Interactive Learning Environments for the Educational Improvement of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools

Abstract

Providing an inclusive and quality education for all contributes toward the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. High-quality learning environments based on what works in education benefit all students and can be particularly beneficial for children with disabilities. This article contributes to advance knowledge to enhance the quality of education of students with disabilities that are educated in special schools. This research analyses in which ways, if any, interactive learning environments can be developed in special schools and create better learning opportunities for children with disabilities. A case study was conducted with students with disabilities (N = 36) and teaching staff in a special school, involving interviews and focus groups. We argue that rethinking the learning context by introducing instruction models based on interaction benefit children with disabilities and provide high-quality learning and safe and supportive relationships for these students, thereby promoting their educational and social inclusion.

Implications for Social Impact of Dialogic Teaching and Learning

“…The efforts and dedication of countless researchers in the field of educational psychology to provide answers and solutions to educational and social challenges have been consolidated over the last decades. In particular, the potential benefits of dialogic teaching and learning have been explored through a series of small-scale (Díez-Palomar and Olivé, 2015;Aubert et al, 2017;García-Carrión et al, 2018;Garcia Yeste et al, 2018) and largescale studies (Mercer and Sams, 2006;Flecha, 2015;Alexander, 2018;Howe et al, 2019). Currently, we count with enough evidence supporting the dialogic approach to ultimately provide effective pedagogical responses in which no child is excluded from classroom discourse.…”

“…The social improvements generated as a result of implementing these dialogic learning-based actions have been found to benefit all students, including those with disabilities. A case study aimed at exploring the learning opportunities that these actions grant children with disabilities in special schools found that interactions among students became richer, and that instrumental learning, especially in mathematics, improved in these dialogic spaces (García-Carrión et al, 2018).…”

“…Moreover, the values they learn and internalize do not just stay inside the classroom, but students transfer them to other spaces such as the playground, the neighborhood, or the family (Aubert et al, 2017). Besides, this dialogic environment can be particularly beneficial for students with disabilities, who often suffer from exclusion and are discriminated against (García-Carrión et al, 2018). The egalitarian dialogue fostered in IG provides students with disabilities with the same opportunities as the rest of the students to participate and contribute to the group, thus promoting the rejection of the labeling commonly attached to these children (García-Carrión et al, 2018).…”

“…Besides, this dialogic environment can be particularly beneficial for students with disabilities, who often suffer from exclusion and are discriminated against (García-Carrión et al, 2018). The egalitarian dialogue fostered in IG provides students with disabilities with the same opportunities as the rest of the students to participate and contribute to the group, thus promoting the rejection of the labeling commonly attached to these children (García-Carrión et al, 2018). The previously mentioned study on interactive environments in special schools contributed evidence that, besides the academic achievements, the students with disabilities who participated in IG constructed safe, solidary, and supportive relationships with their peers, promoting their social inclusion (García-Carrión et al, 2018).…”

“Life Starts for Me Again.” The Social Impact of Psychology on Programs for Homeless People: Solidarity Networks for the Effectiveness of Interventions

“…Reaching an effective implementation of the Communicative Methodology requires permeating the whole process with the aforementioned egalitarian dialogue, by which all contributions are considered according to validity claims (Habermas, 1989) instead of the power position of the participants (Flecha and Soler, 2014). Communicative Methodology incorporates within its analytical procedure two inherent components: the exclusionary dimension, entailing the identification of barriers, and the transformative dimension, which analyses the facilitators for reaching social transformation, i.e., the social impact (Gómez, 2017;García-Carrión et al, 2018;Gómez et al, 2019). Two main features of this methodology have led to its selection as the most appropriate method for the current study: (a) the way in which it finds the boundaries and enablers for a change that is consistent with the search for social impact and (b) an egalitarian and intersubjective dialogue among researchers and the participants that constitutes the sample of study.…”