Making science accessible to all: Results of a design experiment in inclusive classrooms

Recent science reform documents call for students to develop robust underst andings of scientific concepts and reasoning through inquiry-based instruct ion. The challenge of this goal is increased in heterogeneous inclusive cla ssroom settings with students identified as having learning disabilities an d emotional impairments. This article describes a design experiment conduct ed over two school years in which we investigated the experiences and outco mes for special needs students in guided inquiry science instruction in upp er-elementary grade classrooms (n = 4). Phase 1 ('97-'98) of the design exp eriment utilized qualitative and quantitative data to construct case studie s of individual learners with special needs. Patterns across the cases info rmed the identification of advanced instructional strategies hypothesized t o support special needs students relative to language/cognition, print lite racy, attention, and social relations challenges. In Phase 2 ('98-'99), we studied learning outcomes from instruction including the advanced strategie s (same teachers, topics as Phase 1). Our findings indicate that in Phase 2 (with the advanced strategies) all students demonstrated significant learn ing gains over Phase 1 and that special needs and low-achieving students in three of four classes showed changes in understanding comparable to those of normally achieving students. We conclude by identifying implications of these findings for the roles of general and special educators.