OECD Analyst Ottavia Brussino presents her paper on policies and practices to prepare all teachers for diversity and inclusion.
Classrooms have become increasingly diverse places where students from various backgrounds share their learning experiences.
To promote inclusive school settings for all, building teacher capacity for inclusive teaching represents a key policy area.
Education systems need to ensure that teachers are adequately prepared for inclusive teaching and supported throughout their career.
Mechanisms to attract and retain a more diverse teaching body as well as to monitor and evaluate teacher preparation and work with respect to diversity and inclusion should also be developed.
While teacher policies have increasingly addressed some of these areas, most education systems lack comprehensive capacity-building frameworks for inclusive teaching.
This paper maps policies and practices to build teacher capacity for inclusive teaching across OECD countries.
It then presents core elements and competences to design and implement inclusive teaching strategies.
Finally, the paper reviews some of the evidence available on teacher diversity and interventions for inclusive teaching.
Read the paper -- https://oe.cd/il/46W
Vishram Singh - Textbook of Anatomy Upper Limb and Thorax.. Volume 1 (1).pdf
Building capacity for inclusive teaching
1. BUILDING CAPACITY FOR INCLUSIVE TEACHING
Policies and practices to prepare teachers for diversity and inclusion
Webinar: How can governments and teachers work together to make education
more equitable, resilient and student-centred? - 26 October 2021
Ottavia Brussino, Strength through Diversity project
2. Inclusion in education
An on-going process aimed at offering quality
education for all while respecting diversity and the
different needs and abilities, characteristics and learning
expectations of the students and communities,
eliminating all forms of discrimination (UNESCO, 2009).
3. Differentiating between integration and inclusion
Integration Inclusion
Integration entails fitting students into
pre-existing environments, attitudes and
structures (UNESCO, 2017).
Inclusion requires modifying the system
to fit the student, and not adapting the
student to fit the system (UNICEF, 2014).
4. The ways through which teaching is developed and
carried out to promote inclusive learning and well-being
of all students in the classroom.
In this process, key elements such as pedagogy,
curriculum and assessment, and core competences,
including critical reflection, global competence and a
growth mind-set, play fundamental roles.
Conceptualising inclusive teaching
6. Inclusive pedagogy
Pedagogical approach to ensure that individual
students receive the support they need without
being treated differently from others.
Key elements:
• supporting sense of belonging;
• self-efficacy;
• engagement of all students;
• active dialogue with all students.
Youcubed
Platform that provides
evidence-based professional
learning to engage all
students in mathematics
7. Challenges to overcome
Different
understanding of
diversity and
inclusion
Low attraction and
retention of diversity
in the teaching force
Insufficient teacher
preparation and
development for
diversity and
inclusion
Teacher well-being
is not always
prioritised
Lack of solid and
inclusive teacher
evaluation for
diversity and
inclusion
9. Attracting more diverse and high-quality teachers…
Some strategies
• Inclusive admission
• Teacher residencies
• Financial incentives (e.g.,
scholarships, loan forgiveness)
• Non-financial incentives (e.g.,
requalification and certification
programmes, alternative certification
pathways)
• Matching teachers to disadvantaged
settings
10. …And retaining more diverse and high-quality
teachers
Some strategies
• Induction and mentoring
• Continuous professional learning
• Horizontal networks of support
• Inclusive teacher evaluations
11. Thank you!
Read the paper here: https://bit.ly/310kr9l
For more information:
http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/strength-through-diversity.htm
Ottavia.Brussino@oecd.org
Editor's Notes
An on-going process aimed at offering quality education for all while respecting the diversity of students and eliminating discrimination.
To design and implement inclusive teaching, 3 elements are key: pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. What teachers teach (curriculum), how teachers teach (pedagogy) and how teachers assess student learning (assessment) are key to promote or hinder inclusive teaching strategies. Together with these, managing an inclusive classroom environment, such as through teacher-student interactions, is also key. Today I will briefly introduce you to inclusive pedagogy.
Going back to the question of the webinar and the momentum built by the recent ISTP, how can governments and teachers work together to make education more equitable and inclusive? These three elements are key both at the classroom and system level to design and implement inclusive teaching. Across OECD countries, there are promising practices that are promoted for each of these elements that can be used to guide change.
When looking at the guiding question of this webinar, How can governments and teachers work together to make education more equitable, resilient and student-centred? with a focus on inclusive teaching, we can highlight that currently, while inclusive teaching practices are increasingly implemented across countries, they are far from being systematised into system-wide policies. There is a need for education systems to leverage on the momentum and practices implemented in schools to strengthen their teacher policies to promote inclusive teaching. In particular, some challenges remain to be overcome.
In diverse classrooms, teachers play a fundamental role in the process of promoting learning environments, where all students can thrive, according to their needs and learning styles. Ensuring that teachers are equipped with the knowledge, skills and tools to implement inclusive teaching is key for education systems attentive to leaving no student behind. To build teacher capacity for inclusive teaching effectively, a multiplicity of challenges must be acknowledged and overcome. These include low attraction and retention of a diverse teaching workforce, insufficient teacher preparation and development in areas related to diversity and inclusion, as well as a lack of teacher evaluation for inclusive teaching. These challenges can be addressed through a number of key teacher policy areas.
Globally, 57% of countries define inclusive education for multiple student groups and only 17% have holistic policy frameworks to inclusive education for all students (UNESCO 2020).Imbalances with respect to gender, age, diverse abilities, ethnicity and other groups (e.g. TALIS 2018).Students in more disadvantaged settings are less likely to have high-quality teachers (Qin and Bowen 2019).
Novice teachers are over-employed in more disadvantaged settings (TALIS 2018).Teachers have high needs for training in areas of diversity and inclusion (PISA 2018 & TALIS 2018).
Teachers with high stress levels are twice as likely to report they will quit teaching within 5 years (TALIS 2018).15% of teachers report providing feedback based on peer observation more than 4 times a year (TALIS 2018).Teachers from minority backgrounds seem to score disproportionately lower in teacher evaluations (Bailey et al. 2016).
These challenges can be addressed through a number of key teacher policy areas.
Attracting and retaining diverse candidates in initial teacher education can help diversify the pool of prospective teachers. Across countries, diverse approaches are implemented to enhance attraction and retention of a more diverse teaching body. These include targeted strategies, such as inclusive admission strategies, financial and non-financial incentives, as well as broader policies to establish supportive environments and improve the attractiveness and reputational standards of the teaching profession.
Integrating initial teacher education programmes with objectives and competences for diversity and inclusion can equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, competences and skills necessary to promote inclusive teaching practices once in the classroom. Across countries, diversity and inclusion are incorporated in initial teacher education in different ways. Theoretical and practical knowledge on inclusive teaching are often integrated into fieldwork and hands-on experience. Study-abroad programmes and intercultural experiences are also promoted to develop inclusive teaching competences, such as global competence, critical reflection, self-awareness and self-efficacy.
Supporting novice teachers effectively from the start can greatly contribute to improving working conditions and retaining high-quality and diverse teachers in the profession. Across countries, induction and mentoring programmes aimed at providing collaborative support between novice teachers and more experienced teachers are increasingly widespread practices. Other strategies to support and retain novice teachers in diverse settings place novice teachers in less disadvantaged school environments in their first years of teaching or prepare them to work in disadvantaged school settings through initial teacher education. Induction and mentoring that are responsive to the individual needs of diverse novice teachers are also increasingly implemented practices across countries to support novice teachers’ effectiveness, well-being and retention.
While teaching, teachers remain lifelong learners. As such, teachers can be provided with continuous professional learning opportunities that reflect their professional learning needs in the field of diversity and inclusion. Across countries, together with formal in-service training, horizontal and collaborative approaches, such as professional learning communities, are increasingly emerging. These approaches can promote joint-problem solving, reflection and the sharing of best practices and experiences. Professional learning programmes, among others, can be designed to mitigate unconscious bias, promote critical reflection, student-cantered, empathic and perspective-taking approaches, and integrate diversity and inclusion through pedagogies, curricula and assessments. To further guide and support teachers, there is an increasing focus on promoting an inclusive school leadership and management.
Promoting teacher well-being can accompany the implementation of inclusive teaching. Teachers can be supported in their professional and personal lives to improve their working conditions and the well-being of all participants in the classroom. In the current context of rapidly changing and increasingly diverse classrooms, providing support for teachers to navigate high-stress environments and broaden their knowledge and skills to address diverse student needs can contribute to implementing inclusive teaching.
Structuring teacher evaluation for inclusive teaching can contribute to building teacher capacity and serve both summative and formative purposes. It can strengthen teacher effectiveness and inclusive teaching practices, reward performance and support the work in the classroom. Across countries, teacher evaluation in areas related to inclusive teaching include more traditional teacher appraisal systems, as well as increasingly emerging approaches, such as peer observation among teachers. However, system-wide frameworks for teacher evaluation in areas related to diversity and inclusion are still lacking across most countries.
There are a number of key policy areas to build teachers capacity for inclusive teaching. These include: attracting and retaining high-quality teachers for diversity and inclusion, preparing teachers along the teacher development continuum from initial teacher education to professional development. It also includes promoting an inclusive approach to teacher well-being and assessing teachers for inclusive teaching. For each area, the working paper provides an overview of different approaches and strategies in place across countries. For example, different strategies exist to attract and retain more diverse teachers. These include inclusive admission strategies (e.g. prioritising and following up with student teachers candidates from diverse backgrounds, US), teacher residencies (horizontal and vertical networks that accompany diverse prospective teachers from ITE into the profession), financial incentives such as loan forgiveness and scholarships. There are also a variety of strategies to match high-quality teachers to more disadvantaged school settings These includes financial and non-financial strategies, allocating more experienced teachers to more disadvantaged settings or prepare prospective teachers for disadvantaged settings from ITE.
In ITE, there are different strategies to integrate topics of diversity and inclusion, which can be objectives, competences to acquire or topics of courses. Once in the classroom, novice teachers are increasingly prepared for diversity and inclusion through induction and mentoring. New Zealand, for example, has a comprehensive 2-year long programme with guidelines for mentors and mentees while also providing specific guidelines for preparing novice teachers to support Māori students. As life-long learners, teachers should be prepared for diversity and inclusion through formal and informal professional development. For example, professional learning communities are increasingly institutionalized strategies to support teachers, also in the area of inclusive teaching, as it is the case in the Australiana state of Victoria.
e.g., awareness-raising campaigns in Belgium and Denmark; targeted support for students with an immigrant background in Germany)
(e.g., Boston Teacher Residency, U.S.)
(e.g., scholarships in France and Germany; loan forgiveness and rewarding excellence in teaching, U.S.)
(e.g., support in ITE in Denmark and Finland; re-qualification and certification programmes in Austria; alternative certification pathways such as Teach for All)
(e.g. rotation schemes in Japan and Korea; identifying high-achieving students in ITE in Australia)
There are a number of key policy areas to build teachers capacity for inclusive teaching. These include: attracting and retaining high-quality teachers for diversity and inclusion, preparing teachers along the teacher development continuum from initial teacher education to professional development. It also includes promoting an inclusive approach to teacher well-being and assessing teachers for inclusive teaching. For each area, the working paper provides an overview of different approaches and strategies in place across countries. For example, different strategies exist to attract and retain more diverse teachers. These include inclusive admission strategies (e.g. prioritising and following up with student teachers candidates from diverse backgrounds, US), teacher residencies (horizontal and vertical networks that accompany diverse prospective teachers from ITE into the profession), financial incentives such as loan forgiveness and scholarships. There are also a variety of strategies to match high-quality teachers to more disadvantaged school settings These includes financial and non-financial strategies, allocating more experienced teachers to more disadvantaged settings or prepare prospective teachers for disadvantaged settings from ITE.
In ITE, there are different strategies to integrate topics of diversity and inclusion, which can be objectives, competences to acquire or topics of courses. Once in the classroom, novice teachers are increasingly prepared for diversity and inclusion through induction and mentoring. New Zealand, for example, has a comprehensive 2-year long programme with guidelines for mentors and mentees while also providing specific guidelines for preparing novice teachers to support Māori students. As life-long learners, teachers should be prepared for diversity and inclusion through formal and informal professional development. For example, professional learning communities are increasingly institutionalized strategies to support teachers, also in the area of inclusive teaching, as it is the case in the Australiana state of Victoria.
e.g., awareness-raising campaigns in Belgium and Denmark; targeted support for students with an immigrant background in Germany)
(e.g., Boston Teacher Residency, U.S.)
(e.g., scholarships in France and Germany; loan forgiveness and rewarding excellence in teaching, U.S.)
(e.g., support in ITE in Denmark and Finland; re-qualification and certification programmes in Austria; alternative certification pathways such as Teach for All)
(e.g. rotation schemes in Japan and Korea; identifying high-achieving students in ITE in Australia)