Dorene D. Ross

Critical Features of Special Education Teacher Preparation A Comparison With General Teacher Education

Policy and program decisions involve choices among different ways of preparing teachers. These choices are shrouded in increasingly contentious debates as teacher shortages reach crisis proportions. Yet, research on special education teacher education is almost nonexistent. Findings from comparative research documenting the characteristics of effective teacher education programs can inform these choices, but these findings should be grounded in what we know from previous research in general teacher education. To assist educators, we have analyzed literature in general and special teacher education toward two ends. First, we present a framework, derived from work in general education, for analyzing teacher education programs. Second, we use this framework to analyze practice in teacher education in special education. Specifically, we conducted an exhaustive review of special education program descriptions and evaluations. We conclude by describing steps necessary to improve the special education teacher education research base.

First Steps in Developing A Reflective Approach

Ross describes and evaluates the efforts of a teacher educator to introduce teacher effectiveness research to preser vice teachers in ways that support the development of critical reflection.

Creating Environments of Success and Resilience: Culturally Responsive Classroom Management and More.

Creating safe and productive environments with a diverse student population requires more than the strategies recommended in the original classroom-management literature. Drawing from the literature on culturally responsive classroom management, psychologically supportive classroom environments, and building resilience, the authors describe the practices used by three effective novice teachers in urban elementary classrooms during the first 2 hours of the first day of school. The study was based on videotape and interview data that were qualitatively analyzed using an inductive approach. The novice teachers focused on developing relationships and establishing expectations through the use of “insistence” and a culturally responsive communication style. The study provides clear pictures of the ways in which teachers teach and insist on respectful behavior and establish a caring, task-focused community. As such, it demonstrates how teachers create environments of success and resilience for students who have historically floundered in school.

Practicing Collaboration: What We Learn from a Cohort That Functions Well

Students in the Unified Elementary/Special Education Program at the University of Florida are organized into cohort groups, a common recommendation within the special education teacher education literature. Although highly effective in some instances, the literature also documents numerous problems in the use of cohorts. The current study was designed to gain insight into strategies that might help students and faculty build positive cultures and collaboration skills in cohorts. Drawing on student interviews with members of a particularly cohesive cohort, we identify and explain five strategies that students utilize to assist a cohort in developing a strong sense of community and positive group dynamics. These include: keeping an academic focus, pulling ones own weight, taking care of the community, being willing to move outside ones comfort zone, and including everyone. The specific examples will be useful for teacher educators using or considering the use of student cohort groups.

Elementary and Special Educators Learning to Work Together: Team Building Processes

At the University of Floridas College of Education, two elementary teacher educators and two special education teacher educators collaborated to develop a preservice program to prepare teachers for inclusive education. The four teacher educators represented very different educational and research traditions and worked in departments that did not have a history of collaboration. This paper is a retrospective analysis of our team building experience. We describe the context in which team building took place, the challenges that threatened our efforts at collaboration, the shared understandings we developed, and four processes that helped us to find common ground.

Becoming Warm Demanders: Perspectives and Practices of First Year Teachers

In the literature on culturally responsive pedagogy warm demanders are teachers who embrace values and enact practices that are central to their students’ success. Few scholars have examined the experience of novice teachers who attempt to enact this stance. In this study of two first-year, female, European American teachers who attempted to be warm demanders for their predominantly African American elementary school students, the authors answer the question, “How do the teachers think about and enact warm demanding?” The teachers’ contrasting experiences have implications for administrators and teacher educators.

Helping Preservice Teachers Learn to Use Teacher Effectiveness Research

Ross and Kyle provide teacher educators with a way of presenting and discussing teacher effectiveness research in the context of the teacher education curric ulum. The authors argue that it is im perative that preservice teachers de velop an ability to use and reflect on conflicting research findings. The read ing research and direct instruction studies serve as paradigmatic cases.

Social competence in kindergarten: Analysis of social negotiations during peer play

This article describes and analyzes the social interactions of twenty kindergarten children during their play with building blocks. The study applied naturalistic data collection and analytical methods to provide evidence of a variety of social negotiation strategies and differing levels of social competence of these kindergarten children. Data from the investigation indicates that children were involved in constructing a social order during play. The study suggests that social competence cannot be viewed only as an attribute of an individual but must be examined within the context of on‐going social interaction. That is, social competence will be influenced by the demands of the particular situation, the definitions of self and others held by each individual involved, and the language competence of each individual.

Guidelines for portfolio preparation: Implications from an analysis of teaching portfolios at the University of Florida

An analysis of 73 portfolios, prepared by University of Florida faculty as part of the Teaching Improvement Program competition, revealed tremendous variability in the quantity, quality, and coherence of the evidence presented to support claims of excellence in teaching. By analyzing portfolios prepared by faculty members representing different colleges and different types of teaching assignments, the researchers developed seven common guidelines for portfolio construction.

The Effects of a Family Math Night on Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Parental Involvement

This study examined the impact of a Family Math Night on preservice teachers’ perceptions of low-income parents and their engagement in their children’s education. Participants were enrolled in an elementary mathematics methods course; one section served as the treatment group. Participants were required to aid in the planning and implementation of a Family Math Night held at a school serving a predominantly African American, high-poverty community. Results of a pre- and post-survey analysis indicate that the treatment group had more positive perceptions of parental involvement overall. These results were not sustained 1 year later, suggesting important implications for mathematics teacher educators.