My on-going work as educator (Mercy College, NYS Council for Exceptional Children, and NYC Task Force, Autistic Communication a Young Adult Student: A Five-year Study, presented at NYS CEC Conference, Turning Point Resort, Fall 2009) and as psychoanalyist (Learning Disabled vs. Disabled Learning: A Five Year Case Study, unpublished thesis, Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, NY, NY ) drives my commitment to successful inclusive schooling. Long-term single-case studies of youth with learning disabilities and their families define my understanding of inclusion and collaboration. Collegial work, inside and outside the classroom, affirms: (i) appropriate inclusion is consistently knower-centered; (ii) relevant inclusion is constantly driven by standards. Assessment, in support of knower-centered learning, increasingly begins at birth. Development, rather than age, defines notation, diversity, amstery. Alternative assessment identfies learner strengthens and prefered ways of learning a shared body of knowledge. Early Intervention, Response to Intervention, and Universal Design for Learning, independently and jointly, drive successful inclusion. The success of each construct depends on an open system of assessment of learning, and for learning. Feedback supports learning across the domains, across the curriculum Feedback systematically provided to,and utilized by, the learner provokes reflective learning. ePortfolios are an open system of alternative assessment constantly providing observable and measurable feedback. Focused dialogue between learner and instructor are looped and specified outcomes for all learners are supported (Embedding ePortfolios in Early Childhood Certification Courses, presented at the EIfEL Conference, London, June 2009). ePortfolios serve as appropriate tools of assessment beginning at birth and continuing through teacher candidacy. Systematic, sequential repetitious communication loop structures successful inclusive learning. At each stage of development targeted standards indicate an appropriate set of artifcats, each observed and measured by a presribed rubric, and drive reflective learning. My research findings indicate: Feedback provided through the ePortfolio process allows an identified ‘resistance to learning’ to drive the redesign teaching strategies and and construction of alternative sets of methods and materials. Most frequently a relevant Response to Intervention (RTI) and an appropriate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) develop in support of successful inclusive learning. Dr. Eileen E. Brennan, PhD, PsyA.
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