Pre-service teachers are expected to teach inclusively upon leaving their teacher education programs. However, most pre-service teachers lack experience with students with disabilities, which is necessary to create inclusive classrooms. Lautenbach and Anke Heyder (2019) states that “A positive attitude towards inclusion has been considered as one of the most influential success factors for inclusive education in school” (p.231). Consequently, preservice teachers’ perceptions of inclusivity is inflated/deflated due to experiences and has direct impacts on their ability to teach inclusively in the future (Barton and Smith, 2015). The prevalence of developmental disabilities in the United States ages 3-17 jumped 1.16% between 2019 and 2021 (Zablotsky, Ng, Black, and Blumberg, 2023). Finding ways to garner the required experience during pre-service teachers’ time in a university setting can be difficult, especially when most preservice teachers are only required to take one class in exceptional needs. Preservice teachers in a required introductory special needs course at the University of North Alabama are responsible for collaborating with peers and creating, accommodating, and modifying an art-based activity for the Very Special Art Festival. Pre-service teachers in groups of 2 or 3 are tasked with creating their own activity for up to 150 K-12 students. Community partnering elementary, middle, and high schools are invited to bring their self-contained or low-incidence disabled K-12 students to the Festival, which is held twice yearly. Considered one of the most fun and accommodating free field trips, this festival is highly sought after by local schools and students. We created a survey given to pre-service teachers immediately prior to students arriving at the Festival, measuring their comfortability interacting with students with disabilities. We found statistically significant increases in preservice teachers’ rated comfortability in less than 3 hours’ time by their involvement in this Festival. There was also an increase in pre-service teachers wanting to teach students with disabilities.

Authors: Vicki Koslin Howell, Rebecca Hopkins, Ashley Johnson

Published in: World Congress on Special Needs Education (WCSNE-2024)

• Date of Conference: 4-6 November 2024
• DOI: 10.20533/WCSNE.2024.0005
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-75-4
• Conference Location: St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK