Lit Review Special Education

Reflecting back over the years since receiving my initial National Board Certification, I clearly see that the mentoring roles I have been a part of have been the most rewarding. Mentoring has enabled me to collaborate with others new to the profession as well as with veteran teachers in the classroom. Through this collaboration in a variety of settings, I have been able to improve the effectiveness of my teaching practices which in turn has had a positive impact on my students. A study from Teacher Collaboration in Instructional Teams and Student Achievement by the American Educational Research Journal (2015) states that the quality of teacher collaboration positively influences teacher performance

One important limitation of the research reviewed was location; it was also found that small sample size is also a hindrance on accuracy of research. Because many authors (Smith & Smith, 2000; Carter et al.,2009; Burke & Sutherland, 2004) only used teachers and students in one area or one school, the sample of participants was also very limited. Teachers who have worked with other teachers for several years can influence each other’s views, so it would seem logical that teachers in common areas had common views. Short and Martin (2005) performed research in one high school in a rural area of the United States. Their findings were limited to the teachers in that particular school; findings showed many of the general education teachers had shared negative views on including special education students in a general education class. Similar findings were also noted in

There is a concern that the lack of involvement by CTE teachers in the Special Education program planning of students in their classes and the ability to adequately meet the variety of demands of these learners exists. The purpose of the study is to identify the involvement of CTE teachers in Special Education programming for SWD. This literature review focused on scholarly research and relevant documentation to frame information related to the following questions: 1) What are the perceptions of CTE teachers who teach students with disabilities? 2) How does involvement in the Individual Education Plan (IEP) by CTE teachers affect teacher perceptions of their preparedness and ability to work with students receiving special education services?

The United States Department of Labor states that “employment of special education teachers is projected to grow 6 percent from 2012 to 2022, slower than the average for all occupations. However, overall demand will be driven by increasing enrollment and continued need for special education services.” With the advance screening and the identification of different disabilities of children are expected to increase the demand for this career. But overall increase will depend on the government’s funding.

Educators across the nation are faced with increasing demands on their workday, from data-driven instruction, emerging research on best practices, administrator observations, and continuing education in addition to creating lessons to compete with distracting technologies, professional development that is turn-key and tailored to individual educators is integral to professional growth. Professional development offerings have long been of the one and done variety leaving educators feeling excited by the prospect until implementation fails. Without the ongoing support of the content provider, often, professional development lessons are not utilized in the classroom as much as educators would like. One response to the growing need for professional

Most school districts have made efforts in the past to provide an appropriate education for students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (LRE). But since The No Child Left Behind Act and the reauthorization of federal special education legislation have brought increased pressure for educators. Students with disabilities and other special needs generally were expected to achieve the same success as other learners, and so there was an increased emphasis on educating them in general education settings. Among the many ideas and options for meeting these diverse yet somehow related challenges, that was receiving widespread attention was co-teaching. Collaborative teaching was therefore developed as a means to support students

Special education is a big priority in schools. The need for highly qualified teachers with a special education background is in high demand. Due to the numerous

Currently, I collaboratively teach Pre-K with another teacher, two teacher assistants and 40 children. About 60% of my students are English language learners. I teach all subjects: reading, writing, math, science, and art. Inclusive in the content are the social-emotional skills: patience, sharing, focus, emotional vocabulary, standing up for others, using words instead of violence, exploration, and the value of creativity. Collaborative teaching is a critical tool for balancing efficacious direct instruction and observation/assessment. By choosing to team teach I have provided myself with supports that make time for meaningful student-teacher interactions and encourage daily reflection of student growth.

In recent years of educational reform, professional development for teachers has served as a bridge between the current standards implementation and student achievement (Hirsch & Killion, 2009). Educational leaders recognize teacher effectiveness is an intrical part of improving student achievement, focusing valuable resources toward effective professional development (Jacquith, Mindich, Wei, & Darling-Hammond, 2010). Despite national trends to improve the quality of professional development, a disparity still exist among schools in the type and quality of teacher professional development presentations offered. In the past, teacher learning in the United States has primarily emphasized development opportunities that are unlikely to influence teacher practice or student achievement. To address this apparent disconnect, the National Standards Development Council (NSDC) developed 12 standards by which to create high quality, effective professional development in schools (Hirsh, 2005).

An improvement in schools, teacher quality, and student learning are associated with teacher professional development (Borko, 2004; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Professional development should involve both organization and individual. It is not only teacher play role in professional development, but also everyone who is affected by student learning (Guskey, 1995). This following essay will center around teacher professional development. It consists of goals of teacher development, characteristic of high quality teacher professional development, type of professional development, models of high quality teacher professional development, and the influence of professional development on teaching practice.

According to Linda Darling-Hammond (1997), regular opportunities, in the form of professional development, must be given to teachers so they learn from on another. Professional development gives teachers a chance to up date, how children learn, new technological tools for the classroom curriculum resources that are new. Ongoing professional development is collaborative, experiential and trains teachers to connect and derive new knowledge from interacting with their students and learning about their culture. Consistent profession learning of teachers is a factor in the determination of quality teaching. Research shows that professional learning affects student learning and achievement.If we are to be a quality school with expert teachers “that is teachers who know a lot about teaching and learning and who work in environments that allow them to know students well are the critical elements of successful learning” (p. 8).

Teaching is a job that sometimes gets underestimated. Making sure your students have everything that they need to succeed can be hard. Going into a classroom you must remember that you will have students on various levels and you need to fill in those gap in every level. That can get frustrating when you get overwhelmed for feel inadequate. Taking all that and add it to a special education teacher and you have even more to cover along with making sure that student have everything they need that is included in their IEP. Teaching is one of those jobs where having help for your colleges is a must, no matter if they have been teaching for a week or for twenty years. Teachers need to pull together and help their students become successful.

Many factors have come forth to why there is a shortage within this field. One could assume that there are more teachers retiring faster than there are teachers coming in to fill the positions. However, that is not the cases. Cancio et al., (2013) stated that teacher shortage is not due to retirement but to first-year teachers leaving the field within the first three years of teaching. Zhang et al. (2014) also suggested that the first-year teachers felt they were not prepared for the position and the duties that it calls for to be special education teacher. Dupriez et al. (2016) study found that it was not only the younger first-year teacher that felt that they could not fill their obligations as a special education teacher but older teachers felt the same. Both sets of special education teachers felt that they had not received the accurate training that they a had need for students with disciplinary problems and other disabilities. However, the teachers also stated that this issue was not enough of a reason for them to

Special education can be a very confusing field and varies with the location and circumstances. Very few special education teachers work with students with severe disabilities (“Teachers-Special Education” 2). The majority of employees in the special education field work with mild to moderate disabilities (2). Most special education teachers work with students one-on-one in a normal classroom environment (2). There are a few teachers that work with their students in separate rooms aside from the student’s normal classroom (3). There are very few special education teachers that work in residential places, at home, or in a hospital (2). There are some teachers that work with a baby at home (2). A special education teacher needs to

Over the past ten weeks, my knowledge of special education and support have grown tremendously. The readings, resources, and videos I have watched have not only affected me, but influenced me to share them with many colleagues. This paper will highlight some of the areas where I believe my greatest growth has occurred during the course of this class.