Inclusion and Consultation
Faculty member: Kathryn Underwood and Laura Feltham
Type: Learning Objects/Modules
Description: These activities on this website are designed for instructors to use in courses on disability and inclusion in education settings. The activities are intended to supplement course material and offer students interactive ways to review concepts being taught by instructors in courses. These activities are designed for upper level courses in Early Childhood Studies, Bachelor’s of Education, Disability Studies, Nursing, Midwifery, Social Work, Psychology, Human Development, and professional development programs focused on building skills in Inclusion, Disability Services, and Resource Consultation.
The topics are designed to support instructors to lead students in understanding how educational institutions construct disability, and how legislation, policy and professional practice can better support a positive conceptualization of disability in childhood. These interactive activities and videos can aid in students understanding of disability in education, inclusion, and the role of consultants in early childhood and school settings. These activities are not meant for students to go through independently. Instructors are encouraged to go through the material and use the references and resources to develop a deeper understanding of each topic. The activities can help instructors to facilitate active engagement with their students while focusing on understanding the learning objectives of each topic. The material covered in these topics are not meant to stand-alone, but to enhance deeper understanding of learning objectives that are taught by the instructor.
The core activities of each topic will take instructors approximately 1 hour to facilitate with their students. These activities provide opportunities to review previously covered foundational material, along with links to additional resources and activities (for those who wish to explore the material at a deeper level). Each of the topics has learning objectives, a warm up activity and an interactive activity. Some of the activities have student facing content, which is attached in downloadable formats. Discussion questions for each activity support the instructor to facilitate critical thinking.
Following an inclusive model of teaching, instructors are encouraged to make adaptations to better respond to the specific students and context in which the material is being taught.
The above link will take you to an external site with the learning modules, and will open in a new tab.
Author Biography
Dr. Kathryn Underwood, PhD
Professor, School of Early Childhood Studies
Kathryn Underwood is a Professor in the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University. Through critical disability theory as a starting point, Dr. Underwood is interested in how society responds to and constructs childhood in social institutions. Ultimately, her research asks questions about care, social constructs, and institutions, with growing emphasis on the unnatural divide between public and private relationships. Dr. Underwood’s work has interrogated equity and disability issues in early childhood studies, family-school relationships, special education, inclusive early childhood education and care policy and practice.
Laura Feltham, BSc, MA
Project Coordinator, Inclusive Early Childhood Service System
Laura Feltham is a Project Coordinator at Ryerson University working as an active member of the research staff team for the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System (IECSS) project, longitudinal study interviewing families prior to pre-school entry (age 2, turning 3) and ending at entry up to grade 3. Aiding in the coordination of the collection and analysis of data which uses Institutional Ethnography as the methodology.
© 2015 Kathryn Underwood, Laura Feltham, Ryerson University. Inclusive Deisgn is made available for public use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) license (external link) .
