Teacher Training for the Construction of Classrooms Open to Inclusion

Abstract

Teachers of the 21st century must be competent to respond to the challenges of the new millennium, as it requires a well-trained professional who is committed to the postulates of inclusive education. The objective of this article is to analyze the training of teachers and other professionals to meet the special educational needs of students who require extensive and generalized support. A non-experimental, descriptive and survey-type research design was used for our investigation. The population group is characterized by the set of specialized open classrooms in the Region of Murcia during the 2018/19 academic year, a total of 108 open classrooms and 1043 teachers or professionals. The selection of the sample was carried out through a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, involving 88 specialized open classrooms and 490 professionals (tutor of specialized open classroom, tutor of reference classroom and the teaching and professional team of these classrooms). To collect the information, three ad-hoc questionnaires were used for the tutor of the specialized open classroom, the tutor of the reference classroom, and the teaching and professional team of the specialized open classroom. The data analysis has been carried out using a quantitative approach with descriptive statistics, inferential analysis based on socio-demographic variables (sex, dedication, educational stage, ownership of the center, professional profile, experience in the center, experience with the group of students and age) and correlational analysis. The results indicate the lack of training and ability of the participants when facing the response to the educational needs of the students enrolled in specialized open classrooms. This situation is more pressing in the non-specialist teachers in attention to diversity. Likewise, we highlighted a positive correlation between the training received, the knowledge of the open classroom and the development of planning functions and curricular adjustments to offer inclusive responses to students who require extensive and generalized supports.