Teachers often struggle to provide all students access to specific learning activities that work best for them—and what works best for some students will not work for others. Differentiating instruction makes sense because it offers different paths to understanding content, process, and products, considering what is appropriate given a child’s profile of strengths, interests, and styles. This study focused on teacher efficacy as a way to explain teacher willingness to differentiate instruction. We found that a greater number of professional development hours in differentiation of instruction was positively associated with both teacher efficacy and the teacher’s sense of efficacy beliefs. This study demonstrated that teacher efficacy is an important dimension in implementing the process of differentiation regardless of what level or what content area the teacher taught (elementary, middle, or high school). Implications and future directions for research are also discussed.
Using grounded theory, this study investigated primary caregivers' perceptions of the role they play in influencing the academic success of students formally identified as twice-exceptional. Data from interviews were coded and analyzed for themes. Results indicated that primary caregivers (mothers) perceived that they played a major role in the academic success of their twice-exceptional children, first by recognizing their children's gifts as well as disabilities and then by assuming responsibility for the development of their children's potential. They sought professional evaluations, provided or secured educational supports, shaped their children's healthy perceptions of their disabilities, and taught them how to advocate for themselves while simultaneously maintaining high expectations for their children, despite their disabilities. Implications of the findings are discussed, and areas for future research are outlined.
Most schools have crisis plans to support student safety, but few plans address the complex needs of students with disabilities. School supports should include analysis of school plans and student strengths and needs to ensure that students with disabilities have the best opportunity to be safe in school crises. Recommendations include developing individual emergency and lockdown plans to provide procedures for explicit instruction and needed supports for students with disabilities during a crisis. Implications for such plans and support for their development are included.Mr. Hunter and Ms. Jakobs were looking around their co-taught classroom one afternoon, trying to decide how they could modify their school crisis plan to support three students with varying disabilities. Mr. Hunter told Ms. Jakobs, Before the tornado and school shooting that were in the news last month, I didn't really think about what we might need to do differently to help Jamaya, Sam, and Kesha stay safe, but now, I think we have to create a specific plan due to their unique needs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.