Teacher education has been criticized as an ineffective enterprise that discourages talented individuals from choosing careers in education (Hess, 2001; Walsh, 2001). Opponents of teacher education argue that lengthy program requirements are prohibitive in terms of cost and time and ultimately unnecessary given that some research has pointed to the importance of teachers' subject matter knowledge (Hess, 2001; Walsh, 2001). In essence, individuals like Hess and Walsh contend that the gate-keeping mechanism for entry into the teaching profession should be an individual's knowledge of particular subject matter and not the completion of a teacher preparation program. Despite these criticisms, several studies of special education teacher education have demonstrated the benefits of extensive preparation (Boe, Cook,
Teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disabilities face complex challenges supporting students' academic and behavioral needs. These teachers require support from administrators, but administrators are seldom prepared to provide support. Furthermore, research seldom operationalizes support in ways that provide actionable advice to administrators. Prior research indicates that teachers frequently feel overburdened with excessive responsibilities, and they often provide insufficient instructional opportunities for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. However, prior research has not determined whether a relationship exists between teachers' responsibilities and their instruction. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between teachers' instructional time and the extra responsibilities they have. Results suggest that teachers' noninstructional responsibilities are associated with less instructional time. Despite limitations to data collection methods, these findings have significant implications for administrative support.
Personnel in juvenile corrections (JC) work with students who have challenging academic, behavioral, and mental health needs. The complexity of the JC setting requires personnel to be highly skilled in effective practices to meet the demands of their job. Unfortunately, juvenile correctional personnel are neglected as an important link in the school-to-prison pipeline that can be used to redirect students away from further or repeated involvement in the court system. In this article, our purpose is to provide readers with information on the professional development (PD) needs of JC personnel. Student, teacher, and facility contextual considerations in JC are described. Then, specific JC PD knowledge, skills, and dispositions associated with student academic, behavior, and mental health needs are detailed. Finally, resources and future directions are offered.
This article describes lessons learned by the University at Albany Center for Public Health Preparedness (UA-CPHP) in using three technologies to deliver preparedness training for public health professionals in New York State. These three technologies are: 1. Audience response system (ARS, or the "clicker" system)--Purchased to improve engagement of all participants in heterogeneous training audiences, it also markedly reduces staff time while improving training evaluation (cost: $4,500). 2. Satellite broadcast programs--UA-CPHP produced more than 50 broadcasts, which remain available as videostreams and/or podcasts. Viewership of archived programs sometimes surpasses that of the live event (cost estimate: $23,000 to $39,000). 3. Interactive online courses--Seventeen courses have registered more than 44,000 learners worldwide. The Pandemic Influenza course alone has reached more than 16,000 registrants from all 50 U.S. states and at least 56 other countries (cost estimate: $30,000 to $65,000). UA-CPHP's experience as a preparedness training center has confirmed that contemporary technology can be employed to improve and increase the reach of these training efforts. An additional finding was that, quite unintentionally, the intensive use of distance-based educational modalities designed to reach public health practitioners in New York State has afforded UA-CPHP a substantial national and international audience as well, and at no additional cost.
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