The Collective Reflection among Teachers in Initial and Ongoing Teacher Education as a Space for Building an Inclusive Pedagogy

Abstract

In the last few decades to build an inclusive pedagogy has become a fundamental goal for the Chilean educational system, and teacher education into an unavoidable task which involves relevant challenges. The objective of this research was to describe the contribution of the collective reflection on practice among teachers in initial and ongoing training to build an inclusive pedagogy, departing from the universal design for learning principles. With this aim, a conceptual framework of teacher education for inclusion was elaborated, and it was methodologically addressed with a qualitative approach of training-action-research. This work shows the design and implementation of a teacher training program applied to 5 work teams formed by 2 pre-service teachers and one in-service teacher. Based on the data collected through interviews, questionnaires, and work session records the results about the convergences and divergences experienced by participants was established. The main conclusions corroborate the relevance of collective reflection among teachers to the professional development in those two stages, and to change classroom practices toward an inclusive education.