There are a lot of strategies I can use to prepare my students for transition into an inclusive setting in a general education classroom. The first step I would take is to contact the general education teacher to discuss the student's abilities and needs such as: how the student communicates, what instructional approaches have been more effective, what are the student's hobbies and interest, what are the student's medical needs, if any, and what his/her family life is like. Next I would move to the second phase, which involves the trans-environmental programming model. There are four steps to this model. The first step is the environmental assessment. This is where I analyze the general education classroom and the routines. For example, I would compare the routine of the general education class to the special education class and identify where the student involved may need to have help adapting. The next step is intervention and preparation. This is where I would take the student to the general education class for a visit to meet the students and the teachers and to get a feel for the classroom schedule, the instructor's style of teaching, and to take part in some of the events so that he or she could start to slowly get comfortable. Another phase in this step is where I use pre-teaching techniques. For instance, in preparing the student for the general education class I would introduce the student to the textbooks and assignments he or she will be encountering. We can then start to practice with these to prepare him/her for the different curriculum and teaching style. In addition to this I would also use the video technique. This can be helpful to review the day-to-day routines in the general education setting while teaching him/her strategies such as having the student take notes about the video and asking questions he/she could not think while visiting the class. Step three involves generalization.
