Introduction
Alternative delivery systems are management systems used in Inclusion classrooms that provide support for students and maximize learning while being presented with the core curriculum. It is an approach that uses success-oriented presentations and the elements of collaboration and school based coordination in its implementation. The goal of alternative delivery systems is to develop many creative ways of working together for the benefit of all students.
The following are examples of how school specialists i.e. psychologist, special education teacher, can enhance and assist the classroom teacher in the delivery of information to students.
The impact of alternative service delivery systems can result in:
- more assistance provided to help all students in general classrooms
- increased support for classroom teachers to expand the use of a range of instructional strategies for diverse student needs
- increased teacher effectiveness
- improved students’ academic performance and behavior
- increased classroom teacher understanding/skills, and confidence in intervening with students at risk
- increased support for the classroom teacher
- increased coordination of individualized and classroom instruction
Collaborative Consultation
Collaborative consultation is a peer relationship between partners where all members recognize their own limits and their professional and personal biases to seek out information, materials, and strategies necessary to meet students’ needs. It is an interactive process that enables teams of people from diverse expertise to generate creative solutions to mutually defined problems. It is a one to one, indirect service delivery model.
After planning instruction through collaborative consultation, it is the classroom teacher who has responsibility for monitoring the implementation plan. The special educator’s role in this model is one of facilitator. It involves a variety of interpersonal skills including brainstorming, active listening, effective communication and questioning skills.
Cooperative Teaching
Cooperative teaching is an educational approach in which general and special educators, as well as specialists from other categorical programs, are simultaneously present in the general education classroom, sharing responsibility for some specific classroom instruction. Cooperative teaching represents the implementation phases of program planning that evolve out of collaborative consultation.
Collaborative teaching can actively assist students currently receiving education programming in segregated or strictly pullout programs transition back into the general education classroom. It allows integration to be successful since the classroom teacher is teamed with the specialist. In the long term, collaborative teaching can be a preventive measure. For students with academic difficulties, the possibility of early intervention coupled with specific instruction in strategies to access the curriculum can greatly decrease the need for traditional services. Team teaching complementary instruction, and supported learning activities are three examples of approaches to cooperative teaching.
Team Teaching
General and special educators jointly plan to teach academic subject content to all students. The general education teacher remains responsible for the entire class while the special educator is responsible for implementing the IEP for special education students.
Complementary Instruction
The general education teacher assumes primary responsibility for teaching specific subject matter, while the specialist has responsibility for teaching academic survival skills necessary for the student to access and master the core curriculum. The content may be delivered in the classroom and complemented when the special education student is pulled out of the classroom to another setting. The critical difference between complementary instruction and the traditional pullout program in that two professionals prepare instruction together and it is delivered in the general classroom.
Supportive Learning Activities
The general educator introduces academic content and the specialist develops and implements learning activities designed to reinforce the specific content. The educators work together to develop and deliver the instructional content in the regular classroom even though each is responsible for a particular phase of development.
One Teach-One Support
In this type of Inclusive delivery system the regular education teacher teaches the lesson while the special education teacher works individually with each special education student in the class. The job of the special education teacher is to answer questions the student may have, make sure notes are being taken, explain concepts, explain assignments, explain directions etc. All of this support is aimed at maintain the student’s ability to stay in the regular education setting.
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