Comparing and contrasting teaching techniques that promote inclusive learning

Inclusive Learning

Socratic and Didactic Principles of Inclusive Learning

The overarching purpose of inclusive learning is to recognize, value and accommodate the variety of distinctions between pupils that exist within an educational environment. Inclusive learning seeks to meet the needs of all students by considering the vast amount of diversity in learning styles, experience, and skills that each individual student brings to the classroom. As such, two of the most effective means of incorporating practices of inclusive learning into an educational setting are the didactic and Socratic methods of teaching. These two systems are generally contrasted with one another (despite a few minor similarities which exist between them), yet they both enable pedagogues to utilize highly effective means to stimulate and foster the important principles of inclusive learning which are essential to the edification of students in modern education.

The didactic method of teaching strives to accommodate the plethora of diversity which a learning group inherently has by actively engaging pupils with whatever material is being propounded by the instructor. Although there are a variety of methods which can achieve this purpose, some of the most effective are accomplished by the high degree of interactivity involved with relevant demonstrations of the subject matter being taught. For example, diagrams and models may be produced and shown to learners so they can visually grasp concepts; such an approach, naturally would be ideal for the inclusive learning needs of visual learners. In subjects less academic and more practical, such as the teaching of percussion in a music class, didactic methods would include allowing students to handle and play different varieties of rhythms and instruments to engage their faculties with the ideas they are being taught. These methods promote inclusive learning by engaging students through class participation in a manner which is both enjoyable and edifying to variety of learner needs.

Socratic teaching methods, however, generally tend to be more dialogue-based and are usually more effective means of transmitting ideas to older students. As one of the many applications of dialectic teaching methods -- which always strive to establish principles or truths through a verbal debate over opposing points-of-view -- the Socratic method focuses more on handing pupils' questions, as opposed to delivering them answers, which may elucidate their understanding of a subject. Applications of the Socratic teaching method include classroom discussions, debates, and dialogues between the teacher and his or her students, in which each side takes opposing viewpoints of a subject matter to facilitate pupils' understanding of valued concepts. These measures definitely foster inclusive learning by enabling a student population, which has a sundry of needs, learning styles, and particular skill sets, to work together, and in some instances against one another, to better comprehend a specific topic of instruction.