Equitable and Inclusive Teaching for Diverse Learners With Disabilities

The need for teachers who have both the knowledge and skills to teach students in special education, especially students who are emergent bilinguals, is more critical today than ever before. Assumptions about the assurances outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have led to practices that have limited the scope of opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. This book examines the intent of special education policy, challenges existing systems, and explores the promise of using biography-driven instruction to transform students’ learning and enhance their personal growth and community life. With a focus on inclusive practices for working with CLD students with disabilities and their families, the book examines decision-making processes for placement, access, instruction, assessment, and evaluation. The authors show how inclusionary practices create contexts and conditions for teachers to foster their students’ academic abilities through authentic cariño and an ecology of care.

Book Features:

• Elucidates the challenges faced by educators and support personnel as they navigate and prioritize the needs of CLD students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms.
• Reveals the outdated, politically driven, inequitable, and inconsequential educational opportunities often afforded to CLD students receiving special services.
• Provides a framework for creating learning opportunities grounded in the six principles of IDEA and the personal and academic biographies of learners and their families.
• Supports teachers and other staff to maximize four interrelated facets of the CLD student biography: sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and academic.
• Explores the multiple meanings of inclusion and academic engagement at the intersection of IDEA and biography-driven instruction.

Socorro G. Herrera is a professor of curriculum and instruction and executive director of the Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy (CIMA) at Kansas State University. Diane Rodriguez is a professor and associate dean in the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University. Robin M. Cabral is an educational consultant with a background in district-level administration, bilingual speech language pathology, special education, literacy, assessment, and intervention development. Melissa A. Holmes is associate director of CIMA.

“I commend Herrera, Rodriguez, Cabral, and Holmes for giving us an impressive cultural toolkit to promote learning and expand educational opportunities for underserved students. Their additive approach reminds us that culture and history matter. Their interdisciplinary framing is a necessary resource to avoid shortcuts that only give us superficial and stereotypical access to cultural models of learning. I am confident that this volume will be an indispensable resource for educators engaged in the cultural work we describe as education.”
—From the Foreword by Alfredo J. Artiles, Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, Stanford University

“This is an outstanding book that is much needed in the field! Thank you to the authors for this gift.”
—Stanley C. Trent, associate professor, University of Virginia

“The biography-driven approach detailed in this book is a game changer for learners with disabilities and their families, including those who are culturally and linguistically diverse. This valuable text should be read by preservice and inservice teachers alike to further develop their knowledge and skillsets to foster academic and social success for all learners.”
—Karen S. Voytecki, associate professor, special education program area, East Carolina University

Contents

Foreword  ix

Acknowledgments  xiii

Introduction  1

Part I. Historically Centering the Student Through IDEA

1.  Searching for Coal in a Gold Mine: Overlooking the Multifaceted Assets of the Learner  7
In Search of Answers  7
Beyond a Deficit Perspective: Exploring Gaps in Systems  9
The Foundation of an Asset-Driven Agenda  10
Conclusion  12

2.  Setting the Stage for Cognitive and Socioemotional Resilience: Reflecting on the Intersection of Policy and Systems  14
IDEA: With the Best of Intentions . . . Have We Arrived?  14
Response to Intervention: Moving Beyond Reductionistic Exercises  19
Biography: Noticing and Documenting Learner Potential  22
Conclusion  23

Part II. Applying Biography-Driven Practices in Inclusive Classrooms

3.  A Biography-Driven Individualized Educational Plan  27
Moving Beyond Good Intentions Toward Documentable Impact  28
Redefining Possibilities Through Equitable Instructional Delivery  33
Creating Conditions and Situations for CLD Learners to Thrive  34
“My Teacher Made Me Smart”  40
Teachers Who See, Teachers Who Know: Observation, Facilitation, and Affirmation  41
Building Blocks: Equity and Authentic Cariño  42
Conclusion  43

4.  Enriching Opportunities to Learn Through Collaborative Interaction  44
From “Me” to “We”: Community Processes and Shared Products  45
Maximizing Joint Productive Activity to Respond to the Whole Child  46
Fostering Joint Productive Activity Through i+TpsI  52
Using BDI Strategies to Guide Interactional Processes  53
Conclusion  57

5.  Creating Contexts and Conditions for an Inclusive Community Through Classroom Talk  58
Catalyzing Learning Through Community: Caring and Learning in Action  59
Beginning With Biographies: Equity Begins With “i”  60
Situationally Speaking: The Ebb and Flow of Reciprocal Talk  63
Collaboration: Affirmation as Equity  66
Agency “I”: Context, Conditions, and Situations  67
Conclusion  68

Part III. Reimagining Equity for All Learners

6.  Real-Life Language Development: A Bridge for Inclusive Classrooms  71
BDI as Treatment Context  72
Conclusion  83

7.  The Power of BDI for Students With Low-Incidence Disabilities  85
What’s in the Label: Categorizing the Contradictions  85
Social Model of Disability, UDL, and BDI  89
Conclusion  90

8.  Reframing Our Thoughts and Actions Through an Exceptional BDI Foundation: A Call to Action  93
With Dr. Natasha Reyes and Dr. Leonard Steen  
Exploring Perspectives of Referring Teachers  95
Examining Practices and Perspectives of Child Study Teams  96
The Elephant in the Process  98
Conclusion  105

Glossary  109

Appendix A: Overview of Select BDI Strategies  114

Appendix B: Template for Biography-Driven Goal Development Tool  116

References  117

Index  124

About the Authors  129