Secondary preservice teachers exploration of inclusive education

In today’s classrooms, teachers are expected to design and facilitate inclusive learning environments. Teacher education programs are required to provide pre-service teachers with appropriate and relevant training to enable them to respond to the diverse learning needs of all children. To address this issue, an online collaborative transformative learning experience was established with pre-service teachers, teacher educators and practicing teachers dialoguing about contemporary pedagogical approaches for a diverse and changing classroom. This experience was designed to introduce secondary pre-service teachers to the reality of inclusive pedagogies required to effectively teach across a range of differences within their classrooms. A single case study (n=50) was used to examine archived online discussions conducted in a secondary curriculum and pedagogy course. The purpose of study was to explore secondary pre-service teachers’ concerns and knowledge regarding inclusivity and inclusive practices for students with special educational needs in their discipline-based classrooms. Using a constant comparative analysis six themes emerged: Defining inclusion, fear of inclusion, impact of inclusion, multiple approaches to inclusion, important of collaboration, and ICT and inclusion. Drawing on the data and the literature, four implications for pre-service teachers and for teacher education programs are also discussed