DIMENSIONS KEY TERMS DESCRIPTION/SUPPORTING
STATEMENTS CONSIDERATIONS
1. A Sense of acceptance, belonging, • Every student is valued
Community and Social enjoyment, freedom, and nurtured.
Acceptance friendship, safety, • Students with special
valuing needs are truly included in
their classroom communities
only when they are appreciated
by their teachers and socially
accepted by their classmates.
2. An Appreciation appreciation, • Diversity simply means
of Student Diversity differences, recognizing the group of
opportunities, individual differences that we
recognizing, sensitive see in our students.
• Students learn
tolerance and the ability to
accept differences in each
other, as well as having
opportunities to benefit from
cooperative learning and other
alternative instructional
strategies.
FACTORS &
• Promotes an
environment in which all
members are seen as
equal, all have the
opportunity to
contribute, and all
contributions are
respected.
• Caring and
nurturing places.
• Diversity is being
valued.
• The needs of all
students should be
addressed.
• Teacher’s critical
role that includes teacher
attitude, teacher
expectations, teacher
competence, teacher
collaborative skills, and
teacher support.
• Are students with
disabilities
disproportionately teased
by other students?
• Do students with
disabilities seem to enjoy
being in the general
education classroom?
• Do students
without disabilities
voluntarily include
students with disabilities
in various activities?
• Do students
without disabilities seem
to value the ideas and
opinions of students with
disabilities? And the
other way around?
• Do students with
disabilities consider the
general education
classroom to be their
“real class”? Do they
consider the teacher to be
one of their “real
teachers”?
• A teacher needs
to understand each
individual in the
classroom.
• Teachers must be
sensitive to the cultural,
community, and family
values that can have an
impact on a student’s
experience.
• Racial and ethnic
diversity
• Gender and
sexual orientation
• Religious

3. Attention to curriculum, needs, • “What the student
Curricular Needs student’s learning needs to learn?”
• Teachers must
seriously look at the
curriculum and ask what
students are learning and how
students with disabilities can
access the curriculum.
4. Effective classroom management, Four elements provided by
Management and techniques and teacher to meet the wide range
Instruction strategies, support of needs of students:
• Successful Classroom
Management – including
physical, procedural,
instructional, and behavior
management.
• Effective Instructional
Techniques – key elements of
effective instructional practice:
daily review, specific
techniques for presenting new
information, guided practice,
independent practice, and
formative evaluation.
• Appropriate
Accommodative Practices –
“supported education”;
supports include
accommodations and
modifications to enhance
learning and acceptance in the
general education curriculum.
• Instructional Flexibility
– must be able to handle
behavior problems, provide
extra support during
instruction, modify assessment
techniques, and orchestrate
social interactions.
diversity
• Physical, learning,
and intellectual
differences
• Linguistic
differences
• Behavior and
personality diversity
• If the individual
curricular needs of a
student are not being
met, the curriculum must
be modified or the
educational placement
must be reexamined.
• A student’s
learning and life needs
should always be the
driving force in
programmatic efforts and
decisions.
• Curricular
concerns: (1) content that
is meaningful to students
in a current and future
sense, and (2)
approaches and materials
that work best for them.
• Effective
classroom management is
required if students are
to benefit from any form
of instruction, especially
in inclusive classrooms
where students display a
wide range of diversity.
• Teachers must
feel comfortable using a
wide variety of
instructional techniques
to meet the needs of
diverse classrooms.
• The use of
assistive technology.
• The ability to
respond to unexpected
and changing situations
to support students with
special needs.
5. Personnel collaboration, general • Students with special
Support and and special education, needs require personnel
Collaboration support, teachers supports to allow them to
benefit from placement in
inclusive settings.
• Collaboration occurs
when more than one person
works voluntarily toward a
common goal, frequently
related to the success of
students.
Types of Collaborative Efforts:
o Collaboration-
Consultation – general
education teacher requests the
services of the special
education teacher to help
generate ideas for addressing
an ongoing situation.
o Co-Teaching – general
and special education teachers
work together in providing
direct service to students.
o Teacher Assistance
Teams – teams provide support where problems are
to general education teachers. raised and discussed, and
o Peer Support Systems –
two general education teachers
work together to identify
effective solutions to classroom
situations.
o A critical skill in
collaboration is effective
communication.
o It requires
extensive planning.
o Co-teachers
perform many tasks
jointly, including
planning and teaching,
developing instructional
accommodations,
monitoring and
evaluating students, and
communicating student
progress.
o Co-teaching
requires individuals who
are willing to give up
some control and accept
positive, constructive
criticism from colleagues.
o Provide a forum
solutions are developed.
o Enables educators
to bring a diverse set of
skills and experience to
bear on specific
problems.
o Students with
disabilities in general
education classrooms
receive social or
instructional help from
their nondisabled peers.