Melinda M. Leko

Crafting Quality Professional Development for Special Educators: What School Leaders Should Know.

teachers who have entirely different knowledge and skill profiles. Bill is a special educator with 20 years of experience. He teaches reading to third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students in a high-poverty elementary school resource classroom. His school is currently engaging in a schoolwide Reading First effort to improve the inclusion of students with disabilities. Although Bill is a competent special education teacher, his long-standing reliance on a scripted research-based reading curriculum for students with learning disabilities left him with a limited framework for understanding reading instruction. On a test of knowledge about teaching reading, Bill achieved the second-lowest score of all teachers involved in a professional development (PD) effort to improve reading instruction for students with high-incidence disabilities. Bill is learning strategies in an attempt to remediate decoding deficits that his students are experiencing despite their participation in an evidence-based curriculum. However, he is having difficulty incorporating those strategies because of his insufficient knowledge about teaching reading and the overly prescriptive nature of his curriculum. For Bill to succeed, staff development professionals will need to help him acquire a broader framework for understanding word-study instruction, understand how his curriculum currently addresses word-study instruction, and learn how to incorporate strategies into that curriculum to remediate students’ demonstrated weaknesses. Unlike Bill, his colleague, Karen, is a brand-new special education teacher who is responsible for teaching math in a secondary resource classroom and co-teaching with general education teachers to provide social studies and science instruction. Karen entered the field with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and participated in a 2-week alternative route (AR) program to prepare her for teaching special education. The possibilities of her new job please Karen, but she realizes that she knows little about teaching mathematics to students with disabilities and little about teaching social studies and science. Karen’s AR program emphasized general principles of teaching and learning but provided limited information about the specific learning needs of students with disabilities and how to address them in the content areas. The structured, evidence-based curriculum that Karen uses to teach mathematics helps a little; but she worries that her students are failing to learn key concepts and to apply their knowledge to word problems. To make matters worse, Karen only sees her students for a maximum of 45 minutes a day, and she is having difficulty providing intensive instruction when she has so much to cover and so little time. In social studies and science, Karen has little knowledge that enables her to help her general education colleagues teach concepts in ways that are more accessible to students with disabilities, and she also has little knowledge of ways that help students acquire key strategies for reading and generating texts in those areas. We have worked with many teachers who resemble Karen and Bill. They desperately want (and need) to improve their practice for students with disabilities, but they often believe that schoolwide PD efforts have failed to meet their specific needs. This article draws on current research and our own PD work with teachers like Karen and Bill to obtain insights into the necessary considerations for crafting quality PD for special education teachers.

DIFFERENCES IN BEGINNING SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS: THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES, PREPARATION, AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON CLASSROOM READING PRACTICES

Little research exists to help us understand why some beginning special education teachers of reading engage in more effective classroom practices than others. Factors that may influence these differences include personal attributes, preparation, and school environment. This mixed-methods study examined beginning special education teachers (N = 25) who taught reading to elementary students. Teachers were identified as most accomplished, moderately accomplished, and least accomplished, as defined by an overall classroom practice score. Interviews, observational field notes, and survey data on preparation and work environment revealed that the most accomplished beginners were consistently reflective, resourceful, and relentless and used these attributes to improve instruction, whereas others varied in this regard. Furthermore, while adequately prepared in special education, beginners reported inadequate preparation in reading. The interplay of personal attributes, preparation, and school environment seems to be a powerful determinant of a teachers level of accomplishment.

Envisioning the Future of Special Education Personnel Preparation in a Standards-Based Era

The authors consider the future of special education personnel preparation by responding to an overarching question: What frameworks might teacher educators use as a basis to promote special education teacher effective performance now and in the future? In answering this question, they summarize current trends in the context of schooling and special education (i.e., Common Core State Standards [CCSS], multi-tiered systems of support [MTSS]) and what these contexts demand of special education teachers. The authors propose a practice-based model for fostering effective special education teacher performance. Grounded in the science of learning, the model includes approaches in teacher education that align with this literature. Implications for implementing the model are provided, which recognize current constraints on schools and colleges of education, to better promote this model for fostering effective performance.

The Value of Qualitative Methods in Social Validity Research

One quality indicator of intervention research is the extent to which the intervention has a high degree of social validity, or practicality. In this study, I drew on Wolf’s framework for social validity and used qualitative methods to ascertain five middle schoolteachers’ perceptions of the social validity of System 44®—a phonics-based reading intervention for secondary students. Findings derived from teacher interviews and classroom observations conducted during the course of one school year indicate that the ways in which teachers make decisions about social validity are complex and predicated on the interaction of several factors related to an intervention’s goals, outcomes, and procedures. By using qualitative methods and applying Wolf’s framework to an academic intervention, I expand the social validity construct and delineate its sub-components.

Improving Collaborative Teacher Education Research Creating Tighter Linkages

Although collaborative teacher education programs have grown in number over the past two decades, we still do not understand the ways in which these programs, or the practices in those programs, improve the preparation of inclusive teachers. At a time when teacher education’s viability is being questioned, it is problematic that little information exists about the validity and impact of collaborative programs. To justify collaborative teacher education programs and improve the science of teacher education more broadly, the authors propose a framework for conducting research on collaborative teacher education—one that can be used to analyze current research and inform future efforts. In this article, the authors build a framework for studying collaborative teacher education, emphasizing linkages among theory, innovation, and outcomes. The authors then analyze the collaborative teacher education literature according to this conceptual framework, drawing conclusions about the current state of collaborative teacher education research and making recommendations for the future.

Individual and Contextual Factors Influencing Special Education Teacher Learning in Literacy Learning Cohorts

In this study, researchers operated from cognitive and situated perspectives to understand how individual qualities and contextual factors influenced elementary special education teachers’ learning in a multifaceted professional development (PD) project, Literacy Learning Cohort, focused on word study and fluency instruction. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyze qualitative interviews, cohort meetings, and classroom observations. Participants included five special educators who taught reading to students with disabilities in Grades 3 to 5. Results highlighted the central role of teachers’ ability to analyze their current instructional practice in developing integrated knowledge of word study and fluency instruction and crafting more integrated instruction. Teachers’ individual qualities, contextual factors, and PD components also worked in concert with teachers’ propensity to analyze instruction and ultimately influenced teacher learning (i.e., degree of integrated knowledge and practice demonstrated). Implications of these findings for designing effective PD efforts are discussed.

21st Century Change Drivers: Considerations for Constructing Transformative Models of Special Education Teacher Development.

Contemporary challenges confronting special education teachers include, in part, workload, role ambiguity, evaluation, and shortages. Based on these and other challenges, the piece-meal fragmented approach to pre- and in-service training, which exists currently, needs to be replaced with 21st century models of special education teacher development that are seamless, technology enabled, comprehensive, cohesive, and career spanning. In this article, the authors briefly address persistent and unresolved challenges, identify contemporary change drivers, and discuss ways in which teacher education professionals could leverage the drivers to inform the development of 21st century models for special education teacher development aimed at improving outcomes for students with disabilities. Change drivers include the digital revolution, the diversity gap, the credibility factor, the demand for collective impact, and the culture of we. The authors conclude with a call to action.

To Adapt or Not to Adapt: Navigating an Implementation Conundrum.

T EA C H IN G E xc ep ti on al C hi ld re n , V ol . 48 , N o. 2 , pp . 80 –8 5. C op yr ig ht 2 01 5 T he A ut ho r( s) . D O I: 1 0. 11 77 /0 04 00 59 91 56 05 64 1 Jerome is in his fifth year as a special educator at Oakview Middle School. Oakview, located in the center of a large urban school district, serves a diverse student population predominantly coming from families living in poverty. School data indicate 92% of students with disabilities are reading below proficient levels, so Oakview school leaders have decided to make reading instruction a priority in the upcoming school year. As a result, Jerome has been assigned to teach three 50-minute remedial reading classes each day. The anchor for his instruction is a commercially available reading intervention program that was selected by the Oakview literacy coordinator. The program comprises four 20-minute components: (a) explicit vocabulary instruction delivered on a computer; (b) partner fluency practice using high-interest, controlled-readability connected text; (c) scripted, teacherdirected comprehension instruction, and (d) assessment administered via computer. Before implementing the program, Jerome attended a 2-day summer in-service training to learn about the research supporting the program and the steps to implement it. Throughout the training, the curriculum representative constantly reiterated that the program must be “implemented with fidelity” for it to work. One month into the school year, Jerome is doing his best to implement the program as it was presented in the summer in-service, but he has made some adjustments. First, his class periods are only 50 minutes, so he cannot implement all four components in one class period. Instead, he has divided the components into two groups and alternates the days he teaches them. The vocabulary and fluency components are taught on “A days,” and the comprehension and assessment components are taught on “B days.” Second, the program comes with a reward system to motivate students. As students complete a program component, they earn a sticker to put on a sticker chart displayed in the classroom. Stickers, however, do not motivate Jerome’s middle-school students. Instead, Jerome has arranged for students to earn points for remaining engaged and completing assignments, and these points can be exchanged for free-choice activities (e.g., playing a game on the computer, listening to music). Third, Jerome has modified the comprehension instruction component. He hates teaching from a script, so rather than follow the script that outlines the comprehension skill to be taught and the comprehension questions that go with the high-interest, controlled-readability texts, Jerome just has students sit in a group and retell the story. Not all of the changes Jerome has made are beneficial to students or should have been made prior to implementing the reading program with fidelity.

Qualitative Special Education Research: Purpose, Rigor, and Contribution

This two-part special issue on qualitative research makes a case for the strength and contribution of rigorous qualitative research and previews the articles selected for inclusion in the special issue, following an open call for papers. Six papers were chosen from a total of 50 submitted abstracts.

Defining and preparing high-quality teachers in special education: What do we know from the research?

Research over the last decade or so has made it clear that quality teachers matter to student achievement. What is less clear is the ways in which they matter and how we can prepare such high-quality teachers. Nowhere is this lack of clarity more evident than in special education, where we have few studies on teacher quality and even fewer studies on the type of preparation opportunities that would lead to high quality. Thus, it is difficult to make evidence-based decisions about how quality special education teachers should be defined and prepared. As a field, we have to turn to research in general education to provide a sense of some of the dimensions of teacher quality and effective teacher education. In this chapter, we provide a summary of the research on characteristics of highly qualified teachers and what we know from the research on teacher education and professional development that might foster these qualities, both in general and in special education. Part of our discussion centers on the concerns surrounding this body of research and the challenges of applying the findings to the field of special education. Although these challenges pose considerable problems, we are optimistic that potential solutions exist and can be reached through an alignment of initial teacher education and induction.