key problems in the organization of inclusive health
improvement is that teachers are not prepared to work with children with special needs. Therefore,
the preliminary work on the development of an inclusive culture among teachers is the prerequisite
for the successful implementation of inclusive practices in summer recreation camps. The aim of the
paper is to determine the possibilities of using the diagnostic method “Inclusive culture of a teacher
of an educational and sanatorium type of institutions” to research the features of the development
of inclusive culture among teachers of educational and sanatorium type of institutions. The
ascertaining experiment was the leading method in the research of this problem. The experimental
base of the research was represented by the teachers of the National Children’s Educational and
Health–Improving Center “ZUBRЕNOK” distributed into two groups: the first — the experimental
group included 46 teachers who in 2018-2019 took part in a series of training seminars on the
development of inclusive culture, conducted by the staff of the Institute of Inclusive Education of the
Belarusian State Pedagogical University. The control group consisted of 24 teachers who did not take
part in the training. The research was conducted in 2019-2020. The paper presents the analysis of the
obtained results of the research on the peculiarities of the development of inclusive culture among
teachers of educational and sanatorium type of institutions. The materials of the paper can be used
when organizing monitoring research at different stages of implementation of inclusive practices in
educational and sanatorium type of institutions when developing technology for the development of
inclusive culture among teachers and other subjects of inclusive education.
Pre-Service Social Educators’ Professional Competences: An Inclusive Education Context
The quality of education is increasingly a priority area for state development. In the context
of globalisation, the mission of the education system has become to create conditions for the
achievement of greater stability in society, by ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all
citizens, including individuals with disabilities. Amid efforts towards fully inclusive education, the
professional competences of specialists addressing the needs of those with learning disabilities are
crucial. High-quality training is required for qualified educator –particularly for social educators
– in this field. It aimed the research at identifying the necessary professional competences and
personal qualities of pre-service social educators to work in an inclusive education, as well as to
identify the difficulties university lecturers face in the training of social educators. A qualitative
research design was applied in the study. Fifty-one respondents-university lecturers participated
in it. Its results showed that, alongside central competences, emotional-volitional qualities have
played a significant role in the social educators’ engagement in inclusive education. The research
enabled to identify that the professional difficulties have the highest indicator among the difficulties
that lecturers face when training pre-service social educators. It can be assumed that these findings
will advance improvements in the development of social educators’ professional competences and
solutions to obstacles during their university-level studies.
A Competence Model for Training Programs in Inclusive Education
The implementation of inclusion poses fundamentally new requirements for the professional
competencies of teachers, which in turn determines the need for an empirically based competence
model of a teacher of an inclusive educational organization. A complex of university programs for
teacher training specifying the inclusive competencies could be used as an appropriate empirical base
of the study. However, this research logic has not yet been implemented and the study was devised
to fill this gap. Its purpose was to build a structural and meaningful model of an inclusive teacher
based on an analysis of inclusive competencies presented in the teachers’ educational programs
of universities. Content analysis was used to study the texts of 59 basic educational programs.
Frequency and factor analysis of the matrix of representation of competency indicators in educational
programs was also carried out. It was found that the semantic core of the inclusive competencies
of the teacher reflects the need to take into account the special psychological and pedagogical status of children in terms of their personal position in learning, the originality of their development,
health status and their specific educational needs. The integral inclusive competences of the teacher
are the readiness to: organize an inclusive educational process as a whole; organize an individually
oriented educational route; individual / collaborative support; and organize psychological and
pedagogical support; substantive / instrumental knowledge related to working with students with
disabilities. The competence profiles of teachers, set by university educational programs, are not
fully consistent with both the existing theoretical models of the inclusive teacher competencies
and the conditions for the implementation of inclusive practice. The research results include ideas
about five-component structure of teacher’s inclusive competence. The practical significance is in
the identification of the essence of the contradictions in the content of the university training of
teachers for work in inclusive education, the elimination of which will contribute to improving the
quality staffing of the inclusive education system.
Ethno-cultural Aspects of Inclusive Education Development in the Context of Globalization and Digitalization
The growth of globalization and digitalization leads to the development of educational environments in which people of different cultures, mentalities, traditions, worldviews, possibilities and abilities meet with each other. We need to find ways and educational strategies which will support such multi-dimensional diversity. The relevance of the study is the need to take into account ethno- cultural factors in order to build inclusive education environments which will promote respect for other cultures, considering the abilities, health status, and at the same time, facilitate knowledge about own ethno-cultural identity.
The purpose is to justify theoretically the model of inclusive professional education development taking into account the ethno-cultural specificity of the countries of Russia and Kyrgyzstan, to test this model experimentally in the Kyrgyz Affiliated Campus of Kazan National Research Technological University (Kant, Kyrgyzstan) and in the Kazan Innovative University named after V.G. Timiryasov (Kazan, Russia).
The methodology is based on the concept of geographical determinism (Montesquieu), the principle of unity of consciousness and activity (Rubinstein), cultural-historical theory of personal development (Vygotsky), dialogue of cultures’ theory (Bakhtin and Bibler).
The novel aspect of the work is that the model of inclusive education development in the vocational educational institutions is developed for Russia and Kyrgyzstan taking into account the ethno- cultural specificity of these countries, as well as the system of enhancing the psycho-pedagogical and intercultural competence of students and teachers.
The results have been implemented in the vocational educational institutions in Russia and Kyrgyzstan through the inclusive teaching technologies and methods in the Elective course for students ‘Ethno-cultural aspects of inclusive education’ and methodological seminars and the training course ‘Inclusive Education in ethno-cultural context’ for teachers and directors of educational institutions.
Inclusive education and its implementation: International practices
Research problem. There is a big demand for high level competencies in an increasingly knowledge driven society. Ensuring that each individual has an equal opportunity for educational progress is a challenge worldwide; inclusive education is a question of equity and a premise for active contribution to society by all people, included the weakest. Inclusive schools work to ensure full participation and access to quality learning opportunities for all learners, respecting and valuing diversity, and fighting discrimination in and through education.
The aim of this paper is to study and select the best strategies for empowerment, talent development and raising achievement of all students, including the students with disabilities and special education needs. It explores the area of educational measures both for talented learners, and for upskilling staff to address a heterogeneous student population.
Research methods: The methodology implies the use of authoritative studies and of official documents from national, and the International Bodies, linking them to the author’s personal experience in teaching and in project management, especially keeping in mind the inclusive tradition in Italy. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art.24) stipulates that countries must take steps to ensure that persons with disabilities can access an inclusive primary and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live.
Conclusions and recommendations. We need to understand the importance of inclusivity, to widen the empirical research, to develop, and implement measures to capture the learners’ potential, their academic, and personal development, improving teaching strategies, and guidance. Families and society also make a contribution. It is a challenging task, where teachers play a key role in innovative school systems. The results of the study can be used in policy making, curricula development, teaching programs, and improving the quality of education for all learners.
Attitudes towards inclusion by Slovenian teachers in the context of findings from other countries
The inclusion of children with special needs into the mainstream regular elementary school classes
brings a professional challenge to teachers. A review of articles on teachers’ attitudes towards
inclusion published during last three decades was conducted. The review of research findings
indicates that effective implementation of inclusion depends on the teacher’s attitude to inclusion,
which is found to be linked to the teacher’s gender, years of work experience in teaching children
with special needs, qualification of teachers, and the type of special need. A survey was conducted
in 2013 on a representative sample of Slovenian elementary school teachers who teach in 7th, 8th
or 9th class and have in their class at least one student with special needs. The findings indicate that
teachers have a neutral attitude to inclusion. Teachers believe that they are insufficiently qualifie in
teaching children with special needs, and that they need more training in this particular area. They
are most in favor of inclusion of children with deficiencies in certain areas of learning, children
with chronic disease, and children with speech and language disorders. They disfavor the inclusion
of children with mental development disorders. They hold a neutral attitude to the use of ICT in
inclusive education, and that the use of ICT contributes more to a child’s cognitive, than social
development. They believed that they do not have sufficient competences in ICT supported learning
and assistive technologies. The findings of a survey of Slovenian teachers have shown neither a
link between a teacher’s attitude to inclusion and the teacher’s gender, years of work experience,
experience in teaching children with special needs, nor the teacher’s opinion of his/her own teaching
competences for inclusion. The findings are discussed in light of related studies in other countries.