TEACHER CANDIDATES’ OPINIONS ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION PRACTICES

Inclusive education model is defined by UNESCO as an education model which involves the processes of respecting the variety of needs of learners, contributes to the participation of learners to the culture and society and helps alleviate discrimination within the educational system. This education model includes all the necessary changes in terms of objectives, content, learning conditions and strategies to be developed, for the purpose of establishing suitable conditions for all children in learning process and taking needed precautions. Although inclusive education was developed towards students with physical disabilities at the beginning, by time this concept has been expanded to cover all the students including those who do not know languages, those having mental problems, immigrants, refugees, the disabled, ethnical and religious minorities, and students having diseases such as AIDS and those with all kinds of problems. The objective of this study is to determine the opinions of teacher candidates studying on education faculty about inclusive education practices with respect to some demographic variables. The working group of the research is formed by students studying in various departments of Education Faculty of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University from the education year of 2018-2019. Inclusive Education Practices Scale was used in the research to collect the views of teacher candidates. The research revealed that teacher candidates pay particular attention on socializing and bonding students, improving their creativity, and helping them involve in educational tasks by themselves; teacher candidates would prefer verbally communicating with students rather than handing out materials, they would act based on the conditions and momentary situation of the class rather than based on the fixed methods and would not assign homework to students unless necessary.

Keywords

inclusive education, inclusive education practices, cooperation, learning environment, teaching activities.