Research of different results indicate that individual or group teaching of students with special needs in the classroom contributes to their better social inclusion and academical successfully. Pedagogical practice is possible with thoughtful and planned teamwork between the special education teacher and other teachers.
Our research aimed to determine the nature of teamwork between the special education teacher and the classroom or subject teacher when working with students with special needs. Since the school headteacher supports this work, we also involved headteachers in the research.
We divided the empirical part of the thesis into two parts. In the first part, we surveyed teachers and for the second part, we interviewed three headteachers. We analysed how special education teachers collaborate with other teachers through a five-level model of assistance. The approach varies significantly among Slovenian schools, so we wanted to determine whether collaboration predominantly occurs at the level of integration or the desired inclusive paradigm too. We determined that teachers mostly rate their mutual teamwork as good. They also believe this type of collaboration helps improve the relationships among colleagues and contributes to a more goal-oriented teaching approach. Headteachers have similar views on encouraging teamwork. They cited various methods like mandatory yet informal monthly meetings, peer observations at the same and different teaching levels, project work, and mentorship programs. Despite this, a third of the teachers believe their headteacher does not sufficiently promote teamwork.
Teachers identify time constraints and scheduling challenges as the main obstacles to teamwork. We did not observe significant differences between subject and classroom teachers. A slightly higher proportion of classroom teachers participate in preparing opinions for the student guidance process and developing individualised programs for students with special needs. We found that a third of the teachers believe that co-teaching does not reduce the frequency of conflicts between teachers and students.
In our study, we discuss the processes of supervision and intervision, which promote and enable reflection on pedagogical practice within teamwork. We assessed the familiarity of teachers and headteachers with these processes and inquired about their practical experiences. Result shows that 70.9% of the educational staff have not participated in these processes yet, but have expressed a desire to do so. In addition, two of the headteachers stated that they regularly conduct intervisions for their staff and have noted positive effects. The findings of the study remind headteachers and professional staff educating students with special needs that careful planning, execution, and evaluation of teamwork between special education teachers and other teachers are essential conditions for inclusive treatment.
The findings show that in order to realize inclusion, it is necessary to carefully plan, execute and evaluate teamwork between special education teachers and other teachers.
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