In the DEI core module, we already provided you with an opportunity for personal reflection in your teaching. To deepen your understanding and expand upon previous discussions, we now ask you to examine your own position in detail. An inclusive pedagogy rests on a teacher’s beliefs, knowledge, and practices you implement in the classroom. The Inclusive Pedagogical Approach in Action (IPAA) framework (Florian & Spratt, 2013) puts forward three foundational beliefs:

1. Differences are an essential aspect of human development, and crucial in any teaching approach. In principle, all students can progress, learn and achieve if the conditions are right.
2. Teachers should believe that they are capable of helping nearly all students learn. Difficulties students experience in learning can be considered teaching dilemmas rather than just students’ problems.
3. Teachers must be willing to keep developing creative new ways of working with other professionals and seek input from students, asking for their views.

Please reflect on the following questions for yourself (repeated on the following page):

• Think about the time you were a university student yourself. To what extent did your teachers show or model the beliefs underlying the IPAA? What in their practice illustrated these beliefs?

• Think about yourself. To what extent do you show or model these beliefs? What in your practice illustrates these beliefs?

• Do you agree with the beliefs underlying the IPAA? Why (not)?

Source: Florian, L. and Spratt, J. (2013). “Enacting Inclusion: A Framework for Interrogating Inclusive Practice.” European Journal of Special Needs Education, 28, 119-135. https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2013.778111