 Every student carries with them a diverse set of strengths and weaknesses and each classroom contains a diverse set of students. When considering this wide range of learning needs, it's important to recognize some of the unique challenges students may face within any learning environment. The key to inclusive learning is recognizing that the learning environment must support the needs of each student rather than trying to change each student to fit the requirements of the environment. This may seem like a small detail, but in practice, it's an enormously powerful shift in thinking. It's not a deficit model. Our students, when they're making groups, I just heard it today. One student said, we need someone good on technology. You, and it happened to be one of our L and L students, you're great at technology. Come join our group. You'll totally help us. And so they're looking at what the talents are that students have instead of what just the needs are. And a lot of that came from the classroom profiling and helping them to understand that we all have strengths and we all have needs. And when you have to do something in school, play to your strengths. Use what you're good at. And that's, I think, really helped them to feel better about themselves as learners and not see themselves from that deficit model that, oh, I have a learning disability. They've really tried to stop them from thinking that way. Sure. I learn in a different way. It doesn't make me less of a learner. All of the students are able to learn what they need, at the pace they need, and the format they need. And allowing them to show their learning in a way that's relevant for them. Within any given classroom, there may be a wide range of learning disabilities present, including physical, cognitive, or social disabilities. Some of the more common disabilities teachers may face include students with autism, behavior disabilities, cognitive disabilities, visual impairment, or students who may be hard of hearing. While the range of learning needs within any classroom can be diverse, there are a number of common practices that are helpful in ensuring all students feel supported and welcome in any learning environment. The most critical step in building inclusive learning environments is knowing your students and for your students to know themselves. This includes recognizing their strengths as well as their needs. When teachers understand the unique characteristics of each student, they're able to plan ahead for challenges that may arise and capitalize on students' areas of expertise. While it's important for teachers to know their students, it's equally important for students to understand their own strengths and needs. Students who know themselves are more likely to feel a sense of pride in their successes and also advocate for themselves in areas where they may need support. An inclusive environment is one where students are able to demonstrate their strengths while being able to advocate for themselves when challenges arise. Inclusiveness within education means shifting the focus from changing the student to changing the student's environment so that barriers are reduced and students have the supports they need to be successful. As outlined in Alberta Education's Setting the Direction document, this shift includes a refocusing of practice within a number of areas. The first shift includes a rethinking of responsibility. Instead of providing individual students with specialized programming based on their disabilities, the focus of an inclusive learning environment should be on creating meaningful learning opportunities for all students. The responsibility for learning should not simply fall on the shoulders of special education teachers and specialists, but rather should be the work of all students and staff. Our classroom is a regular classroom, but we have extra supports in place and one of the biggest things is increase in those kids' self-esteem. They start to see themselves as readers and writers and we've heard from parents time and time again that their kids aren't complaining about coming to school, they're enjoying, they're starting to think that they're not the dumb one anymore because they're not alone anymore, they have other kids that are just like them. So we've really seen huge improvements in kids and once their self-esteem is up they start to learn and they start to really grow. So we've seen some really big jumps from beginning of the year to the end of the year. One of the things that we have come to know and that we share amongst one another is what helps one or several students in a class really helps many students whether it's in the classroom or in the school and part of our school culture is that we share the information and the ideas that we have amongst one another so that we can benefit kids all across the board. The second shift is a movement away from diagnosis to an understanding of individual strengths and weaknesses. Instead of relying on the traditional medical model for identifying disabilities tied to specialized services, students, teachers, parents and specialists must work collaboratively to identify supports and services that best match the unique strengths and needs of each student. So as staff members see that kind of fluidity, they get some ideas, well maybe I don't have an L&L teacher here but my teacher partner and I can maybe team this a little bit differently so that this group of students can have some support or some extension and then I can work with a larger group of students in a different way, pull in some of our library staff, pull in Ian as a technology and a learning and literacy guru to help us out. So using our people to the best of our ability. It's worth it in the long run because you create a culture then where you're safe to try different things and everybody enters from their own point and that makes it easier in the long run. If you take a one size fits all approach then you're going to have people that are left behind and that makes your job harder in the long run. If you understand where your students are coming from and you provide what they need to be successful then your day to day job becomes much easier. Obviously system level supports such as networking meetings, specialists have been obviously instrumental. Is there a little bit more that maybe we could be getting? Well always there is going to be but our three, I think our biggest pillar of support has to be those teachers. As long as we continue to have awesome teachers in the classroom I think we'll be fine. So some of the things that I think teachers should be doing to create this support of an inclusive environment is always focusing on, well not always, but really trying to focus on the students as a whole and focus on what they can do well and what they can bring to the group as well and how do we pull that out. A challenge is making sure that you integrate all of the other professionals that we haven't talked about like the speech therapist, the occupational therapist, the mental health therapist that have worked with some of our students so I think that's another challenge is to integrate all of those aspects of the child's learning with your lesson planning, with your record keeping, with your reporting to parents as well. The third shift challenges the understanding of barriers. This shift is a movement away from identifying barriers within the student to recognizing barriers within the system. This is an important shift as it challenges the assumption that students must change to fit the system and instead works towards building upon the existing strengths of the students. The shift is also important in that it moves the focus away from what students can't do to what students can do. It really focuses on success. Inclusive education looks at where the student is and we design a program so that the student can be successful and demonstrate their abilities because every student has ability and we garner a program that enables them to shine. I think one of the things that we need to do to make sure that kids feel welcome and that they're comfortable in your classroom is to make sure that they have success, that they know they can come in and do what's been asked of them so we need to make sure that we're asking them an appropriate level for them so that just because we have them in groups or we have them doing individual work or whatever it is that the stuff they're at that they're going to be working on is they can actually answer the questions or do the work and be successful, feel they get the right answer, and go away feeling that they've nailed today. It's been a good class, it's been a positive experience. If that doesn't happen after a while it seems like they get frustrated. Lots of times that's what we want to avoid. These shifts in thinking require a level of commitment from all stakeholders within a school community, not just a select few. When students, parents, teachers, specialists, and administrators collaborate and commit to building an inclusive learning environment for all students, diversity within schools becomes valued rather than simply tolerated.