INSTRUCTIONAL NEEDS OF TEACHERS FOR INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

INSTRUCTIONAL NEEDS OF TEACHERS FOR INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT

The study investigated instructional skill needs of teachers for inclusive classrooms in Ebonyi state primary schools. The study sought answers to five research questions and two hypotheses. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 880 primary school teachers and 50 special educators totally 930 in the three Education zone. Questionnaire was the major instrument for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts, all from Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha statistics which yielded an estimated of 0.82; 0.59, 0.84 and 0.95. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was employed in testing the hypotheses. Based on the analysis, the following major findings were made:  the assessment instructional skills of teachers are needed for inclusive classrooms , the communication instructional skills of teachers are needed for inclusive classroom , the management instructional skills of teachers are needed for inclusive classroom, the motivational instructional skills of teachers are needed for inclusive classroom. Based on the findings, it implies, that teachers should utilize instructional skills for effective teaching and learning in inclusive classroom. The study recommended among other things that seminars and conferences should be organized by teacher educators for teachers from time to time to keep them abreast of different instructional skills which they would be using in teaching their pupils, and finally, areas of further research were highlighted.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Education of persons with special needs is going inclusive after several years of exclusivist and separatist paradigm. The change in approach came as a result of a number of influence. Chief among them were the paradigm shift from defect to social model and the UN education programmes (Ozoji, 2008). The defect or “within-child model” is based on the assumption that the origin of learning difficulties lie largely within the child. The social model on the other hand is based on the proposition that society and its institutions account for the child’s impairment (Okeke Oti, 2010). The social model posits that society and its institutions are oppressive, discriminatory and disabling and that if any change is to be effected, attention needs to be focused on the removal of obstacles to the participation of people with disability in the life of the society and in changing institutions, regulations and attitudes that create and maintain exclusion (Mittler, 2000).

Inclusion is educational arrangement that deemphasizes exclusion and emphasizes the restructuring of instructions (schools), classrooms, and approached to instruction to address and meet diverse needs of all children (Okeke-Oti, 2009). The broad definition of inclusion was that given by UNESCO (2005). It defined inclusion as: