Include Me (IM): 10 Years of Effective Teacher Mentoring and Successful Inclusion for Children with Severe Disabilities (2010-2020) (United States) Stefano Bagnato, EdD, NCSP; Tracy Larson, EdD, NCSP The Arc of Pennsylvania was designated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to spearhead a new statewide training initiative on inclusion for teachers of students with significant disabilities in regular classrooms. “Include Me” (IM) was designed as a mentoring approach grounded in these evidence bases: Effective mentoring dimensions for teachers (9 active agents); and effective inclusion strategies for students with disabilities (9 active agents). IM is, arguably, the longest, field-validated, teacher inclusion mentoring initiative in the special education and developmental disabilities fields conducted in “real-world” settings. We present multidimensional research on the quality, impact, and outcomes of IM for 135 school districts; 1479 children, 1124 teachers (Pre-K-8 Years) over 10 years (2010- 2020). We suggest that our “participatory action research” at the University of Pittsburgh is a prime example of what the early intervention field desires: Ideas that work! and have clear implications for enhancing research, policy, and practice
Partnership Research Activities in Real Life Contexts to Support Inclusion (Canada) Carmen Dionne, PhD; Annie Paquet, PhD; Colombe Lemire, PhD It is essential to encourage research that leverages reciprocal links between partners, where the co-production of knowledge is at the core of exchanges. It is about promoting the creation of open innovation spaces focused on young children where a range of partners participate in the development of practices. The presentation will describe the development of partnership on inclusion using a Living Lab approach in Quebec, Canada and the outcomes of the process. In this way, we demonstrate how politics, childcare, health and social services, families and other civil society representatives work in interaction with research partners to develop innovative solutions based on both scientific knowledge and relevant tacit knowledge.
Exploring The Online Learning Community for Early Childhood Teachers and Early Childhood Special Education Teachers: The Process and Outcomes of a Tiered Platform (Taiwan) Shu hsien Tseng, PhD; Yen wei Chen, PhD This research explores the process and outcomes of using an online learning community for early childhood teachers and early childhood special education teachers. As the concept of inclusion is becoming a central value and practice, more than 90% young children with special needs have been placed in regular classrooms in Taiwan. Collaboration and learning community interactions between early childhood teachers and early childhood special education teachers is an effective way to enhance the effectiveness of preschool inclusion. Our team designed and established a tiered platform for an online learning community with knowledge management elements. Results indicated that teachers who joined the interactive online learning community experienced a transformation in their professional knowledge. Details of these and other findings will be discussed in this paper.
