Lim Heng Fook, Levan

This article examines the relationship of three factors that affect special education staff's management of children and adults with disabilities - staff's approach to learning about their-work and problem solving (learning approach), their belief in their ability to affect their learners' performance and behaviour (efficacy), and their general sense of personal empowerment (locus of control). These factors have been found to correlate with staff effectiveness. Thus, an understanding of these factors can guide organizations to better support staff learning and development. Implications for improving the quality of teaching and learning within training programmes, schools, and service organizations are discussed.

This research on differentiated instruction (DI) for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is timely and significant in light of the current emphasis within the field of inclusive education (IE) to identify the most effective and promising teaching strategies to cater to diverse learners within mainstream classrooms. Differentiation has gained international attention as an approach associated with responsive teaching, and as an approach for the development of inclusive learning environments. In this study, we consider inclusive learning environments as those in which the use of teaching methods is based on flexibility and variety, and responds adequately to the students’ readiness, interests and learning profiles (Tomlinson, 2017). To this end, it is important to investigate the factors that affect the understanding and use of DI by teachers as well as the factors that influence the inclusion or exclusion of specific types of modification. According to Janney and Snell (2013), modifications may be curricular, instructional or alternative. Curricular modifications refer to what is being taught (i.e., content), instructional modifications pertain to alterations of the way instruction takes place (i.e., method, activities), and alternative adaptations involve altered goals, instruction and activities.

A term that has high social desirability and attractiveness when used to describe a person is "creativity". A term that can be said to have low social desirability is "disability". These two terms can be said to represent bipolar opposites when used in association with or describing a person. The social perceptions of and meanings associated with creativity and disability imply that these two concepts are rarely linked. The purpose of our research was to investigate the social perceptions and connotations of the terms "creativity" and "disability" from the perspectives of two groups of teachers/instructors: those who work with individuals with disabilities and those who do not work with and are not exposed on a regular basis to individuals with disabilities. Our study specifically focuses on how both these groups of teachers perceive and evaluate the appearance of individuals who are creative and have disabilities. Implications of the study for education are presented.

The internet offers many resources that can be used for educational purposes. Many teachers, however,are uncertain about how to incorporate the use of these resources into their classroom curriculum and instruction. This article describes WebQuest, a tool for inquiry-based or problem-based learning and instruction that integrates the resources of the World Wide Web with student learning. The benefits of using WebQuests as well as implications for use in schools are also discussed.

This qualitative study explores what contributes to the development of differentiated instruction (DI) through the use of curriculum modifications for the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) in three primary Singaporean schools. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, descriptive observations, lesson plans and focus groups. Five teachers, six allied educators, and two learning support teachers (n = 13) participated in this research focusing on five students as “cases” for the professionals to provide individualized examples. Participants often provided restricted understandings about DI as an ability driven approach, which mainly requires modifications in the content of teaching based on staff perceptions of student readiness. However, undifferentiated learning objectives and assessment methods were commonly used. The participants described an overreliance on the use of instructional modifications and lack of curricular and alternative modifications, which they deemed as inadequate and unfair for the students. The findings indicate resounding evidence that contextual constraints, such as class size, a common standardized curriculum and national exams constitute critical impediments that affect the types of curriculum modifications used. The participants proposed an “exams-free” pedagogy to enhance diversity in modifications. The research implies a need to consider the contextual features that impact upon the quality of learner-centred instruction internationally.