Differentiated instruction for students with disabilities in early childhood co-taught classrooms: types and quality of modifications

ABSTRACT

Differentiated instruction is considered a prerequisite for the inclusion of students with disabilities (SWD) in general education. The aim of this study was to describe and evaluate the type and quality of curriculum modifications for SWD in Greek early childhood co-taught classrooms. Sixty-eight general and special education teachers in 34 co-taught classrooms participated in this study. The collection of data included 68 lesson plans with accompanying questionnaires and 57 classroom observations. The findings indicated that co-teachers plan and implement more ‘instructional’ than ‘curricular’ or ‘alternative’ modifications and that researchers’ and co-teachers’ reflections differ about the quality of the modifications (i.e. researcher instrument indicated low quality whereas teachers believed that their modifications addressed adequately the needs of the SWD). Further analyses relating to the impact of the students’ and the co-teachers’ demographic characteristics on the quality of the modifications are presented. The paper concludes with highlighting the implications of the study’s outcomes and provides some recommendations for altering existing practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• early childhood
• co-teaching
• modifications
• disability
• lesson plan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Vasilis Strogilos is an Associate Professor at the Southampton Education School, University of Southampton (UK). He has previously worked at the University of the Aegean and the University of Thessaly (Greece), the Roehampton London Online University (UK) and the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). His research interests include co-teaching, differentiated instruction and multidisciplinary collaboration as means to the development of inclusive pedagogy and curricula for all students with a specific focus on students with disabilities.

Elias Avramidis is an assistant professor at the Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly (Greece). His research mainly focuses on examining the theory and practice of inclusive education and the barriers to its implementation.

Anastasia Voulagka holds a Bachelors degree in Special Education from the Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Greece and a Masters in Education from the same university. Anastasia has pertinent professional experience as an Additional Support Needs Teacher (ASN) in Scottish and Greek schools and she has worked in a variety of primary and preschool settings. Her research interests include co-teaching and differentiated instruction.

Dr Eleni Tragoulia is a laboratory and teaching staff at the School of Education, University of Crete, Greece. She has previously worked in inclusive public early childhood schools, in the distance learning postgraduate program in special education at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, and in teachers’ professional development programmes in special education at the University of Crete. Her research interests focus on the promotion of inclusive education through the implementation of co-teaching and differentiated instruction for students with and without disabilities.

ORCID

Vasilis Strogilos http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1754-4306