Theme 2: Inclusive Education for Transformation

The units for Theme 2 are as follows:

• Unit 2.1: Understanding inclusive education

• Unit 2.2: Hybrid inclusive education for transformation
• Unit 2.3: Framework of an inclusive pedagogical approach

Unit 2.1: Understanding Inclusive Education

1. Learning outcomes
• Construct meaning based on learning how to learn from differences in inclusion
• Identify pathways to inclusion within the South African context

2. Inclusive Education
➢ incorporates the idea of a flexible curriculum and the development of literacy skills,
accessible and applicable to students with different backgrounds, learning styles,
and abilities” (Rioux & Pinto, 2010, p. 621)
➢ contextual and circumstantial in that exclusions differ and reasons to exclude are
varied.
➢ Central to the challenges of inclusive education, lies problems related to policies and
the implementation of such policies.
➢ inclusion does not necessarily mean only inclusion of disabled learners. The
emphasis must always be on ‘all’, and this implies diversity in its entirety.
➢ “The conceptualisation of inclusive schooling in an African context would have to
begin with an acknowledgement of social difference, power, identity and culture.
Difference must be acknowledged as a site of strength” (Phasha, Mahlo & Dei, 2017,
p. 2).
➢ inclusion implies a whole school approach to social relations and production of
meaning reached through processes of negotiation between parents, teachers and
children.
➢ inclusion is relational.
➢ fosters social cohesion through establishing inclusive relationships in the ecosystems
of education.
➢ To understand several frameworks have been suggested
➢ Inclusive education involves the processes of increasing the participation of all
learners in, and reducing their exclusion from cultures, curricula and communities.
➢ involves the restructuring of policies and practice's in schools so that they can
respond to the diversity of learners in their local community
➢ That learners with barriers should not be vulnerable due to the serious behavioural
issues, impairments of various types, disabilities, and other learners from diverse
contexts.
➢ should be accepted into a school as any ordinary learner.
➢ Inclusion is also concerned with improving schools for staff as well as for learners
and that all learners have access to participation in school activities and cultures.
 ➢ All learners have a right to education in their local community and diversity should
not be viewed as a problem to be overcome, but rather as a rich resource to support
learning for all. It is concerned by including sustaining relationships between the
schools and communities.

1. What is Inclusive Education about?

Chapter 29 Summary
• Excluding (discriminating against) someone because of looks, beliefs, religion, skin
colour, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, clothing, disability or illness.
• Social inclusion: increasingly embraced by societies across the world.
• Education critical tool through which
➢ Inclusionary values can be identified and learn to be respected
➢ Diversity regarded as something to learn from
• “Education is the most powerful weapon one can use to change the world.” – Nelson
Mandela

1. Understanding Inclusive Edu. In a global context

• 2 leading viewpoints on this.
• (1) focus on special needs inclusion, (2) broader focus on societal issues.
• Both perspectives based on belief that education is basic need for ALL children.

2. Including Children with disabilities

• Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD)
• Those “…who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory
impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full
and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” (United
Nations, 2006:4)
• Purpose of CRPS: “… to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal
enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with
disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. (United
Nations, 2006:2)
• Children with disabilities remain the most excluded group.
• Have poor access to health care, education and future employment.
• Experience social, cultural and attitudinal obstacles and are particularly
vulnerable to victimization, violence, abuse, & exploitation.
• Some see disabilities as “punishment” or “bewitchment” = rejection and
exclusion.
• People tend to see disability and not person, create a label.
• Assumption leads to belief that they need to be taught differently.
• Children with disabilities seen as “abnormal” and should fit the “norm” in
mainstream schools or go to a different school.

3. Social Exclusion
• Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect exclusion.
 • Learning difficulties result from poverty, abuse, racial discrimination, limited
proficiency in LOLT, poor quality of teaching, ineffective support systems,
poor education systems, inadequately qualified teachers, insufficient
infrastructure, inadequate policies and immigrant status.

4. Historical Global Conventions

• Access to basic education internationally recognized as a basic human right.
1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1994 after WW2
2. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) aged 0-18, 1989
3. African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 1999
4. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) adopted in
2006, ratified by SA in 2007.
• Focus on inclusive edu. Started in 1990 at World Education Forum
conference, Jomtien-Thailand
- World Declaration on Education for All and the Framework for Action to
Meet Basic Learning Needs adopted by 155 countries at this conference
- Framework emphasizes specific groups including:
✓ Girls and women
✓ Poor
✓ Street and working children
✓ Rural and remote areas
✓ Nomads and migrant workers
✓ Indigenous people
✓ Ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities
✓ Refugees
✓ Those displaced by war
✓ People under occupation
• World Conference on Special Needs Education, Salamanca-Spain
- The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs
Education (SSFASNE) signed by 92 countries, including SA.
- ‘Every child has the fundamental right to education, and must be given
the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning.’
(UNESCO, 1994:viii)
- ‘Schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical,
intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions.’ (UNESCO,
2006:6)
• “Inclusive education must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of the
students, accommodating both different styles and rates of learning and
ensuring education to all through appropriate curricula, organizational
arrangements, teaching strategies, resource use and partnerships with their
communities.” (UNESCO, 1994:11-12)
• Most significant impact of the SSFASNE is that it provided the foundational
narrative of how inclusive education should be understood globally.
• World Education Forum conference, Dakar-Senegal, 2000
- 164 countries adopted the Dakar Framework for Action.
- Areas of concern include
✓ HIV and AIDS
✓ Early Childhood Education
✓ School health
✓ Education for girls and women
✓ Adult literacy
✓ Education in situations of crisis and emergency
• Little progress made from 1990 until 2000 in regards to:
✓ More than 13 mil. Children still had no access to primary education
✓ 880 mil. Adults were illiterate
✓ Gender discrimination was evident in schooling system
✓ Quality of learning & acquisition of human values and skills did not
meet needs of individuals and societies.
• World Education Forum, Incheon-Republic of Korea, 2015
- Incheon Declaration for Education (IDE) 2030 agreed upon with a 15-year
vision to transform lives through education.
- Following values also immersed in IDE 2030:
✓ Human rights and dignity
✓ Social justice
✓ Inclusion
✓ Protection
✓ Cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity
✓ Shared responsibility and accountability
• Education is the only strategy to achieve full employment and the eradication
of poverty.
Chapter 30 Summary
1. Inclusive Education in SA context
• Every continent & country has its own sociocultural, historical and economic
contexts and challenges.
• Whole school community (parents, elders, wider families and cultural
custodians) involved in ensuring child’s quality education
• SA classroom diversity = race, ethnicity, culture, religion, language and
abilities.
• Focus of inclusive education not only on disabilities but also social diversities.

2. Background to inclusive education in SA

• Implementing an inclusive education system driven by SA’s poor human
rights history
• Learners separated by race (Apartheid)
• Only learners with organic/medical disabilities or severe behavioral problems
were allowed to attend “special schools”
• 2001 = nearly 240 000 learners with disabilities were out of school
• The South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 - first legal document that
affirmed the obligation to redress past injustices in education and uphold
rights of all learners by eradicating unfair discrimination & intolerance.
• Education White Paper 6 (EWP6)
- Policy developed and accepted in 2001 after investigation into all aspects
related to special needs & support services by the National Commission
of Special Needs in Education and Training (NCSNET) & the National
Committee on Education Support Services (NCESS)
- 2 categories – Majority (“normal”) and Minority (“special needs”)
• EWP6 emphasizes the principles to be included in education system:
- Human rights & social justices of learners
- Participation & social integration
- Equal access to a single, inclusive education system
- Access to one curriculum
- Equity and redress
- Community responsiveness
• EWP6 acknowledges that learning needs can arise as a result of intrinsic
barriers:
- Physical
- Mental
- Neurological & developmental impairments
- Psycho-social disturbances
- Differences in intellectual abilities
- Particular life experiences
 - Socio-economic deprivation
• Also acknowledges the following extrinsic barriers:
- Negative attitudes to/stereotyping of difference
- An inflexible curriculum
- Inappropriate languages/language of learning & teaching
- Inappropriate communication
- Inaccessible and unsafe built environments
- Inappropriate and inadequate support services
- Inadequate policies and legislation
- Non-recognition/non-involvement of parents
- Inadequately & inappropriately trained education managers & educators
• EWP6 puts emphasis on fact that barriers don’t only reside within the
learner, can be external

3. Defining Inclusive Education within SA context

• About acknowledging that all children and youth can learn and need support
• Accepting & respecting fact that learners are different in some ways,
different learning needs that are equally valued & an ordinary part of life
• Enabling education structures, systems & learning methodologies to meet
needs of all learners
• Acknowledges differences in children (race, gender, age, ethnicity, language,
class, disability, etc.)
• Broader than formal schooling, acknowledges learning occurs at home, in
community, & in formal/informal learning structures and modes
• About changing attitudes, behaviors, methodologies, curricula &
environments to meet the needs of all children
• Maximizing participation of all learners in the culture & curriculum of
educational institutions & uncovering + minimizing barriers to learning.

4. Use of appropriate terminology with SA context

• Labelling learners categorizes & separates learners instinctively
• Phrase used = “learners experiencing barriers to learning & development”
• Barrier = anything that stands in the way of a child being able to learn

5. Extrinsic Barriers
• Socio-economic barriers
✓ Poverty
✓ Dysfunctional family
✓ Abuse, crime, gangs and violence
 ✓ Lack of basic amenities (water, electricity, proper housing, ablution
facilities)
✓ Gender issues in cultural groups
✓ Home language and language of instruction different
• School context
✓ Lack basic & appropriate learning support materials
✓ Inadequate facilities at school
✓ Overcrowded classrooms
✓ Dysfunctional management systems
✓ Poor teaching/trained teachers
✓ Insufficient support from teachers
✓ Inappropriate/unfair assessment opportunities
✓ Inflexible curriculum
✓ Teachers unable to deal with diversity of learning needs
✓ Poor classroom management

6. Intrinsic Barriers
• Conditions within the learner
✓ Medical conditions & disabilities
✓ Genetic
✓ Consequence of pregnancy/birth complications
✓ Result of accident/illness
✓ Cognitive disabilities
✓ Sensory impairments (sight/hearing)
✓ Physical impairments (cerebral palsy)
✓ Neurological conditions (epilepsy/dyslexia)

7. Unacceptable labels
• ‘The lazy child’
• ‘The problematic child’
• ‘The child will never achieve anything in life’
• ‘The special child’
• ‘The slow child’
• ‘The retarded child’
• ‘The mad child’
• ‘Our inclusive kids’

8. Challenges in implementing inclusive education successfully

• Research shows schools struggle to implement inclusive measures
• Most reported significant challenges in SA include:
 ✓ Negative attitudes of society (including teachers)
✓ Large class sizes
✓ Learning needs are too diverse
✓ Poor language proficiency in LOLT
✓ Poor socio-economic circumstances resulting in social problems &
inadequate resources
✓ Too many problematic home circumstances
✓ Poor parental support
✓ Inappropriate/inadequate resources & materials
✓ Inadequately trained teachers
✓ Restricted financial resources
✓ Limited and poor functioning support structures
✓ Continuous curriculum changes
✓ Too many administrative duties for teachers
✓ Discipline & behaviour problems in the classroom
• Still more than 500 000 children with disabilities between ages 5-18 that aren’t in
school, double that of 2001 stats
• Reasons = limited resources with personnel provisioning, finance, access to specialist
support services, insufficient processes & procedures for early identification of
disability and large numbers of drop outs.
Unit 2.2: HYBRID INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR TRANSFORMATION
1. Learning Outcomes
• Evaluate different inclusion practices in diverse educational contexts
• Interpret how hybrid education can be used for transformation
• Apply hybrid inclusive education to transformation agenda

2. Hybrid Education
• Hybrid implies mixture, and inclusive education could be assumed to be, by its
nature catering for learning needs of all learners.
• The word “hybrid” has deeper resonances, suggesting not just that
the place of learning is changed but that A HYBRID PEDAGOGY fundamentally
rethinks our conception of PLACE.
• does not just describe an easy mixing of on-ground and online learning, but is
about bringing the sorts of learning that happen in a physical place and the
sorts of learning that happen in a virtual place into a more ENGAGED AND
DYNAMIC CONVERSATION.
• eliminate educational inequalities and barriers in the learning and teaching
process
• differentiate educational material and tools in order to allow all students,
including those with disabilities, to access education
• a way to transform the curriculum such that it addresses the right to education for
all learners.
• Active participation of all sectors is likely to yield results, which will inform the
hybrid curriculum design to transform traditional ways of teaching and learning
while also retaining those aspects of the curriculum which can still be applicable in
the hybrid mode.
• teacher preparation is mandatory
• necessary to use assistive technologies for flexible learning, but most teachers may
not necessarily be adequately trained
• inclusive learning environments may require much more support than envisaged
• some students, it may be difficult to access computers, or they may not be
technologically literate to optimise the learning environment to their advantage
Chapter 8 Summary
1. Vygotsky
• Russian educational psychologist
• Sociocultural theory
- Incredibly influential in educational debates
- View that teaching could not exist without learning & vice versa
- Incredibly useful in multicultural settings, targeted at diversity within
students
• Pedagogy
- “ a structured process whereby a culturally more experienced peer/
teacher uses cultural tools to mediate or guide a novice into established,
relatively stable ways of knowing and being within a particular,
institutional context, in such a way that the knowledge and skills the
novice acquires lead to relatively lasting changes in the novice’s
behaviour, that is, learning.” (Hardman, 2007)
• Important to note
- A teacher is necessary for teaching
- Tools are used when teaching
- Learning implies relatively lasting changes in the learners behaviour

2. Why is a sociocultural approach to teaching & learning important & what major
debates does it address?
• Teaching in our schools is not equipping students with the knowledge to
succeed in core subjects
• Learner-centered = focus on acquisition rather than transmission
• C2005 failed to articulate the pacing, sequence & progression requirements
in subjects that resulted in poor learner performance
• C2005 under stipulated & overdesigned = disadvantaging teachers & learners
• OBE – C2005 – CAPS
• OBE = Outcomes Based Learning (dictatorship teaching)
• CAPS = interactive & learner focused

3. Vygotsky & Pedagogy: teaching for learning

• Vygotsky’s theory challenged firmly held idea of children being “blank slates”
or “passive vessels”
• ZPD = Zone of Proximal Development (social space of movement from not
knowing to knowing)
• Scaffolding = process of assisting from a knowledgeable other to the point
where task can be understood & carried out by the now knowledgeable
learner
 • Testing focuses on what students learnt not what they potentially could learn
• Summative testing indicates what the child knows, not their potential
• Development of scientific concepts requires cooperation between teacher &
taught
• Scientific concepts = knowledge taught in class
• Everyday concepts = spontaneous knowledge gained through experience
• Both needed in order for child to learn
• Scientific concepts help make everyday knowledge conscious; Everyday
knowledge makes abstract scientific knowledge meaningful.

4. Scaffolding
• Developed by Wood; Bruner & Ross (1976)
• Requires that the teacher provides a structure for a/the student to learn &
gradually withdraw the structure as the student progresses
• Strategies for scaffolding:
- Recruitment: gain the students attention
- Reduction in degrees of freedom: simplifying complex tasks into smaller
tasks
- Direction maintenance: teacher gives verbal guidance about how to reach
one’s goal, helping child maintain direction on task
- Marking critical features: pick out critical issues, highlighting that which is
important
- Frustration control: can’t learn if frustrated, be patient with each other
- Demonstration: show how to arrive to desired outcome

5. Relevance to SA schools & classrooms

• Out education system is still recovering from Apartheid systems.
• Inclusion is a big focus.
• ZPD is a developmental principle
• Leads to cognitive development through processes of mediation.
Unit 2.3: Framework of an Inclusive Pedagogical Approach
1. Learning Outcomes
• Interpret how hybrid inclusive education can be used to address diverse learning
needs
• Evaluate the relevance of inclusive pedagogy to the South African context

2. Frameworks
• Frameworks for inclusive education help us to contextualise inclusive education.
• Most frameworks are foreign developed and will need to be domesticated.
• provide focus and direction in understanding theory and practice
• A framework is a structure indicating relationships and how things must work in a
given system.
• “Pedagogy is about the interactions between teachers, students and the learning
environment and learning tasks” (Murphy, 1996, p 35).
• An inclusive pedagogy should be the pedagogy of the 21st century, one that enables
each learner in his or her uniqueness, to learn effectively. Inclusive pedagogies of
the 21st century personalise learning so that they address learning needs of diverse
learners.
• “Inclusive pedagogy is concerned with redressing the limitations on learning that are
often inadvertently placed on children when they are judged ‘less able’. It does not
deny differences between learners but seeks to accommodate them by extending
what is ordinarily available to all rather than by differentiating for some” (Florian,
2015, p.13).
• Florian and Black-Hawkins (2011), consider an inclusive pedagogy to be a complex
affair, and suggest “…a shift in teaching and learning from an approach that works
for most learners existing alongside something ‘additional’ or ‘different’ for those
(some) who experience difficulties, towards one that involves the development of a
rich learning community characterised by learning opportunities that are sufficiently
made available for everyone.”
• Three most important characteristics of learning communities are “shared
knowledge, shared knowing and shared responsibility” (Tinto, 2003, p. 2).
• the Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) and Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal
development are suggested as paramount to an inclusive pedagogy framework
(Lakkala & Kaarina, 2011).
• nine principles
1. Equitable use. Instruction is designed to be useful to and accessible by
people with diverse abilities.
2. Flexibility in use. Instruction is designed to accommodate a wide range of
individual abilities. Provide choice in methods of use.
3. Simple and intuitive. Instruction is designed in a straightforward and
predictable manner, regardless of the student's experience, knowledge,
language skills, or current concentration level. Eliminate unnecessary
complexity.
 4. Perceptible information. Instruction is designed so that necessary
information is communicated effectively to the student, regardless of
ambient conditions or the student's sensory abilities.
5. Tolerance for error. Instruction anticipates variation in individual student
learning pace and prerequisite skills.
6. Low physical effort. Instruction is designed to minimize nonessential physical
effort in order to allow maximum attention to learning.
7. Size and space for approach and use. Instruction is designed with
consideration for appropriate size and space for approach, reach,
manipulations, and use regardless of a student's body size, posture,
mobility, and communication needs.
8. A community of learners. The instructional environment promotes
interaction and communication among students and between students and
faculty.
9. Instructional climate. Instruction is designed to be welcoming and inclusive.
• The zone of proximal development (ZPD) denotes “the distance between the actual
development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in
collaboration with more capable peer” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 33).
• Learners as co-constructors of knowledge are challenged to find within their cultural
contexts, examples of inclusive pedagogy, which addressed learning needs of all without
discrimination.

3. Inclusive Pedagogical Approach

• Pedagogy/pedagogical: The interactions between teachers, students, learning
environment and learning tasks.
• Inclusive pedagogy: A method of teaching where the educator and the
learner work together in creating a supportive environment that gives all
learners equal access to learning.
• Inclusive pedagogy wants to create a learning environment that does not
limit the expectations of the teacher, as well as the learners (Spratt and
Florian, 2013)
• It doesn’t want to segregate learners by placing them in different schools,
teaching them in a different and specialized way because of their dis-abilities,
but wants to create one learning environment in which all the practices and
resources that exist in that particular learning environment are accessible to
all children.
• Inclusive pedagogy rejects labelling children. Its focus is on providing a
framework for learning.

4. 3 Key principles underpinning inclusive pedagogy

• 1. Differences must be accounted for as an essential aspect of human
development in any conceptualisation of learning.
 • 2. Teachers must believe that they are capable of and qualified to teach all
children.
• 3. The profession must continually develop creative ways of working with
others.

5. Multisensory Teaching
• Teaching methods that involve more than one sense at a time.
6. Universal Design for Instruction (UDI)
• “Universal” in this framework refers to being flexible to meet the needs of all
learners.
• Universal design for instruction (UDI) is an educational framework for
applying universal design principles to learning environments with a goal
toward greater accessibility for all students, including students with
disabilities.
• It describes a way in which the curriculum is structured from the beginning to
the end to reduce barriers, and to provide support across individual
differences.
• It doesn’t adopt a “one-size fits all” solution to learning, but it provides
learning that is flexible, and customized to meet individual needs.
• According to McGuire, Scott and Shaw (2006:170). A Universal Design to
Instruction can be achieved through the observation of the following 7
principles:
- Equitable use
- Flexibility in use
- Simple and intuitive
- Perceptible information
- Tolerance for error
- Low physical effort
- Size and space for approach and use
- A community of learners
- Instructional climate
Chapter 16 Summary
1. Mediation
• 3 elements = object/goal; subject & tool
• Using a tool/mediator can help one achieve more than on your own
• Learn how to effectively use a tool; what may be done with a tool; what
mediating person contributed to process & how it was done
• Person learns by internalizing the mediated process
2. Communication, mediation & egocentric speech
• Social mediation is complex, requires proper communication
• Proper communication needs both a shared language & attention, requires
working close together
• Talk during social mediation is often about what to do, when & why
• Mediating person helps subject regulate process
• Egocentric speech = learner speaks & guides themselves
• Process become completely internalized once child regulates their own process

3. ZPD
• If learner can successfully complete a task on their own = outside of ZPD &
learning does not take place (task too easy)
• Vice versa learning won’t occur if task is too difficult
• Learner motivated to engage with work & not able to complete on their own &
align actions to that of the mediator = learn mediating interaction & learning
takes place

4. Language & tools of thinking

• Vygotsky (1986) underlines importance of language & important implications of
literacy & theory building
• Externalization = involves out thinking being represented in the external world
• Use it to guide our thinking by representation – sign indicating something else
• Use & expand writing as an external tool

5. Major debates within field of mediation & sociocultural learning theory

• Focus = develop useful analytical frameworks that teachers can use to analyze
teaching & learning in the classroom
• Situated learning = learning that’s always situated in a community of practice
• Activity theories = take their basic unit of analysis to be a social activity; focuses
on analysis on complex elements that interact to form an activity system.

6. How is Vygotsky relevant to SA schools/classrooms?

• Fundamental implications arise from the understanding that learning occurs
through internalization of one’s experience of mediated tasks
• Learners need sustained & extensive experience of such tasks in order to
effectively do this.
• Learning is not a simple memorization & reproduction of words & procedures.
• Involves becoming able to carry out tasks that achieve a significant object/goal,
using appropriate tools
• Vygotsky’s understanding of language & literacy also provides some important
guidelines for teaching
- Write things down to read later
- Effective recall & building
- Engages deep thought
- Develop reading & literacy to work with, structure, organize & make
sense of thinking
- Develop capacity for analysis & synthesis
Unit 2.4: Learning Support in South Africa
1. Learning outcomes
• Understand learning support
• Evaluate the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to learning in South Africa
• Identify and describe support structures in South African Schools

2. Two important models to understand learners with barriers to learning

• The medical-deficit model and the socio-ecological model are two models that are
widely used to describe learners with barriers to learning.

3. Support structures available

- Special schools as resource centres
- Full-services school (FSS)
- District –based support teams (DBST)
- School-based support teams (SBST)
• School-based support teams’ functions when all previous interventions do not
provide with the necessary intervention result.
• does not only give individual support but also support the teaching and learning
process of the school.
• 2014 the Department of Basic Education introduced the Policy on screening,
identification, assessment and support (SIAS). = aims to provide standardised
procedures to identify, assess, and support all learners who require additional
support
Chapter 31 Summary
1. Understanding learning support
• Medical-deficit Model
- Primary focus of intervention = diagnosis & remediate
- Health professionals decided where to place learner
- Given a Learner with Special Needs (LSEN) no. & weighting based on
testing
- Excluded from mainstream & taught a different curriculum
- Very individualistic, remedial intervention approach & mostly ignored
systematic & socio-environmental influences
- Discriminatory practice because:
✓ Unique human beings cannot be classified into simple medical-
disability diagnoses
✓ Learners may have different medical disabilities but similar
educational needs
✓ Diagnoses are often a way of social control
- Data gained from practice adds valuable info in assessments & learning
support processes
• Socio-ecological Model
- Inclusive approach
- All factors/influences are taken into account (not just medical)
- Stumbling blocks in society and the system aimed to be removed

2. Support structures
• Special schools as resource centers (SSRC)
- Equipped to accommodate learners with high-intensity educational
support programs & services
- Include cognitive/physical disabilities, visual/hearing impairments &
behavioral difficulties (autism)
- Placement in these schools should be a last resort
• Full-service school (FSS)
- Increase participation & diminish exclusion
- Inclusive education system
- Mainstream schools are increasingly being converted into FSS’s
• District-based support teams (DBST)
- Situated at district offices
- Coordinate & promote inclusive education by providing training, support
curriculum delivery, coordinate distribution of resources & infrastructure
development & handle identification, assessment and addressing barriers
to learning.
- Personnel = psychologists, therapists, remedial/learning support
teachers, special needs specialists & other health and welfare workers
 • School-based support teams (SBST)
- Situated as school-level support mechanism & mainly compromises for
management & teachers
- Function = coordinate school, teachers & learner support
- Community & health professionals may also be incorporated

3. Functions of the school-based support teams

• Teacher usually first to identify a learner needing additional support
• After various measures are used (teaching & learning strategies, investigating
learners background, parent & teacher involvement)
• Coordinate all learners, teacher, curriculum & school development support
• Usually only become involved when all other methods & resources have been
exhausted

4. Policy on screening, identification, assessment & support (SIAS)

• Policy introduced in 2014
• Purpose = standardize procedures to identify, assess and support learners with
additional educational needs
• Medial model incorporated but socio-ecological model fundamental operating
principle
• Health professionals play significant role
• Tests are culturally fair & only informs teaching & learning processes
• Teacher is primarily responsible for applying SIAS
• Parents/caregivers opinions also heard (majority weight)
• SIAS includes Integrated School Health Policy (ISHP), Care and Support for
Teaching and Learning (CSTL) framework, School Nutrition Policy, the HIV/AIDS in
Education Policy& CAPS
• Envisions to uphold the educational rights of vulnerable children in SA
• 9 Priority areas
✓ Nutritional support
✓ Health promotion
✓ Infrastructure for water & sanitation
✓ Safety & protection
✓ Social welfare services
✓ Psychological support
✓ Material support
✓ Curriculum support
✓ Co-curricular support
5. Role of the teacher within learning support
• Authentically caring for learners implies no labelling but inclusion
• No judgements or assumptions
• Make time to understand barriers
• Uncovering of barriers requires:
✓ Observation of learners during teaching, learning & assessment activities
✓ Interviews & consultation with various role players
✓ Reflection on appropriate teaching, learning & assessment strategies
✓ Looking at previous records
Unit 2.5: Diverse Classrooms
1. Learning Outcomes
• Understand the different learning styles and intelligences in diverse classrooms
• Identify learners in need for individualised support

2. Intro
• Classrooms consist of learners with different needs from different backgrounds.
• Different learning styles impact the way a learner learns.

3. Learning styles and intelligences in diverse classrooms

• important to identify and use specific leaning styles and strategies to increase a
learner’s interest.
• Gardner refers to multiple intelligences. It includes linguistic-, logical-mathematical-,
visual-spatial-, bodily-kinaesthetic-, musical-, interpersonal-, intrapersonal-,
naturalist- and existential intelligences.

4. Individualised learner support

• Learners in a diverse classroom experience diverse educational challenge.
• Some learners experience difficulties with reading, spelling or mathematics and
need individualised or group support.
• Each type of difficulty asks for a different type of support.
Chapter 10 Summary
1. Importance of learning styles and intelligences in diverse classrooms
• Everyone is different but school operates that everyone is identical
• If learners don’t understand work, they are likely to self-entertain and become a
distraction
• Ask the following questions when formulating effective approaches to teaching:
✓ What are my learners’ interests?
✓ What are my learners’ abilities?
✓ Does my teaching style fit my learners’ learning style?
✓ How do my learners think & learn?
• Encouraging a range of teaching styles = teach a wider variety of learners
• Knowledge of constructive teaching strategies cold enable selecting more
responsive & supportive approaches
• Flexibility allows individual support and avoids stereotyping learning needs based
on backgrounds

2. Learning styles in the classroom

• Visual, auditory & kinesthetic
• Teaching styles refer to varying ways in which info is processed not the overall
ability
• Visual learners tend to sit up straight and follow teacher with their eyes
• Auditory learners softly repeat to themselves words spoken by teacher, nod head
frequently when teacher speaks
• Bodily-kinesthetic learners tend to slump down when listening
• Tactual learners love to play with objects whilst listening (fidget)

3. Intelligences in the classroom

• Different forms of intelligences should not be seen as a reflection of emotions,
personality or sensory awareness nor viewed as a single, delimitable entity
• Valuable for meeting classroom objectives:
✓ Match how teachers teach to how learners learn
✓ Encourage learners to expand their abilities
✓ Develop learners’ potential as fully as possible
✓ Embrace diversity
• Not common that learners’ potential gifts/talents become immediately
noticeable
4. Debates within the field of learning styles & intelligences in diverse classrooms
• Debates against accuracy of theories continue
• Researchers include Farkas (2010), Gardner & Moran (2006), Burke & Dunn
(2010)
• Main critique is that theories lack theoretical, empirical & pedagogical rigour.
• They lack adequate scientific support to justify their utilization as the basis for
classroom teaching/general educational purposes
• Strategies also criticized as unreliable
• If learning is to have value the following aspects must be taken into account:
✓ A person’s fundamental learning style should be constant across
situations
✓ Cognitive functions should be more effective when it is consistent with a
person’s preferred learning style

• One way of encouraging success in the classroom is to use differentiated

instruction according to learners’ needs & talents
• Methods encourage learner responsibility, peer tutoring, flexible grouping &
learner choice
• Approach involves modifying instruction so that all learners can be successful
(Morgan, 2014)

5. How are learning styles & intelligences in diverse classrooms relevant to SA schools
& classrooms?
• Classrooms may be radically, linguistically, culturally & geographically diverse
• E.g. diverse official languages of SA
• Difficult to cater for all learners in a classroom of 40+ children
• Curriculum aimed at self-proficiency & comprehension
• Little latitude in curriculum for pursuing MI & learning styles
• Ideal for classrooms is for teaching styles to match learning styles
• Teachers need to be aware of layered circumstances of SA learners:
✓ Migrant learners: often linguistically, culturally & ethnically different
✓ Schooling in rural conditions: limited resources for teaching
✓ Political climate of country at any point in time: media topics of unrest
can cause anxiety amongst learners and needs to be taken into account
• Factors to consider when enhancing teaching & learning:
✓ The way learners perceive info most easily
✓ How learners organize & process info
✓ How learners retrieve info
✓ Conditions that needs to be met to help learners absorb, store & retrieve
info
• Use of different media types aids use of MI
Chapter 22 Summary
1. Reading
• Proficient reading is a multifaceted task that requires extensive knowledge &
broad range of skills.
• Inter alia includes:
✓ Rapid, sequential processing of visual symbols to recognize letters & word
forms (rapid-automatised reading)
✓ Forming virtually instantaneous associations between visual word forms
& oral word forms
✓ Understanding vocab
✓ Drawing upon linguistic knowledge to attain meaning from the word
order
✓ Mastery of writing conventions to know the significance of punctuations
✓ Gathering & holding sufficient basic material in working memory to
access the ideas being expressed
✓ Collecting & holding ideas to facilitate comprehension (Saskatchewan
Learning, 2004; Paananen, February, Kalima & Kirk, 2011)

• From the above it is clear that a single method/approach to reading cannot

guarantee reading success.
2. Decoding skills
• A developmental process that relies on foundation skills (phonological awareness &
orthographical knowledge) to access & decipher words
• Problems related to word decoding will ultimately affect the child’s potential to
efficiently & fluently read words = affect word automaticity & reading
comprehension

3. Word reading & reading fluency

• Activities to further enhance word reading & reading fluency explained as follows:
✓ Important to create rich literacy environments via labelling (environmental
print) among early childhood learners
✓ Ability to recognize words be practiced (despite age/grade)
✓ Include words with irregular spelling patterns as part of a learners’ high
frequency words list
✓ Introduce visual imagery strategies to learn & store visual images of
phonological irregular words in long term memory
• Recommended reading strategies:
✓ Echo reading: teacher reads & group repeats
✓ Choral reading: Teacher & learners read together
✓ Partner/Pair reading: read in turns aloud
✓ Whisper reading: independent, quiet reading
✓ Fluency should be practiced daily (+/- 10-15 mins a day)

• Other strategies include:

✓ Repeated reading: re-reading the same paragraph
✓ Provide opportunities for learners to listen to recordings of book & read
along
✓ Include strategies such as “reading theatres” (boosts self-confidence)

4. Vocabulary
• Plays an important role in reading
• Improves reading fluency & understanding
• Enhance reading abilities through oral & written vocab5 basic approaches to
teaching vocab:
✓ Explicit instruction
✓ Indirect instruction
 ✓ Multi-media methods
✓ Capacity methods
✓ Association methods
• Other suggestions:
✓ Word study is important
✓ Create word-walls of high-frequency words
✓ Assist in understanding definitions & functions of words
✓ Words taught in the context of a selection/unit
✓ Include context clue types to enhance word meaning
• Relationships are drawn between new words & known words/concepts
• Learners are taught to use context clues & reference resources such as dictionaries
to enhance word knowledge
• Learners are encouraged to interact with the words so they are able to process them
more deeply

5. Reading comprehension
• Skill to be taught explicitly
• Practiced via effective scaffolding & guided practice
• Comprehension includes picture association in early childhood learning
• The teacher can scaffold the following reading strategies:
✓ Summarizing
✓ Predicting
✓ Developing effective questioning techniques
✓ Clarifying
✓ Encouraging learners to relate content of text to personal experiences &
knowledge
✓ Guiding learners to construct mental representations of the text
✓ Monitoring learners’ understanding of the text
✓ Determining & connecting important ideas to construct meaning
6. Supporting spelling development
• Dysgraphia = writing impairment
• Learners with spelling difficulties may struggle to notice, remember & recall
features of language that letters represent
7. Supporting Mathematical Development
• Dyscalculia = difficulties stemming off neurological or cognitive challenges
• Learners may struggle with:
✓ Acquiring & remembering mathematical vocab
✓ Acquire competency & confidence in number concepts
✓ Distinguishing right from left & problems related to special/3D aspects
✓ Using the mathematical calculations signs
✓ Calculations entailing multiple steps (e.g. long division)
✓ Confusing basic operations & facts
✓ Applying logic but not accurately completing calculations
✓ Understanding & solving word problems
✓ Being hesitant, refusing or experiencing anxiety when asked to engage
with mathematical concepts
✓ Remembering & applying mathematical functions in various ways
✓ Recalling math rules, formulas or sequences
✓ Being able to perform an operation one day but not the next
✓ Understanding abstract concept like time and direction
✓ Checking change, reading analogue clocks, keeping score during games,
budgeting, estimating
✓ Remembering dance step sequences or rules for playing sports
✓ Visualizing the face of a clock or places on a map
✓ Recalling dates, addresses, schedules and sequences of past/future
events
✓ Organize the steps required for problem solving
✓ Develop a repertoire of mathematical techniques
✓ Making meaningful connections within & across mathematical
experiences