Teaching challenges in inclusive classrooms

Abstract

Greater attention and new spaces are given to the process of teaching children withspecial needs in the Albanian school settings. The growing numbers of this target group is developing awareness of many actors that are responsible for developing a normal processof education.The presence of children with special needs in "inclusive" classrooms makes teachers more alert to work with them and to better understand their individual characteristics.When each student is perceived as a person With individual characteristics, then teaching needs to adapt to the skills and needs of any student. Thus adapting teaching to anystudent skills and needs leads to "differentiated instruction", and each student with special needs requires an individualized education plan (IEP). In each class the teacher needs tocollaborate with a multidisciplinary group so as to design and implement IEP.But how is this reality presented in our classrooms? Do teachers have sufficient knowledge to develop an IEP? Is the multidisciplinary group active in the process of planning and implementing?This study's aim is to evaluate how IEP is implemented in inclusive classrooms while its nature is qualitative. There have been used surveys, interviews and focus groups to collect the qualitative data.