Didactic Approaches to Inclusive Education Settings

Abstract

Effective accommodation of all learners in mainstream schools in Africa demands careful use of teaching and learning approaches that have a capacity to influence academic growth of every learner. Therefore, this chapter discusses different didactic approaches that can be adopted in inclusive settings to ensure that the needs of all learners, including those with special educational needs are met. The approaches include multi-sensory, systematic, explicit, diagnostic, differentiated, learner-centered, and distributed teaching approaches. The selection of teaching approaches to deliver certain concepts depends on individual aspects such as learning styles, preferences, and paces of concept mastery. These should also advance the principle of ‘ubuntu', which permeates the entire African social fabric. The chapter further discusses the influence of assessment, knowledge and attitudes of teachers, and a multi-disciplinary team towards effective use of different didactic approaches. A conceptual analysis of words that are considered paramount in this chapter is given as the chapter unfolds.