Reflections of Educators in Pursuit of Inclusive Science Classrooms

Abstract

General education science teachers are meeting increasingly diverse classrooms of students that include students with disabilities. A one-week, summer, residential workshop was offered to interested science and special educators who worked through lab experiments one-on-one with students with physical or sensory disabilities (grades 7-12). To determine how effective this professional development workshop was at raising disability awareness and providing teacher training in inclusive science teaching practices, a combination of survey and reflective journal entries was used to monitor participants’ experience. Here we discuss the findings from this benchmark study and discuss how others might adapt this professional development model for use by schools interested in moving toward inclusive practices.

Acknowledgements

This work was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE-CCLI 0089396). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency. The authors gratefully acknowledge discussions with and editorial comments from their colleagues Mabel Asante, Robert Eschenauer, Monique Ferrell, Helene Furani, Bill Profreidt, Wayne Reed, Veronica Shipp, and Julian Williams.