What does it actually mean to be a teacher in an inclusive school? Which ideas, experiences, and beliefs shape your understanding of good teaching — and how do they influence the way you act in the classroom?
In this online module, you are invited to explore exactly these questions. Whether you are a pre-service teacher, completing your induction phase, or in the early years of your career, your personal beliefs about teaching, learning, diversity, and inclusion matter. They shape how you perceive students, how you plan lessons, and how you respond to challenges in everyday school life. Many of these beliefs are rooted in your own experiences as a student and often continue to influence your professional thinking without always being fully visible to you.
This module offers you the opportunity to make these beliefs visible, reflect on them critically, and further develop them. Through guided reflection activities and the creation of a concept map, you will explore what being a teacher in an inclusive school means to you. Later in the course, you will return to these initial ideas, revise them, and reflect on how your thinking may have changed through new knowledge, perspectives, and experiences.
The aim is not to find one “correct” answer. Rather, this module is designed to support your personal and professional growth. It encourages you to connect your own experiences with research-based insights and school practice, helping you to develop a more reflective understanding of inclusive teaching.
We invite you to engage with this process openly and thoughtfully — with curiosity, with critical reflection, and with a willingness to grow. In doing so, you will take an important step toward becoming a teacher who helps create meaningful and inclusive learning opportunities for all students.
In this first module, we will help you reflect on your teachers’ beliefs. For that please watch the following video.
TASK 1:
Create your own concept map on the topic “Being a teacher in an inclusive school”, either digitally or on paper.
TASK 2:
Read the paper by Dignath et al. (2022) about teachers’ beliefs on inclusion. Consider whether you want to add further terms to your concept map.
TASK 3:
Watch the following interview, in which Prof. Dr. Mel Ainscow discusses the topic of inclusion in school contexts. What’s new for you? What’s interesting? What would you like to learn more about?
The following video was kindly provided to us by the Intercantonal University of Special Education in Zurich (Switzerland).
Interkantonale Hochschule für Heilpädagogik (2019). Every school is inclusive – to some degree. Available online: https://www.hfh.ch/every-school-is-inclusive-to-some-degree [03.09.2025].
TASK 4:
Following this interview and taking into account what you know about teacher’s beliefs on inclusion, take the following quiz.
Looking Back
You have now taken the first step in exploring your beliefs about inclusive education and teaching. Keep your concept map, as you will return to it later in the course to reflect on how your thinking develops. This first reflection provides an important starting point for the learning process ahead.