Teaching the Inclusive Teacher: Restructuring the Mainstreaming Course in Teacher Education

Inclusive education for students with disabilities, as a component of school reform, is increasingly connecting to efforts to integrate diverse students in general education classes. These include students who are gifted and talented, who have limited English speaking abilities, and who are from various racial and ethnic groups. Teacher education programs must respond more effectively to these changes in schools by providing more effective preparation related to teaching truly diverse students in general education classes. Many complex issues are involved in this process. However, faculty members can make an important step towards responding to these needs through a simple mechanism—the restructuring of the typical "mainstreaming course. " This course can be restructured from one that essentially provides an overview of various disabilities to one that provides strategies that build on holistic, authentic instructional approaches and that provides a range of techniques for accommodation, adaptation of the curriculum, and utilization of support models for students and teachers. This article describes the experience of two faculty members, one at a teaching university in central Wisconsin and the other at a research university in Detroit, Michigan, regarding their experiments in restructuring this course and their responses from university students. Their experiences may provide a model upon which individual faculty can lay the foundation for change in their own departments while meaningfully enhancing the preparation of teachers in training.