Chapter 20: Supporting and Promoting Inclusive Teaching Practices: An Administrator’s Guide to Developing Tools

This chapter describes the process and products of a collaborative two-year project: Successfully Navigating Partnerships in Inclusive Teaching Settings (SNPiITS; Beam, Gut, & Hartman, 2017). The project, designed to address identified needs related to inclusion in a local school district, involved working alongside teachers to create an online resource for assessing and enhancing inclusive teaching practices. A project partnership of education preparation program faculty and teachers, including intervention specialists, from two local schools developed several tools intended to assist educators in (a) preassessing teachers’ strengths, weaknesses, and professional development needs related to inclusive practice in the classroom; (b) evaluating individual and team performance in co-teaching in inclusive settings; (c) identifying barriers to inclusive teaching, developing solutions, and supporting the successful implementation of those solutions; and (d) learning about highly effective inclusive practices. Although we designed the project to meet the specific needs of our school district partners, the results of the project may be helpful to educators in other districts across the state and nation who seek to improve inclusive teaching practices.