scholarly journals Variance and Reliability in Special Educator Observation Rubrics

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela R. Crawford ◽  
Evelyn S. Johnson ◽  
Laura A. Moylan ◽  
Yuzhu Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Generalizability Theory ◽  
Psychometric Evaluation ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Performance Levels ◽  
Reliability Indices ◽  
Observation Instrument

This study describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation instrument. The study uses generalizability theory to compare two versions of a rubric, one with general descriptors of performance levels and one with item-specific descriptors of performance levels, for evaluating special education teacher implementation of explicit instruction. Eight raters (four for each version of the rubric) viewed and scored videos of explicit instruction in intervention settings. The data from each rubric were analyzed with a four facet, crossed, mixed-model design to estimate the variance components and reliability indices. Results show lower unwanted sources of variance and higher reliability indices with the rubric with item-specific descriptors of performance levels. Contributions to the fields of intervention and teacher evaluation are discussed.

scholarly journals Developing an Explicit Instruction Special Education Teacher Observation Rubric

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn S. Johnson ◽  
Yuzhu Zheng ◽  
Angela R. Crawford ◽  
Laura A. Moylan
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Rasch Measurement ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Teacher Observation ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Education Teacher ◽  
Video Observations ◽  
Psychometric Quality

In this study, we developed an Explicit Instruction special education teacher observation rubric that details the elements of explicit instruction and tested its psychometric properties using many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM). Video observations of classroom instruction from 30 special education teachers across three states were collected. External raters ( n = 15) were trained to observe and evaluate instruction using the rubric and assigned scores of “implemented,” “partially implemented,” or “not implemented” for each of the items. Analyses showed that the item, teacher, lesson, and rater facets achieved high psychometric quality for the instrument. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Explaining the Decline in Special Education Teacher Employment From 2005 to 2012

2017 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Dewey ◽  
Paul T. Sindelar ◽  
Elizabeth Bettini ◽  
Erling E. Boe ◽  
Michael S. Rosenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
General Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Public Law ◽  
General Educators ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Teacher Preparation Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Disability Prevalence ◽  
Constituent Elements

Demand for special education teachers grew continuously from the passage of Public Law 94-142 in 1975 through 2005, when this trend reversed. From 2005 to 2012, the number of special education teachers employed by U.S. schools declined by >17%. The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine factors that contributed to this decline. We parsed change in number of special education teachers employed into four constituent elements and found that these recent reductions were fueled by decreases in disability prevalence and the relative ratio of teachers to students in special versus general education, which favored the latter. These changes have important implications for teacher preparation programs’ efforts to adequately prepare special and general educators and for policies designed to improve teacher quality.

scholarly journals Teacher Leadership in Special Education: Exploring Skills, Roles, and Perceptions

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-63
Author(s):  
Sylvia Bagley ◽  
Kimmie Tang
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Teacher Leadership ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Teacher Leaders ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Teacher Leader ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Diverse Field

Special Education teachers frequently assume formal or informal leadership roles and responsibilities across disciplines (Council for Exceptional Children, 2015a, 2015b). However, despite the increasing attention paid to teacher leadership on an international scale (Wenner & Campbell, 2016), little research exists on the experiences and needs of teacher leaders within the diverse field of Special Education. In this descriptive phenomenological study, we addressed the following questions: 1) What does teacher leadership within the landscape of Special Education look like? 2) How does this work relate to the roles and dispositions laid out in both the Teacher Leader Model Standards (2011) and the Council for Exceptional Children’s Special Education Specialist Preparation Standards (2015a, 2015b)? We found that Special Education teacher leaders primarily demonstrate leadership via support, specifically through the skills of advocacy, facilitating, innovating, and ‘administrating’.

Improving Teaching Quality for Students With Disabilities: Establishing a Warrant for Teacher Education Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Mary T. Brownell ◽  
Nathan D. Jones ◽  
Hyojong Sohn ◽  
Kristabel Stark
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Teacher Workforce ◽  
Future Work

In the 2010 issue of Teacher Education and Special Education ( TESE), Sindelar and colleagues examined the current status of research on special education teachers and outlined future work necessary to improve the special education teacher workforce. In this article, the authors focus explicitly on Sindelar and colleagues’ charge to increase the quality of research on teacher education. They begin the article by conducting a literature review of all articles published in TESE from 2010 to 2019, examining papers focused on advancing theory, measurement, and practice in teacher education. They compare patterns in the research to the broader teacher education literature captured in seven special and teacher education journals. They conclude by discussing needs of the field going forward and provide some thoughts about how we might address those needs through a comprehensive research agenda—one that articulates a vision for how we might develop teaching quality at the intersection of general and special education.

Preservice Observation in Special Education: A Validation Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Daisy J. Pua ◽  
David J. Peyton ◽  
Mary T. Brownell ◽  
Valentina A. Contesse ◽  
Nathan D. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Observation System ◽  
Education Teacher ◽  
Observation Instrument ◽  
High Incidence Disabilities

Advancing teacher candidates’ overall competence through use of valid teacher observation systems should be an essential element of teacher preparation. Yet, the field of special education has not provided observation protocols designed specifically for preservice teachers that are founded in theoretical perspectives and research on effective instruction for students with learning and other high-incidence disabilities (SWDs). To address this need, a group of researchers in special education teacher preparation and measurement developed the Preservice Observation Instrument for Special Education (POISE). The POISE is an observation system rooted in effective special education practices that support the growth of preservice teachers who will serve SWD across instructional settings. The purpose of this article is to report on the development and psychometric properties of the POISE. Specifically, we employed Kane’s argument-based validity approach to frame each stage in the development process of the POISE. We conducted two phases of content validation activities, development activities, and a pilot study to assess the degree to which scores from POISE provided evidence for the scoring, generalizability, and extrapolation inferences. In the end, the POISE represents a promising observation instrument for the development of special education teacher candidates.

What Are High-Leverage Practices for Special Education Teachers and Why Are They Important?

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 331-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McLeskey ◽  
Bonnie Billingsley ◽  
Mary T. Brownell ◽  
Lawrence Maheady ◽  
Timothy J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Core Curriculum ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Teacher Preparation Programs ◽  
Initial Attempt ◽  
Preparation Programs

Improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities and others who struggle in school largely depends on teachers who can deliver effective instruction. Although many effective practices have been identified to address the academic and behavioral needs of students who struggle in school, including those with disabilities, these practices are not used extensively in classrooms. This article provides a rationale for and description of major changes that are occurring in teacher preparation programs that are designed to improve the practice of beginning teachers. This is followed by a description of a set of high-leverage practices that was recently approved by the Council for Exceptional Children. These practices represent an initial attempt to delineate a core curriculum for special education teacher preparation to support the changes that are occurring in teacher education.

scholarly journals Forming a Mutually Respectful University-Community Partnership through a “Family as Faculty” Project

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Santamaria-Graff ◽  
Joel Boehner
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Educational Decisions ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
The Right

In this paper, we, a university special education professor and an executive director of a parent-to-parent non-profit organization, describe our collaborative partnership built on a common understanding that parents of children with disabilities are educational leaders. We address how we work collaboratively to locate and establish families as co-educators in an undergraduate special education course on families for pre-service special education teachers. In line with the Individuals with Disabilities Education and Improvement Act (IDEIA), we understand that parents have the right to make educational decisions regarding their child with a disability [Section 300.300(a)(2)(iii)]. Through a “Family as Faculty” (FAF) approach, families’ voices and expertise are positioned centrally in special education teacher preparation university courses. In this paper, we detail the ways in which we have worked together to construct a solid foundation for the first and subsequent FAF projects. We highlight the ways in which our partnership began through establishing trust, respect, and clear, common goals. These mutually created goals, built on the premise that we were committed to sustainable efforts to support the parents and families involved in FAF projects, are fundamental in ensuring that all stakeholders involved receive long-term support.

scholarly journals Developing Reading Instruction Observation Protocols for Special Education Teachers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Ann Moylan
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Observation System ◽  
Rigorous Testing ◽  
Observation Protocol ◽  
Decoding Instruction ◽  
Observation Protocols

Considerable resources have been invested in identifying effective reading instruction methods for students with disabilities. Unfortunately, students are not routinely receiving instruction aligned with these practices, impacting their ability to reach their potential. To improve reading instruction, teachers need to receive observation feedback and evaluations reflecting instructional practices shown to be effective. One way to ensure teachers are provided with feedback consistent with evidence based reading instruction is to develop observation protocols aligned to these practices. This dissertation addresses this problem with three distinct, yet interconnected, articles detailing the development of reading instruction observation protocols designed to provide accurate teacher evaluations and feedback to improve reading instruction for students with disabilities. Each protocol is part of the larger Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation system. The first article explains the framework that was applied to develop both the observation system and an explicit instruction observation protocol. The second and third articles describe the development of a comprehension and a decoding instruction observation protocol. Development included a comprehensive review of literature and rigorous testing. Results indicate the explicit instruction, comprehension, and decoding instruction protocols will provide reliable evaluations of a teacher’s ability to implement instruction consistent with practices most effective for students with disabilities. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

scholarly journals Attitudes and opinions of special education candidate teachers regarding digital technology

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Fezile Ozdamli
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Attitude Scale ◽  
Special Education Teacher ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Information And Communication

Parallel to the rapid development of information and communication technology, the demand for its use in schools and classroom is increasing. So, the purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes and views of students who will be special education teachers in the future regarding digital technology on the use in education. A mixed method, qualitative and quantitative, was used to collect data. Attitude Scale for Digital Technology was used as a quantitative data collection tool and a semi-structured interview form was used to collect qualitative data. A total of 275 students studying at Special Education teaching department of Near East University participated in this study. The findings indicated that the candidate teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of technologies. The findings obtained from the qualitative dimensions of the study showed that the candidate teachers had positive views about the use of technology by the special education students in their learning process. Keywords: Special education, teacher candidates, digital technology, attitudes.

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