Larry Maheady

Classwide Peer Tutoring with Mildly Handicapped High School Students

Effects of classwide peer tutoring (CWPT) on the academic performance of 14 mildly handicapped and 36 nondisabled students enrolled in three 10th-grade social studies classrooms were examined. Effects were analyzed using a multiple baseline design across settings with a withdrawal of treatment in two classrooms. Analysis of results indicated that the implementation of CWPT produced an average increase of 21 points on weekly tests. With CWPT 60% of all students earned “A” grades, failing grades were virtually eliminated, and no mildly handicapped students received grades below “C”. Anecdotal student and teacher comments were positive. Implications for secondary, mainstreamed students and teachers were discussed.

Peer-Mediated Instruction and Interventions and Students with Mild Disabilities

Teaching is more difficult today than in the past, and most educators predict that it will become even more challenging in years to come. Exponential increases within the school curriculum, spectacular changes in student demographic characteristics, and dwindling instructional resources make it extremely difficult for even the most responsive teachers to provide a high-quality education for all pupils. These challenges become more formidable when teachers attempt to meet the needs of students with mild disabilities in less restrictive settings (e.g., general education classrooms). In this article, we describe how a variety of peer-mediated instruction and interventions might assist classroom teachers in meeting such instructional challenges. We describe the extensive academic and behavioral needs of this population of students, provide an illustrative review of peer-teaching methods, and suggest future directions for research and practice.

Measurable Change in Student Performance: Forgotten Standard in Teacher Preparation?

As we enter the 21st Century, many individuals both within and outside of education have expressed their general dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in our public schools and institutions of higher education. Indeed, the literature is replete with calls for educational reform. Here, we make another call for educational reform by arguing that measurable change in student performance should serve as the gold standard for making judgments about effective instruction. We argue further that student change data can serve as an important component in the evaluation of teacher preparation programs and as a guiding force in current educational reform efforts. We describe a few promising assessment technologies that allow us to capture more direct, repeated, and contextually based measures of student learning, and propose an improvement-oriented inquiry approach to teaching and learning.

A Collaborative Research Project to improve the Academic Performance of a Diverse Sixth Grade Science Class

All educators must be prepared to meet the substantial instructional challenges that await them in 21st Century classrooms. Significant among these challenges will be the ability to improve the academic and behavioral performance of a more diverse and often impoverished student population within the context of an ever-expanding curriculum and an educational milieu that may provide fewer instructional resources and less educational support. To meet such challenges, all educators must work collaboratively to develop, implement, and evaluate effective teaching practices that can be applied feasibly and sustained over extensive time periods. Here, we have made a modest attempt to help one classroom teacher address some aspects of her impending instructional challenge. Using an alternating treatments design, we compared the effects of Response Cards, Numbered Heads Together, and Whole Group Question and Answer on 6th graders daily quiz scores and pretest-posttest performance in chemistry, and examined how each instructional intervention affected teacher questioning and student responding patterns in class. Implications are discussed for teachers, teacher educators, and educational consultants.

MINORITY OVERREPRESENTATION: A CASE FOR ALTERNATIVE PRACTICES PRIOR TO REFERRAL

Although the problem of minority overrepresentation in special education programs for the mildly handicapped has been widely recognized and documented, the factors responsible for such an overrepresentation remain the source of much controversy. The most popular explanation continues to be the presence of systematic bias in the assessment process, particularly with regard to intelligence testing. Unfortunately, attempts at isolating and controlling specific facets of this bias have been largely unsuccessful. Furthermore, preoccupation with this problem has detracted our attention from a much more pressing concern: the identification and provision of effective instructional services prior to referring minority students to special education. The purpose of this manuscript was to describe alternative approaches to dealing with the overrepresentation problem. Specifically, we have highlighted the importance of using alternative instructional strategies prior to referral, and have described five practices that appear to hold promise in this area.

The Pair Tutoring Program: An Early Field-Based Experience to Prepare Preservice General Educators to Work with Students with Special Learning Needs

Most pupils with special learning needs will spend a significant proportion of their time in school in general education settings. Yet, a cursory examination of the teacher preparation literature suggests that many preservice general educators are ill-prepared to meet this enormous instructional challenge. Here, we briefly describe the efforts of one regional state college to restructure its program to better prepare general education teachers to serve diverse learning groups. We begin by describing the Reflective and Responsive Educator (RARE) program, a newly restructured, 4-year field-based program for future early childhood, elementary, and secondary education teachers. We then describe in more detail one particular facet of the RARE model, the Pair Tutoring Program, an early field-based experience that accompanies a required introductory course, and provide initial outcome data to support its efficacy and social acceptability. Finally, we address issues related to the potential replicability and sustainability of the model and speculate on future programmatic directions in the preparation of preservice general education teachers.

An Early Field-based Experience and its Impact on Pre-service Candidates' Teaching Practice and Their Pupils' Outcomes

Teacher educators are under increasing pressure to show that preparation programs meaningfully impact instruction among pre-service teachers, who are then influential in student learning. This external pressure is challenging for teacher educators. We present an early field-based course and applied teaching project to examine teaching practices and pupil outcomes. Over 400 candidates taught lessons, utilized evidence-based practices, collected information before and after instruction, and responded to information gleaned from instructional experiences. Candidates provided nearly 17,000 hours of in-class assistance over four semesters, taught more than 800 lessons, used selected evidence-based teaching practices with high degrees of accuracy, and made a noticeable impact in over 60% of sampled lessons. Implications for teacher educators in general and special education are discussed.

The Regular Education Initiative— Can We Proceed in an Orderly and Scientific Manner?

Restructuring education to better accommodate students with learning problems in regular classrooms has become a topic of some concern for professionals in special and regular education. Advocates of the Regular Education Initiative argue that problems in the current special education service delivery system mandate the need for addressing alternative approaches to providing special instruction to the large numbers of mildly handicapped students in Americas schools. Those opposed to expanding the partnership between regular and special educators argue that current teacher training, attitudes, and administrative iiiiistructures work against efforts to place very many exceptional students in regular classrooms for instruction. We see value in both sides of the arguments that have been presented, and we are concerned that all the dialogue may not lead to action. We believe that what may be more important than winning the argument is how to respond to the critical issues raised by concerns about where to best educate students with problems leaming in regular classrooms. We believe that special students should be educated with students who are not exceptional to the maximum extent possible. In this article, we address system-level, school-level, and child-level concems that we believe must be addressed if efforts to operatlonalize this idea are going to be given a reasonable scientific test.

Chapter 6 Utilizing Evidence-Based Practice in Teacher Preparation

Evidence-based practice (EBP) can have a powerful impact on school-aged children. Yet this impact may not be realized if classroom teachers do not use empirically supported interventions and/or fail to include the best research available when they make important educational decisions about children. Whether classroom teachers use EBP may be influenced, in part, by what they learned or failed to learn in their preservice preparation programs. This chapter describes recent efforts to assess preservice teachers’ understanding and use of empirically supported interventions and provides four examples of how such practices were taught to preservice general educators in a small, regional teacher preparation program. We discuss four contemporary educational reform movements (i.e., federal policies mandating EBP, state-level policies linking growth in pupil learning to teacher evaluation, clinically rich teacher preparation, and the emergence of a practice-based evidence approach) that should increase interest and use of EBP in teacher education and offer recommendations for how teacher educators might infuse EBP into their traditional teaching, research, and service functions in higher education.

Developing and Sustaining a Research Agenda in Special Education Teacher Education.

This article was developed from an earlier invitation to discuss what it was like to teach at a comprehensive arts and science college with a large teacher education program while also trying to conduct and publish applied research. Were there any particular tricks to getting things done that could be handed down to younger professionals working in similar circumstances? Any words of wisdom to pass along that might mitigate the challenges of not having enough time or at least make professional writing and manuscript rejection easier? Perhaps, but that would require someone of greater intellect and stature than the authors have. What the authors can share, however, are some important lessons they have learned while developing an applied research agenda in special education teacher education. The lessons reflect experiences the authors found helpful in navigating the higher education waters for the past three plus decades.