Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were developed to encourage a common focus of instruction and evaluation in the areas of mathematics, reading/language arts, writing, speaking, and listening. As of 2011, all but five states have adopted CCSS for math and English Language Arts (ELA), with another adopting only the standards for ELA. With these adoptions comes a new emphasis in teacher training; the field is calling for a collective effort, on the part of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs), to work collaboratively to prepare future teachers. This study is a preliminary exploration of current CCSS preparation in IHEs. Focus groups were conducted with pre-service teachers and professors in general and special education programs at five colleges across two southeastern states. Findings address the perceptions of both groups related to knowledge, ability, contributions, and barriers to application of CCSS. In addition, implications for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to complete an in-depth examination of the construct of teacher beliefs by investigating preservice teachers’ beliefs about reading instruction for students with disabilities. Interview and artifact data were collected for 11 preservice teachers during a 10-month period. Dimensions of beliefs investigated were expressed beliefs and beliefs-in-use, the stability of beliefs, and sources of beliefs. Results indicate that preservice teachers’ beliefs systems are complex, made up of enduring, deeply rooted expressed beliefs as well as beliefs-in-use that are highly dependent on discipline-specific working knowledge. These beliefs are not the same in how they are formed or sustained; thus, an implication of this study’s findings is that researchers and teacher educators be more specific and explicit when describing studies of preservice teacher beliefs. Additional implications for future research and practice regarding the relationship between teacher beliefs and teacher education are provided.

Preparing pre-service special educators to meet classroom demands requires teacher preparation programs to design experiences for students to demonstrate routine expertise, while also building adaptive expertise. In this article, the authors describe a capstone project that meets these needs and prepares pre-service special educators for their role in the development of practice-based evidence. These aims align well with the Council for Exceptional Children’s Professional Standards. To describe this project and how it meets these aims, we used the Implementation Stages framework. Outcomes reflect an increase in pre-service special educators’ ability to research and design usable interventions based on evidence-based practices. Implications for special education teacher preparation programs include the need for faculty to provide instruction in a wide variety of interventions, and to provide channels for the pre-service special educators to disseminate their research within the field.

This article describes the development, implementation, and second-year evaluation of Project Autism Competencies for Endorsement (ACE), a web-based professional development (PD) program that is designed to train teachers currently working in the field to meet the unique and diverse needs of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). A description of the rationale for the project and an overview of the program of study are followed by the presentation of the second-year evaluation activities and their results. Preliminary findings of this study suggested that the web-based PD program was effective in helping teachers develop and improve their competencies, knowledge, and skills. Moreover, teachers felt comfortable using the teaching strategies they learned in the program and reported some application of these strategies in their practices. Also, most teachers reported their satisfaction with the web-based courses offered in the program. Implications for the future research and practice are presented.

Given recent increased attention to teacher evaluation, it is imperative to understand the expertise teachers need to educate students with severe disabilities. In this grounded theory study, the authors interviewed nine special education faculty who specialize in severe disabilities about the job-related skills and qualities exhibited by expert teachers of students with severe disabilities. The results indicate that in addition to systematic and student-centered instruction, expert teachers of students with severe disabilities are guided by a set of non-negotiable principles regarding inclusion and the dignity and value of students with severe disabilities. Implications for teacher preparation and evaluation are discussed.