This February the OISE Library is featuring its materials on inclusive education. Inclusive education involves ensuring that all students are welcomed into the classroom with supports in place that allow them to learn and participate in all aspects of the school environment, no matter their needs, abilities, or background. This month’s Lobby Display features items from OISE’s stacks, curriculum resources, and children’s literature collections. The following books represent some of the many titles on inclusive education that are on display and in OISE’s broader collections.
A Long Walk to School: Global Perspectives on Inclusive Education, edited by Vianne Timmons and Patricia Noonan Walsh, is a compilation of articles that provides readers with information about inclusive education experiences for children and adults with intellectual disabilities from a variety of cultures and countries. Countries included in this compilation of articles about building the capacity for inclusive education are Kenya, Peru, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong. When discussing changing education systems for inclusion, countries like the United States, Canada, Italy, and Ireland are featured. This book highlights inclusive education practices that have been successful, and also describes the continuing challenges to inclusive education around the world by providing readers with an overview of inclusive education research.
Technology for Transformation Perspectives of Hope in the Digital Age, edited by Libbi R. Miller, Daniel Becker, and Katherine Becker, is a compilation of articles that discuss the potential for education technology to be used as a tool for social justice and inclusive education. Aimed at K-12 teachers, teacher educators, educational technology and social justice scholars, and policymakers, this book is intended to be an overview of research on social justice educational technology. It is also meant to be a source of ideas that teachers can implement in the classroom to promote the use of technology for social justice. The book provides readers with examples of individuals and groups using technology for social justice, such as Indigenous peoples, and provides suggestions for ways to use technology for social justice in the classroom.
41 Active Learning Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom Grades 6-12, by Diane Casale-Giannola and Linda Schwartz Green, is a curriculum resource book that provides teachers with a variety of “Active Learning” strategies meant to keep students engaged in the classroom regardless of their learning abilities and language difference. Furthermore, these activities are meant to provide students with positive learning outcomes within an inclusive environment. Before explaining their active learning strategies the authors provide readers with background information about research on inclusive education. Each strategy they describe afterward includes materials, directions, and samples of techniques for implementation. Teachers can use these strategies as starting points to visualize how active learning strategies can be incorporated into their own unique classroom.
Deepening Inclusive and Community-Engaged Education In Three Schools: A Teachers’ Resource, is an OISE curriculum resource publication edited by OISE faculty Leslie Stewart Rose and Mark Evans. The resource guide provides teachers with ways to integrate effective inclusive curriculum practices into the classroom. Furthermore, it includes reports “on school-based inquiries into effective inclusive curriculum practice,” which came out of the Toronto District School Board’s Inclusive Schools three-year pilot project. The project was intended to investigate and develop effective inclusive curriculum and instructional practices. This resource book was the result of a professional learning process that involved the collaboration of teachers, principals, and OISE faculty. It suggests that ongoing teacher education is important for making teachers responsive to supporting all student learning.
The Cutest Face: Celebrating Diversity & Equity in the Classroom, by Rebecca Zak is a children’s book that retells the story of a teacher’s class on picture day. Each page of the book depicts a unique student within the class, describing positive attributes of that student. Through its descriptions of different students, the book represents children of different backgrounds and abilities. The last page of the book shows the final class picture, effectively celebrating the differences that each of these students brings to the classroom, “All of my students are so cute in their own way…but what’s best is how cute everyone looks all together.” This book is a useful resource that promotes inclusive education to students and provides students characters in which they can identify with in a positive manner.
For these and more books on inclusive education, please visit the OISE Lobby Display on the ground floor of the OISE building. All resources in the display case can be checked out – please ask a staff member at the circulation desk for assistance.
