Dennis E. Mithaug

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Raising Satisfied and Successful Children

Self-determined Kids

Stanley J. Vitello

This book provides new information on how various inclusion policies have been implemented in different schools and school districts in North America and in a range of European countries. The purpose of inclusion policy is to prevent the marginalization of people who experience unfavorable circumstances in life. It is an approach to the education of students with disabilities that is based on a commitment to what all members of a free society deserve in order to become fully participating members--a fair chance to find a meaningful place in their own communities. This book is a kind of status report on what inclusive education has achieved and what it may achieve in the future for children and youth with disabilities. It describes the philosophical, legal, and practical terrain covered by inclusion policy in general and inclusive schooling in particular. Contributors assess inclusion policy and suggest ways to reconceptualize it, bringing to their data analysis a depth of experience and knowledge about public schooling in their respective countries. Although inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classes has been embraced by politicians and educators calling for equal opportunity in our society and is being incorporated into national and international education laws, it continues to be controversial and the debate is sometimes heated. A goal of this book is to shed some light on this debate. Is inclusion mostly about student placement? Are students with disabilities attaining social and learning membership in general classrooms? Have they benefitted from inclusion? How about students without disabilities? What have been the benefits? Must learning take second priority to socialization and friendship? Are teachers getting the training they need? How do parents feel about inclusion programs? How do students feel? What kind of curricular accommodations should be made? These and other questions are addressed. This volume is based on original papers presented by the contributing authors in October 1997 at the Rutgers Invitational Symposium on Education on Inclusive Schooling: National and International Perspectives.

National and International Perspectives

Inclusive Schooling

This book describes a method of teaching that fosters autonomous learning in all students, including students with disabilities. The pedagogy is based on decades of research on strategy instruction as well as on a theory of learning that claims these four conditions promote self-determined learning in all learners: (1) opportunities to choose expectations for gaining something from a learning challenge, (2) strategies that regulate responses to meet those expectations, (3) comparisons between results and expectations that provoke additional adjustment in expectations and responses, and (4) persistent engagement and adjustment until results match expectations. The pedagogy of self-instruction described in this book anchors these conditions in everyday instruction so students can learn by adjusting to their own expectations. Chapter 1 compares this approach to the teacher-directed methods of direct instruction that require teachers to set expectations for students, control how students respond to them, evaluate the outcomes they produce, and then prescribe adjustments students must make to improve. Chapter 2 provides evidence that too much of special education instruction reflects this teacher-directed approach and as a consequence discourages students from learning how to learn on their own. Chapters 3-6 identify four ways to shift learning control from teachers to students and Chapters 7 and 8 identify the obstacles to achieving this instructional shift in special education. The appendices of the book provide a bibliography of research on self-instruction and direct instruction pedagogies and a validated self-assessment that can evaluate the directedness of your teaching.

How to Teach Self-determined Learning

Self-instruction Pedagogy

Michael L. Wehmeyer

Brian H. Abery

Roger J. Stancliffe

This text provides a comprehensive overview of three theoretical perspectives proposed during the past decade addressing the self-determination construct as it applies to the field of special education. The three models were selected primarily because they have focused on defining and categorizing self-determination for all students with disabilities, including students with mental retardation and other cognitive disabilities. These models are intended to provide students and practitioners a solid grounding in self-determination theory. All models have been evaluated among students with cognitive disabilities but are applicable to all students with or without disabilities. The authors research each model and have applied their own theoretical framework to special education, ensuring that interventions to promote skills like problem solving, goal setting, decision making, and self-advocacy are in place for all students. By reading this text, the reader will gain a solid, theoretically based foundation in understanding the self-determination construct which ultimately supports the development of instructional interventions that enable students with disabilities to become self-determined. It will be useful as a text in upper undergraduate and graduate courses in special education, psychology, social work/welfare, general education, vocational rehabilitation and disability studies.

Dennis E. Mithaug

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