Equitable and Inclusive Teaching for Diverse Learners With Disabilities: A Biography-Driven Approach

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 Reveals the outdated, politically driven, inequitable, and inconsequential educational opportunities often afforded to CLD students receiving special services.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.

Table of Contents:
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