Professional learning resources for school leaders brought to you by Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, in partnership with the Global Partnership for Education - Knowledge and Information Exchange (GPE KIX) project: School Leaders Towards Equity and Inclusion project.
Table of Contents
- Welcome
- Why focus on inclusion?
- What can I expect from this course?
- Learning goals
- The course platform
- Accessibility
- Your learning journal
- Working through the course
- Working together
- Assessment, Responsibilities and Expectations
- Facilitation
1. Welcome
Welcome to this open course on improving equity and inclusion in schools. This course contains eight sections. It provides resources and an action guide to support Afghan school leaders in improving inclusive education practices. Each section should take about 4 to 5 hours to complete, spread over no more than two weeks. This course is a resource to support you and peer school leaders in networked improvement communities to work together to explore inclusion issues in schools.
The course is delivered in a “blended learning” format, meaning it will take place online and during facilitated meetings with other school leaders. The course will connect you with other Afghan school leaders tackling similar and different inclusion issues in their own schools. Together you will investigate inclusion challenges, come up with solutions and take actions for inclusion at your school.
The course guides you through a series of steps. This is based on a continuous improvement methodology of work called a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, which involves planning, doing, studying and acting on small changes in practice in your schools. The emphasis is on small changes to improve inclusion for your school. While taking the course you will become very familiar with PDSA cycles and finding inclusion challenges at your school.
This course is for:
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Headteachers
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Deputy headteachers
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School Leaders
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School Principals
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School Shura Chairs or School Management Committee Chairs
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A stakeholder partner such as an NGO working with school leaders
This course has been created by Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan in collaboration with other partners, as part of the GPE-KIX project: School Leaders toward Equity and Inclusion. The project is working with partners in Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan together with international educators. Learn more about the project here.
2. Why focus on inclusion?
We all know that there are large numbers of learners who do not participate fully in quality learning around the world. These learners include girls, children with disabilities, displaced children, children from specific ethnic groups, children in remote rural areas and children living in extreme poverty.
Addressing this issue is an urgent priority for all of us involved in education. Many governments have comprehensive policies on school inclusion. But policies alone are not sufficient to achieve equity in learning. Local action is also needed. School leaders such as you can play a vital role here. You can be even more effective if you work together as a community.
In this short introduction section, you will learn
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What this course is about
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The course learning outcomes
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How to use the online course platform
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The purpose of keeping a learning journal
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How this course will work
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How this course is accessible for all participants
3. What can I expect from this course?
This course is a resource for school leaders. It takes an innovative approach to improving school practices to promote inclusion. It does not give you explicit instructions about what you must improve and how. Rather the course helps you to develop your skills and confidence in developing your own plans and leading behaviour change for students, teachers and management. This behaviour change is focussed on making schools more inclusive for all your learners.
This course aims to:
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introduce school leaders to a range of ideas about inclusion and inclusive practices in schools
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provide guidance to school leaders on how to analyse inclusion issues in their context
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foster networked improvement communities (NICs) of school leaders
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support school leaders to work together to undertake experiments to test small-scale changes which improve inclusive practices in their schools
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change perspectives and mindsets about how school leaders can work to make schools more inclusive.
4. Learning Goals
After you have studied this course you can expect to be able to do the following:
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Identify a range of inclusion issues in your schools and explain to colleagues and your wider school community how these issues are impacting student learning.
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Describe the relevant policies for inclusion in your context.
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Collect, analyze and use data related to inclusion in your school.
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Identify sources of guidance and support (local and national) for inclusion and equity.
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Introduce new actions and strategies to promote inclusion in your school.
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Evaluate the usefulness of these actions and assess whether to continue with the action or change the action.
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Use digital technology to communicate with peers, find resources, and share practices and strategies with peers.
Overview of learning outcomes and sections:
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Section # and Title
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Learning outcomes
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Introduction
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Understand what the course
aims to do and what to expect from participating in the course.
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Section 1 - Developing an Understanding of Inclusion in Education
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Understand what is meant by
“inclusive education” in the context of your schools.
Understand
that the school environment can be adapted through small changes.
Identify
specific types of inclusion challenges in your context, based on the
resources that are available.
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Section 2
- Exploring inclusion with data
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Describe how different types of data can be used to help you
plan inclusion changes in your school.
Find sources of information to find out more about the profile and
learning of students in your school and community.
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Section 3 - Inclusive practices in
schools
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Describe what to expect in a school which has an inclusive
environment.
Undertake observations in your school on student inclusion.
Analyze data on inclusion collected from your school and present it in
a meaningful way.
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Section 4
- Making changes in your school: an
introduction to the Plan - Do - Study - Act Cycle
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Identify
at least one micro-problem related to inclusion in your school or the wider
community.
Use a
Problem Tree analysis to find the underlying causes and effects of a
micro-problem.
Start to
use the PDSA cycle to plan improvements relating to inclusion at your school.
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Section 5 - Doing
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Be able to implement a PDSA cycle using the small change you planned
in Section 4.
Collect data on the impact of the change you made.
Reflect on any challenges you are experiencing in implementing the
change and share them with your peers in the improvement community.
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Section 6 - Study and Act
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Understand how to analyze the data you have collected on the
intervention or “action”.
Apply analysis skills to make a decision about whether to
continue the action or stop and try something else.
Understand your peers’ micro-problems and solutions and how they
studied the impact of their changes.
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Section 7 - A New PDSA Cycle
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Be able to confidently undertake PDSA cycles in response to small
inclusion challenges.
Understand more about how to solve the specific inclusion challenges
that exist in your school and community.
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Section 8 - Reflection and Self-assessment
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Identify and describe activities that your school took on to promote
inclusion.
Be able to promote further changes and actions related to inclusion
issues in your school.
Be able to compare your initial ideas of inclusion with your knowledge
after completion of the PDSA cycles.
Be able to reflect on changes in your skills, attitude and confidence
that took place while you implemented the PDSA cycles.
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5. The course platform
Take 10 minutes to browse through the course platform, including the Resources sections.
Try out an audio-visual resource, to make sure you can see and hear it.
Open a PDF from the Resources section.
Open a few of the links, to make sure you can access these.
Each section of the course has various online or offline activities.
Activities can take place online in the e-learning course:
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posting your ideas on the course forum
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responding to other school leaders’ posts on the course forum
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reading the course content
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doing the activities
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reading the resources
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online meetings with the other school leaders; these will be organized by the facilitator
Activities can also take place offline:
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meeting with your school management committee
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meeting with teachers at your school
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checking school policy documents
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observing classes and taking notes
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reflecting in your journal
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communicating with other school leaders to solve problems (phone call or text, or in person)
With each subsection and activity you will see various icons. These tell you what to expect to be doing.
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Icon
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Meaning
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Activity
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Learning Journal
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Post/comment
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Reading
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School
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Community
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Required for Final Assessment
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6. Accessibility
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You can download and print the course pages
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All audio-visuals will have a transcript, subtitles or captions to go along with it
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Diagrams and photos that are important to the learning outcomes will have descriptive text explanations
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Please tell your facilitator if you have any other accessibility needs (challenges with seeing, understanding or reading printed text, help with using technology, keyboarding, typing, etc.).
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Accommodations exist and your facilitator will help find solutions for your accessibility needs, whatever they are.
7. Your learning journal
Your learning journal is a personal resource that you will build up as you study this course. You will use it to record your thoughts for specific activities and your learning or observations. You can add to the journal at any time with further notes and observations.
The learning journal might be a notebook, a document on your phone or tablet, or an audio file on your phone or tablet . You should choose what you will use as your learning journal and use this throughout the course.
At the end of the course you will be asked to look back through your learning journal to review what you have learned from this course and how your ideas, attitudes, skills and behaviours might have changed.
You can choose which language to use in your learning journal. Include pictures or photos if you want. Your learning journal is just for you. No one will see what you write, draw or say, unless you decide to share it with others.
Decide what format you will use for your learning journal. If you complete it electronically, don’t forget to save it every time you use it.
Now take 10 minutes to write your first learning journal entry.
Include the date and the title of the entry, My personal aims.
Now try to answer these questions.
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In your role, what do you expect to gain from this course?
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What are you looking forward to in your study and collaboration with other school leaders?
8. Working through the course
This course is designed to be undertaken with a small group of fellow school leaders or head teachers. It is a highly practical course. Each of the eight course sections includes reading, activities, and reflection. There are also opportunities for discussion with other school leaders in your course community.
In each section there are a number of activities. Some of these activities you will undertake on your own, perhaps in your school. These can be completed at a time and place which works for you. Some of these activities ask you to make observations or reflections in your learning journal.
Other activities are designed to be undertaken with your peers in the course community (NIC). This might be an in-person meeting at a local centre or online using a collaboration platform. Your facilitator will consult with you and set up what works best for you and your fellow school leaders.
You should attempt all the activities in the course. If you are stuck you can ask other school leaders in your community or your facilitator.
Each section also offers a resources area and notes for facilitators.
9. Working together
In each section you will be asked to share your ideas or experiences with other school leaders and to comment on what they have shared. You will help each other to solve small problems related to inclusion in your school. This collaboration will be through the online platform.
Go now to this online platform. Check that you can access it.
Create a post with the following information:
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Your first name
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Your role and the type of school that you work in
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How long you have been in your school
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What are the main inclusion challenges in your school?
Also comment on the post from one other school leader. Tell them what you like about their post or ask them a question.
Confidentiality:
It is very important to appreciate confidentiality among your peers. You will be talking about sensitive matters, including your challenges as a school leader, and the challenges you face to solve small but complex problems, with other school leaders. It is essential that you do not share information you learn about other school leaders and their schools outside of the course/project forum. You may also refer to specific students and cases in activities. It is very important that you avoid including information about students that compromises their anonymity.
10. Assessment, Responsibilities, Expectations
This course is not graded so you will not receive a grade or any marks on activities you complete. All of the course readings and activities are important for your learning throughout the course. It is recommended that you do the activities in the order they are presented in order to best learn from doing the improvement process.
Some activities are marked with a star:
When you finish these activities your course facilitator will confirm that you have completed them, based on what you share in meetings or in the course forum.
Assessment Activities:
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1.3 Developing Understandings with NIC
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1.4 More about inclusion and disabilities
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1.5 Draw an Inclusion Tree
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2.3 The inclusion Audit
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2.4 Sharing Audit Findings with the NIC
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3.2 Undertaking observations around your school:
inclusion in teaching and learning
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3.3 What did I learn from the inclusion
observation? Personal reflection activity and sharing
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3.4 Analyze Factors/Practices of the current
system and their effects on learning
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4.2 Reflect and share with your NIC
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4.3 - Work together to create a PDSA
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4.6 Feedback Process
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5.3 (Posting)
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6.1 From implementing the change to analyzing the
data - Study (Journal and Post)
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6.2 Present your data and decide on the Act stage
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6.3 Thinking about your PDSA Cycle (In the course
forum, write about your decision for this “Act” stage of the cycle and list
some of the important facts that helped you make this decision. )
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7.5 Articulating your goal
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7.6 DO IT AGAIN: Plan and carry out your next
PDSA cycle
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7.7 Share what you learned
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8.1 Deep PDSA self-assessment
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8.3 Celebrating and sharing your work
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8.4 Reviewing the School Operational Documents
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8.5 Self-evaluation of skills and knowledge
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8.6 Group activity: Sharing the evaluation and
discussion
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11. Facilitation
The course is written so that it does not need a ‘teacher’, but there may be a facilitator to help guide your learning. Each section has short notes for facilitators.
The facilitator will:
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guide and support the group to work through the course and complete the assignments;
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encourage everyone to contribute and participate in discussions;
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keep the group focused and moving forward.
The definition of ‘facilitation’ is to ‘make things easy’. It is moving a group of people through a process.
The course has a help feature that you can use to request help from your facilitator at any time. They will answer your questions as soon as they are available.
In your learning journal note down your initial answers to these questions. for study. You will discuss your ideas with other school leaders in your group (NIC).
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How would you like to collaborate with your peer school leaders in a small group - when and where, and how often? (Think about where and when you will have internet access)
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Who is your facilitator?
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How do you contact them if you have a problem?