Shaping and Expanding Student Access

Occupational science is the primary analytic lens. ND learners are occupational participants with the right to equitable access and meaningful participation

FI is a contextual modifier that captures the unique linguistic and pedagogical features 

JD-R is a translation mechanism to describe the relationship between teacher workload and student access

Inclusive practices as demand-buffering resources for teachers to facilitate occupational engagement

Teachers’ working conditions (job demands and resources) are ecological variables that contribute to the success or failure of inclusion

Synthesized Hypotheses

1. When demands exceed resources, teacher burnout increases and inclusion becomes performative or exclusionary.

2. When resources buffer demands, teachers are more able to sustain inclusive occupational spaces for students.

The J D-R landscape shapes how teachers perceive inclusive practices, which in turn shapes student occupational belonging. Perhaps, if through double-loop learning teachers could conceive of inclusive practices differently, they could leverage them as resources instead.

Evaluation & Monitoring

The nature of the need for shared understanding and mutual trust suggests that a participative evaluation approach would be appropriate. It is important to balance the merit of this approach against the time that a consensus process often requires; it would be counter-productive to initiate a consensus process only to have it create an experience of overwhelm. Engagement and consultation is not always best: sometimes agility and responsiveness is more important (equity lenses).

Performance Indicators

Measuring success will be stakeholder-dependent and vary by short- medium- and long-term targets. It is important to collaboratively define what this looks like, but here are some opening thoughts to discuss:

• Time spent in class on curricular content

• Volume and frequency of evidence of learning

• Prep time spent of reporting and adapting lessons

•  Survey staff, students, and families regarding the value and visibility of ‘inclusion’ in our spaces

• Observed participation patterns

• Student interviews (with linguistic scaffolds)

• Artifact analysis (work samples, choice patterns)

Initial Strategies to Propose to Stakeholders

Assemble a coalition with proportional stakeholder representation to co-create, translate, and mobilize the following:

• 'Stop, Start, Continue’ survey (e.g., What should we Start doing? Stop doing? Continue doing?).

• Conceptualize workflow with a Responsibility Chart (i.e., where one member’s job stops, another’s starts, and when they might overlap or intersect),

• Document organizational memory

• Consider data collection on supports provided to students before they are caused to exit FI program

• Create and maintain a reference sheet for staff that outlines

  • • Available resources (e.g., people, places, things)

    • Support allocation process

    • How to locate and access current information, and direct questions and feedback

• Commit to mid-year and year-end review meetings, regular reporting out to implement and evaluate processes, outcomes, and impacts.