Reforming Teacher Education: The Challenge of Inclusive Education.

Overview & Synopsis

Webster University (Missouri), an independent, liberal arts university, developed a teacher preparation program on both the graduate and undergraduate levels in inclusive education aimed at preservice and practicing teachers and covering early childhood to secondary education. Several models emerged in the teacher preparation program. The unified curriculum of the graduate Early Childhood degree program merged the discussion of issues in educating all young children, including children with disabilities. The unified core of the undergraduate education program fostered an attitude of shared responsibility for all children. An elective course, "Inclusion Strategies in the Regular Classroom," enriched the curriculum and prepared students pursuing special education for the typical classroom. The graduate emphasis in inclusive education represented an embedded approach by including opportunities for graduate students to learn about inclusive education practices while they were concentrating in specialized areas of study. At both undergraduate and graduate levels there has been a trend toward dual certification in special education or early childhood special education and elementary or early childhood certification. Efforts to prepare teachers for inclusion have led to a reconceptualization of the teacher education program as a whole. Resistance to change, state certification standards, limited resources and time, competing interests, and lack of familiarity with inclusion among faculty were all barriers encountered and not yet completely overcome in the program's development. (Contains 13 references.) (JB)