Compare and Contrast Classroom Settings Group Project
Education is the most valuable gift that parents can offer to their children. No matter what the condition a child is born with, they ate all entitled to an education. The children who are born with disabilities have the right to education. There are schools that are designed to accommodate such students with disabilities. Those schools differ from the other schools in terms of their structures and settings. The kind of classrooms in such schools include inclusion classrooms and special education classrooms.
To begin with, an inclusion classroom can be described as the one which gives students with special needs the chance to learn together with their peers (Stuart & Reupert, 2016). The children are supported to study, participate, and contribute to all aspects of life and education within an inclusion class. The inclusion classroom observed comprised of students with physical disabilities. There were those who lacked both hands and others with a single arm. Some lacked legs, and some of them had some of their body parts not proportional to the other parts of the body. These parts included heads that were big than the other parts of the body. Due to these conditions, a classroom required a number of not more than 20 students in a class. The common thing that the students shared was that their mental capability was not affected by their physical statuses of their body, meaning that learning was not a problem. The small number of students in a class was to give space for the students who did not have hands to write a convenient position of sitting as they write using their toes. The classroom was well ventilated to allow sufficient air circulation in the class making the place comfortable for the students and the teachers.
Since the class was designed for a special type of group of students, there were some observable differences from the classes of the normal students. There were no normal desks that are found in ordinary classrooms. The chairs and tables for the disabled students were designed so that they were able to hold a number of up to four students who were struggling to write due to their physical status. For those who were using toes to write, there were no desks designed for them. Instead of the desks, the floor where they were sitting while writing was constructed in a comfortable way. There were both the staircases and ramps at every entrance or exits, which were to be used by the students who were using wheelchairs as a way of walking. The classrooms’ walls had well-positioned grilled metals on the wall, which were meant to support the weak students.
The technique used by the teachers to teach the students was different from the one used by the normal teachers. From the way they were teaching, it could be noticed that they had gone through special training on how to handle such children. The teachers were not physically impaired and therefore had a full understanding of what the children required from them, which gave them a reason to behave accordingly.
On the other hand, special education classrooms refer to the classrooms found in a special school. A special school can be defined as the one that caters for students with special educational needs because of their learning difficulties (Jing, 2019). Such difficulties include behavioral problems and also physical disabilities. Students who go to special schools do not attend any class in mainstream schools. The observed special education classroom consisted of deaf students. Unlike the inclusion classroom, this one had a large number of students because they did not have many complications. The classroom had normal desks like the other normal classrooms. Since the students had a problem with hearing, their class was covered with writings on the walls. The writings were the academic works that the students were supposed to read when the teacher was not in class. The teachers were also using those writings while teaching because the students were not blind, and it made work easier for them to read. The class was set aside from the other classes. This was to avoid distractions from the people outside the class. Deaf students use their visual ability for many of their communication, and if therefore placed in a position where they see the activities outside, they can quickly lose concentration.
The technique used by the teacher was a special one in that it involved the use of sign language. This required both the teacher and the students to be conversant with the signs to understand whatever was being taught. The teaching methods in both classroom settings appeared to be appropriate, and it was an excellent example for other institutions to learn from. The different classroom environments in special education enhanced the concentration of the students who were using those classes.
References
Jing, C. (2019). The social networks of children with and without disabilities in early childhood special education classrooms. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2779-2794.
Nathan, J., & Brownell, M. (2014). Examining the use of classroom observations in the evaluation of special education teachers. Assessment for effective intervention, 112-124.
Stuart, w., & Reupert, A. (2016). Inclusion classroom management and teacher self-efficiency in Australian context. In Asia-pacific perspectives on teachers’ self-efficacy, 87-102.