Abstract
Welcome to the second issue of Volume 36! Many of us recently returned from a busy CEC conference in San Antonio, Texas. I hope all who attended had a wonderful, productive time and we hope to see all of you at the fall TED conference in Fort Lauderdale.
This issue examines several methods that have been used to prepare teachers of students with special needs. We begin with the study of co-teaching and coaching and then move on to improving mathematical content knowledge and accommodating diversity. We finish with a paper on the perceptions of deaf and hard of hearing teachers toward teaching self-determination skills. We believe you will find the papers interesting and thought-provoking. The conclusions of all authors lend credence to the importance of systematic teacher training from preservice to inservice. More details on each paper are in the following paragraphs – Enjoy!
The first paper authored by Nadya Pancsofar and Jerry Petroff titled, “Professional development experiences in co-teaching: Associations with teacher confidence, interests, and attitudes”, examined the role of preservice and inservice professional development opportunities. In particular, the authors investigated professional development with regards to co-teaching and general and special educators’ confidence, interests, and attitudes regarding co-teaching. The authors found teachers with more frequent inservice training opportunities in co-teaching were more confident in their co-teaching practice and demonstrated higher levels of interest and more positive attitudes about co-teaching than did those teachers with less frequent inservice opportunities. Many of you who teach collaborative or co-teaching methods preservice courses or provide inservice opportunities on these topics will benefit from reading this paper.
The second paper authored by Keri Bethune and Charles Wood titled, “Effects of coaching on teachers’ use of function-based interventions for students with severe disabilities”, used a delayed multiple baseline across participants design to analyze the effects of coaching on special education teachers’ implementation of function-based interventions with students with severe disabilities. After training the teachers on the use of functional behavior assessment, the experimenter coached each teacher. The coaching consisted of three parts: a pre-observation meeting, a coaching session, and a post-coaching feedback meeting. The authors found a functional relationship between coaching and an increase in teacher fidelity scores. The authors suggested that there was a functional relationship between accurate implementation of the function-based interventions and an increase in the students’ primary replacement behaviors. The teachers were also able to generalize their skills to a different activity with the target students. Many of you who have trained teachers to use functional behavior assessment will benefit from reading this paper.
The third paper authored by Valerie Faulkner and Chris Cain titled, “Improving the mathematical content knowledge of general and special educators: Evaluating a professional development module that focuses on number sense”, examined a five-day, 40-hour professional development module to improve teachers’ mathematical knowledge and their understanding of number sense. Their results suggested that participating teachers made gains in mathematical content knowledge. The authors provided insights into the challenges and efforts of professional development for the special educators who provide mathematical instruction to students with special needs. Their results are encouraging.
The fourth paper authored by Changnam Lee and Kathryn Picanco titled, “Accommo-dating diversity by analyzing practices of teaching (ADAPT)”, examined and analyzed current effective instructional practices in relation to the phases of learning so that teachers can use those practices at the appropriate times to accommodate students’ diverse needs in learning. The authors’ analyses are provided as a guide or a framework for the use of instructional practices in teacher education with the goal of providing effective and efficient teaching in general education classrooms. The authors provided direction for educational researchers and teacher educators on how to guide classroom teachers in using more effective evidence- based practices.
The final paper authored by Ann Sebald titled, “Teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing: Perceptions of self-determination for their students”, surveyed teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing to determine their perceptions of the importance of self-determination and the benefits associated with teaching self-determination. The author’s results indicated that teachers believed self-determination to be important, however, they did not intentionally teach those identified skills. The author emphasized the need for educators of the deaf and hard of hearing to be taught how to teach the skills associated with self-determination.
Our vision for TESE is to continue the long-standing tradition of publishing high quality research and commentary on teacher education and special education. We hope to increase the number of manuscripts reviewed; so please send in your manuscripts (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tese). We also look forward to increasing our readership nationally and internationally; we hope you will encourage your friends to read TESE by going to the website and signing up for Sage Journal email alerts (http://tes.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts). In addition, we have several links available for our readers on special topics and issues. These links will allow you to find several articles on one topic. Please see the following link: (http://tes.sagepub.com/cgi/collection). We hope to also widen our viewership by providing podcasts on topics we examine at TESE. Our first podcast completed by the “juvenile justice prison pipeline” special issue editors and authors can be found at the following link: http://tes.sagepub/site/misc/Index/Podcasts.xhtml. This podcast is timely given the latest national discussions on gun control and children with disabilities.
We recognize that the success of TESE is a collaborative, team effort. The TESE journal is only as good as the manuscripts received and the quality of the reviews posted by members of the editorial board. We want to thank in advance those of you who will submit your best work in the area of teacher preparation to Teacher Education and Special Education, as well as those on the Board of Reviewers who will spend quality time providing thoughtful and constructive suggestions to their colleagues. We look forward to receiving your manuscripts, reviews, feedback, and ideas to improve the journal. Together we can continue TESE’s tradition of quality scholarship!