Inclusive School-Based Inquiry Notes

Inclusive School-Based Inquiry

Inclusive School-Based Inquiry is a course designed to help student teachers make professional decisions in the classroom by understanding challenges and finding solutions.

Key Components

• Inclusive: Ensuring everyone is catered for without discrimination.

• Inclusive Education: Strengthening the capacity of education systems to reach all learners.

• School-based: Involving anything and everyone that affects the school.

• Inquiry-based learning: Constructing understanding through systematic problem identification, data collection, review of literature, analysis, and interpretation for decision making.

• Equality: Providing the same amount/treatment to all.

• Equity: Providing treatment based on the specific amount needed to function as expected.

Three Major Areas in Formal Education

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment are crucial areas where teachers must demonstrate knowledge to positively impact student quality.

• Curriculum: All educative experiences learners have in an educational program to achieve broad goals and specific objectives developed within a framework of theory, research, and changing societal needs. A set of documented activities and experiences learners are exposed to, in the course of a study, with the view of equipping them with the requisite knowledge and tools needed in this ever-changing society.

• Instruction: A set of guidelines, theories, methods, and strategies to present content meaningfully to learners. Teachers translate the syllabus into impactful, teachable content, understanding the syllabus goals and mastering content areas.

• Assessment: The process of collecting data on students, programs, projects, and policies to make informed decisions, primarily gathering data on student performance. It should extend beyond paper and pencil tests.

National Teachers’ Standards for Ghana (NTS)

The NTS defines minimum competencies for teachers, covering:

• Professional Values and Attitudes: Professional development, community of practice, ethical conduct, and role modeling, acting as agents of change.

• Professional Knowledge: Familiarity with educational frameworks, curriculum, content, pedagogical knowledge, and understanding of learners in diverse contexts.

• Professional Practice: Managing the learning environment, planning and delivering varied lessons, action research, and employing diverse instructional strategies to support learning.

National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework (NTECF)

The NTECF aims to prepare competent, engaging, inspirational, and reflective teachers through four pillars:

• Subject and Curriculum Knowledge: Demonstrating knowledge in subjects and awareness of the basic level curriculum.

• Pedagogic Knowledge: Applying effective teaching methods and strategies.

• Language and Literacy Studies: Demonstrating competence in English and local languages.

• Cross-Cutting Issues: Addressing ICT, gender, ethnicity, disability, religion, race, and socio-economic status in teaching.

Introduction to Basic Research

Ways of knowing or discovering answers can be scientific and non-scientific. Non-scientific methods include tenacity, intuition, authority, rationalism, and empiricism. The scientific method involves systematic knowledge acquisition, development, and theory testing.

• Non-scientific Methods

  • Tenacity: Believing something is true because it has always been believed.

  • Intuition: Believing something is true because it feels right.

  • Authority: Accepting information from a trusted source.

  • Rationalism: Using logic to draw conclusions from known facts.

  • Empiricism: Learning through trial and error and direct observation.

• Scientific Method - systematic and organized body of knowledge, The goal of the scientific method is to describe, explain, predict, and/or control phenomena.

Characteristics of Scientific Inquiry

Objectivity, control of bias, willingness to alter beliefs, verification, deduction, precision, and provisional truth.

Processes of Scientific Inquiry

Identification of a problem, clarification, review of relevant literature, data collection and organization, interpretation of results, and reporting.

Meaning of Research

Research involves seeking new facts or modifying older ones. Educational research is the systematic study of educational problems using the scientific method.

Ethics in Educational Research

Researchers must protect life, property, and participant privacy through informed consent, confidentiality, and respect for autonomy.

Research Design

Research design is the researcher’s overall plan like descriptive, correlational, and action research.

• Descriptive Research: Involves collecting data to test hypotheses or answer questions about the current status of a subject.

• Correlational Research: Investigates possible relationships between variables without influencing them.

• Action Research: Involves collaboration to solve perceived problems through appropriate intervention.

Data Collection

Researchers collect Qualitative and Quantitative data through observation, interviews, questionnaires, tests, and document reviews.

Statistical Analysis of Data

Statistics involves collecting, classifying, summarizing, analyzing, and interpreting numeric information. The purpose of descriptive statistics is to give a summary of the data in order to help the readers have general idea of the group performance as it relates to the individual scores.

Introduction to Special Education

Special education is designed to accommodate students who require specialized support to reach their greatest potential.

• Basic Concepts:

  • Impairment: Loss or damage to a body part or system.

  • Disability: Reduced ability to perform a function due to loss of a body part or organ.

  • Handicap: Problems encountered due to disability or impairment.

  • Mainstreaming: Educating a student with disabilities in the general classroom.

  • Integration: Educating all students together regardless of handicap.

  • Normalization: Providing an environment as close to normal as possible.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

The IDEA ensures free appropriate public education (FAPE) for eligible students with disabilities, emphasizing zero-reject, nondiscriminatory evaluation, least restrictive environment (LRE), procedural safeguards, and parent-student participation.