Co-Teaching at the Pre-Service Level: Special Education Majors Collaborate with English Education Majors

Abstract

General education and special education teacher candidates lack experience in collaborating with each other as colleagues; however, upon graduating and entering their own classrooms, most are expected to know how to provide services to students with disabilities in the general classroom. This study describes the efforts of two professors, one in special education and the other in English education, to have their students participate in a collaborative and consultative relationship with each other at the pre-service level. Data are comprised of pre-and post-surveys, as well as weekly written reflections by the teacher candidates. Significant differences were found across programs and within the English education program. Reflections reveal differing participant perceptions of the co-teaching experience. Findings indicate exposure to co-teaching at the pre-service level provides an opportunity to address the roles and responsibilities of general and special educators in working together to ensure academic success for all learners.

Beyond Special and General Education as Identity Markers: The Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of The Effects of Intersecting Sociocultural Identities

“…Pugach and colleagues (2014) excluded survey and attitudinal studies from their analysis. Sixteen of the thirty studies included in the chapter included some form of assessments of preservice teachers (Andrews, 2002;Arndt & Liles, 2010;Brown, Welch, Hill, & Cipko, 2008;Frey, Andres, McKeeman, & Lane, 2012;Geer & Hammill, 2007;Golder, Norwich & Bayliss, 2005;Goodnough, Osmand, Dibbon, Glassman, & Stevens, 2009;Griffin, Jones, & Kilgore, 2006;Kamens, 2007;Kamens & Casale-Giannola, 2004;Kurtts, Hibbard, & Levin, 2005;Jeffs & Banister, 2006;Maheady, Jabot, Rey, & Michelli-Pendl, 2007;McHatton & Daniel, 2008;Sobel, Iceman-Sands, & Basile, 2007;Young, 2011a). One of the findings of the review revealed that when the term "diverse" appeared within the studies about collaboration, it was typically to reference the diversity of participants' academic or departmental backgrounds or to reference the diverse learning needs of P-12 learners.…”

“…(2014) review (Bradley & Monda-Amaya, 2005;Griffin et al, 2006;McHatton & Daniel, 2008;McKenzie, 2009) were also included in the chapter.…”

“…Of these 17 studies with special and general education candidates as participants, five studies resulted in special education participants that outperformed when compared to their general education peers (King-Sears, Carran, Dammann, & Arter, 2012;McHatton & Daniel, 2008;Miller et al, 2009;Shippen, Crites, Houchins, Ramsey, & Simon, 2005) or indicated that they had more training on special education knowledge and skills than their peers (Begeny & Martens, 2006). Van Laarhoven, Munk, Lynch, Bosma, and Rouse (2007), were the only researchers whose study indicated that general education participants showed greater gains in special education knowledge and skills when compared to their special education counterparts.…”

“…The twelve studies on dispositions toward disabilities and inclusion were mostly researcher-developed attitudinal surveys; only four of these included participants that were general education preservice teachers in the samples (Carrol, Petroff, & Blumberg, 2009;Shippen et al, 2007;Silverman, 2007;Van Laarhoven et al, 2007;). The six studies about "diverse" students with disabilities consisted of three quantitative surveys (Hallam et al, 2003;Kea, Trent, & Davis, 2002;McHatton & Daniel, 2008) and two concept maps (Correa, Hudson, & Hayes, 2004;Trent & Dixon, 2004). In addition to the studies identified in the McCall et al (2014) review, other instruments have been developed, outside of special education, with the intent of assessing preservice teacher preparation for diversity that includes ability considerations.…”

“…The researchers of these studies used a variety of researcher-developed assessments and applied quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods approaches to the analysis of the data. The assessments ranged from one or more of the following: pre-and post-test surveys (Brown et al, 2008;Jeffs & Banister, 2006;Kurtts et al, 2005;Maheady et al, 2007;McHatton & Daniel, 2008;Murray & Curran, 2008;Sobel et al, 2007;Stang & Lyons, 2008;Welch & Brownell, 2002;), qualitative analyses of preservice candidates responses (Arndt & Liles, 2010;Gallagher, Vail, & Monda-Amaya, 2008;Geer & Hamill, 2007;Griffin et al, 2006;Kamens & Casale-Giannola, 2004;Stang & Lyons, 2008;Young, 2011a), curricular probes to assess content knowledge (Hallam, Buell, and Ridgeley, 2003;Van Laarhoven et al, 2007), field-based observation reports (Frey et al, 2012;Golder et al, 2005;Goodnough et al, 2009;Kamens, 2007), case based assessment (Andrews, 2002), and qualitative vignettes (Bradley & Monda-Amaya, 2005).…”