study conducted by Cho et al. (2015) revealed that
students with lower cognitive areas almost respond
incapable compared to typical peers and adequate
responders. Reading and math difficulties among
students with mild disabilities are related to their
lower cognitive abilities with different profiles.
Lower working memory skills are found in students
with intellectual disability who have more cognitive
impairments compared to students with behavior
disorders and students with learning disabilities (Peng
and Fuchs, 2016). Furthermore, the more teacher’s
understanding of each disabling conditions, the better
specific instruction they can provide to meet the
needs of each student.
According to teacher’s report and classroom
observation, it seems that the implementation of
formative assessment either verbally or written
format for students with special needs at school is
devoted to developing instruction adjustment. This is
in line with the purpose of formative assessment to
make instructional decisions based on student needs
to ensure learning for all learners (Cornelius, 2013;
Watkins, 2013). Some teachers stated that they
provide adjustment in their expectation to evaluate
student outcomes, for example, students with writing
problems will be assessed based on their writing
performance such as neatness instead of writing
structures. The teachers stated that this evaluation
would gradually improve as the students with special
needs make progress in their writing. Furthermore,
even though teachers implicitly stated the need for
differentiated instruction, but most of the teachers
reported that they rarely create individual instruction
for students with special needs. The missing of
differentiated instruction for students with special
needs in inclusive classrooms requires further
investigation. The reason for this is the previous
study shows a positive impact of differentiated
instruction on student academic achievement levels,
student motivation, and teacher perception to meet
the need of students with special needs (Watkins,
2013).
During classroom observations, teachers also
employ cooperative learning by providing
opportunities for students with special needs to work
in a group and receive support from peers. Teachers
distribute students with special needs into different
groups. Small group instructions consist of six
students, and one of the group members is students
with special needs. Some teachers stated that
sometimes they allow students with special needs
select their group based on their preference, so they
feel comfortable to work with friends. The teacher
reported that they select the leader for each group to
lead the discussion based on students’ performance.
The teacher explained that most of the time, students
with high academic performance would lead the
group, but sometimes they choose students with
special needs to lead the group. In order to increase
the quality of work group, the teacher stated that they
set up a rule before students start their collaborative
group. Furthermore, when the group is finished, they
are directed to support other groups. Not many
information can be gathered from teachers about how
they prepare the students for group works. The
previous study revealed that students in elementary
school tend to work individually, so they need support
from teachers. Kutnick et al. (2008) revealed that
relational strategy improves the student's
performance on academic achievement, motivation to
work with peers, group work, learning focus, and
communication with partners. The relational strategy
consists of sequential activities which start from
building trust, improving communication skills
through partnered discussion, and working to solve
problems in a group (Kutnick et al. 2008).
Some teachers reported that they conduct peer
tutors in their classrooms to facilitate learning of
students with special needs. For those who do not
implement this strategy stated that the number of
students with special needs and the number of tutors
is not proportional. The previous study revealed that
peer tutor could improve reading skills of students
with reading problems with several steps, such as
training for tutor material preparation (Pujaningsih et
al. 2016).
Instructional adaptation is rarely implemented
according to teachers’ statements during FGD even
though in some classrooms observation they showed
that they provide several adaptations in learning. One
of the teachers asked students with special needs
verbally because the student has difficulties in
writing. Once the student answers the questions, then
the teacher writes down on the paper, and the students
imitate it. This situation shows that the teacher
willing to support students with special needs even
though they have limited training about inclusive
education. As previously mentioned that some
teachers also have a different expectation in regards
to evaluating students with special needs, so the
teacher acceptance is clearly seen during FGD. Based
on the observation data, teachers provided prompts
and hints for students with special needs to be socially
accepted by using proper words for request help,
apologies, and praise. Based on classroom
observations, the teacher also did not hesitate to help
students with special needs whenever they asked and