CHAPTER FIVE

1. CHAPTER FIVE COTEACHING AND COLLABORATING: WORKING WITH PROFESSIONALS AND FAMILIES

2. Chapter Overview This chapter focuses on the special education teacher as a co-teacher and an effective communicator. This chapter deals with the issue of the special education teacher as a manager, communicator, and collaborator.

3. Understanding the Challenges of General Education Classrooms • Special education teachers need to understand what students with special needs can reasonably expect in general education classrooms so that they can provide the support and skills necessary for success. Although expectations vary considerably between elementary and secondary teachers and obviously from teacher to teacher, there are some common expectations. (See next slide for expectations.)

4. Common Expectations in General Education Classrooms • General education teachers are willing to make adaptations and accommodations that require little preplanning. • Teachers treat students with special needs in much the same way that they treat other students. This is both good and bad news. • Students with special needs participate infrequently in class activities, ask fewer questions than other students do, and rarely respond to teachers’ questions.

5. Common Expectations in General Education Classrooms (continued) • Whole-class activity is by far the primary mode of instruction at the middle and high school level and for social studies and science at the elementary level. • Undifferentiated large group instruction is representative of what occurs in general education classrooms; yet one-on-one instruction is a better predictor of students’ success.

6. Adaptations General Education Teachers Are Willing to Make • Teachers identified the following as highly feasible to implement: • Provide reinforcement and encouragement to assist students with learning. • Establish a personal relationship with included students. • Involve included students in whole-class activities. • Establish routines that are appropriate for included students. • Establish expectations for learning and behavior.

7. Adaptations General Education Teachers Are Willing to Make • Teachers identified the following as not likely to be implemented: • Adapt long-range plans to meet the needs of included students. • Adjust the physical arrangement of the room to meet the needs of included students. • Use alternative materials or adapt current materials for students with special needs. • Adapt scoring and grading criteria for students with special needs. • Provide individualizing instruction to meet students’ special needs.

8. Consultation and Collaboration • Special education teachers: • A significant part of their role is to collaborate with parents and any other specialist who is associated with the special needs students with whom the teacher works. • They have considerable opportunities to collaborate with general education teachers. • They may also work in a program in which most of the workday involves collaboration with other teachers.

9. Ways Special Education Teachers Collaborate with General Education Teachers • Developing ways to make curricula more accessible to students with special needs • Co-teaching • Consultant teaching • Coordination of paraprofessionals • Teacher support teams

10. Role of Special Education Teacher within a RTI Framework • RTI has provided new opportunities and expectations for cooperation between special education teachers and general education teachers. • Special education teachers may meet and plan with general education teachers about the Tier 2 interventions provided in math and reading and may also play a significant role in providing interventions for students in Tier 3.

11. RTI Collaborative Activities for Special Education Teachers • Organizing screening and progress monitoring measures and determining cut points for which students will be provided reading and math intervention, • Determining how interventions should be implemented and organized, • Developing a checklist for high quality implementation of interventions, • Developing training for teachers and paraprofessionals to provide high quality intervention, • How to adjust interventions to meet the needs of students performing at a range of grade levels and with varying instructional needs, • How to adjust instruction when students make minimal progress in interventions.

12. Resources Needed for Collaboration • Time • Space • Knowledge of Procedures

13. Collaboration Issues and Dilemmas • Student ownership • Individual versus class focus • Content versus accommodation • New roles for special education teachers • Real world versus the student’s world

14. Problem Solving Models • Problem Solving Models are ways in which teams of educators at each school implement a prevention approach to meeting the needs of students at risk for special needs and with special needs. • These approaches provide instructional, behavioral, and assessment support to teachers.

15. Problem Solving Models(continued) • Goals: • Early prevention of learning and behavior problems • Use of student data to influence decision-making about placement in special education • Replacing more traditional approaches to assessing and identifying students with disabilities.

16. Implementation of Problem Solving Models(continued) • When students are identified as having difficulties, they are provided evidence-based interventions using ongoing student progress monitoring measures to assure that students are closing the gap between their current performance and expected performance. • Students who make adequate progress are no longer provided intervention and those who need additional supports may be provided more extensive interventions. • These interventions can be provided by personnel trained by the special education teacher or other educational personnel or in some schools certified teachers provide the instructional support.

17. Problem Solving Models:4-Step Process • Define the problem • Plan an intervention • Implement the intervention • Evaluate the student’s progress

18. Problem Solving Model:Teacher Assistance Teams • The teacher assistance team (TAT) is a school-based problem-solving unit that assists teachers in generating intervention strategies. The TAT model provides a forum wherein classroom teachers can engage in a collaborative problem-solving process. The model is based on four assumptions related to teacher empowerment. (See next slide.)

19. Teacher Assistance Teams4 Assumptions • Considerable knowledge and talent exist among classroom teachers. • Classroom teachers can and do help many students with learning and behavior problems. Every effort should be made in the general classroom before a referral for special education services is made. • Teachers can resolve more problems by working together than by working alone. • Teachers learn best by solving immediate and relevant classroom problems.

20. Co-Teaching • Co-teaching, or cooperative teaching, occurs when general and special education teachers coordinate their efforts and jointly teach special and general education students sharing planning, presentation, assessment, and classroom management to promote successful outcomes for all students (Gately & Gately, 2001).

21. Co-Teaching • Villa, Thousand, and Nevin (2008) also remind us what co-teaching is not. Co-teaching is not one person teaching while another prepares materials, not one person’s views dominating instructional decision-making, not tutoring, and not when one person watches while another teaches.

22. How Co-Teaching Works • Special and general education teachers plan broad, overall goals and desired outcomes for the class as a whole as well as for specific students in the class. • Both special and general classrooms teachers lead instruction during the same instructional period. • Although one teacher may provide some instruction to the group as a whole, most of the instructional time involves both teachers working with small groups or with individual students. • The special education teacher works with many students, including those who are identified as benefiting from special education.

23. Co-Teaching Models • Model A: One Group. One lead Teacher. One Teacher “Teaching on Purpose.” • Model B: Two Mixed-Ability Groups. • Model C: Two Same-Ability Groups. • Model D: Multiple Groups. Teachers Monitor/Teach. • Model E: Whole Class.

24. Co-Teaching with Secondary Students • Co-teaching is different at the secondary level for the special education teacher. The role is more of a “supportive teacher” meaning that the content area teacher for math, social studies, and science take primary responsibility for designing and delivering the lesson and his role is to support instruction for students with disabilities.

25. Activities for “Supportive Teaching” Role • Determine the big idea of the instructional unit that week and make it clear to the students with special needs. • Identify the key academic vocabulary and concepts related to learning the unit and teach those to students with special needs to assure that they have access to learning the content. • Identify resources that would facilitate learning for students with special needs such as supportive texts written at levels the student can read, technology that would provide access to visual images or other information to promote learning, and/or a video that would make some of the key concepts more accessible.

26. Activities for “Supportive Teaching” Role (continued) • Conduct a pretest over the material to be taught that week to determine what students know and what they need to know to successfully master the information that week. • Provide modifications to assignments, homework, or assessments so that they are accessible to students with disabilities. • Communicate with key personnel at the school to facilitate learning for target students. • Communicate with parents to facilitate learning for target students. • Develop resources such as overheads, power points, graphs, and other learning devices to facilitate learning for all students.

27. Activities for “Supportive Teaching” Role (continued) • Provide 60 second lessons to key students to reinforce ideas taught and assure learning. • Provide small group lessons to key students as needed. • Follow-up with students to assure learning is sustained and connected to previous learning.

28. Co-Planning • Special education teachers often co-plan with general education teachers for the students with special needs who are in their classrooms. • Long range co-planning of broad goals • Co-planning of specific lessons • Use of forms to facilitate the process

29. Successful Co-Teaching • Core issues: • Who gives grades, and how do we grade? • Whose classroom management rules do we use, and who enforces them? • What space do I get? • What do we tell the students? • How can we find time to co-plan and coordinate? • How do we assure that there is parity between teachers? • How do we know if it’s working?

30. Collaboration with Paraprofessionals • Often, the special education teacher is in charge of supervising paraprofessionals. • It is important that paraprofessionals not be assigned to students whom the teacher then spends little time seeing. • Paraprofessionals need to have their teaching responsibilities rotated among many students so that the teacher spends frequent intervals teaching and evaluating all students. • Paraprofessionals need to be completely familiar with class and school rules and their consequences.

31. Important Skills for Teachers Working with Paraprofessionals • Open communication • Planning and scheduling • Instructional support • Modeling for paraprofessionals • Training • Management

32. Key Ideas for Collaborating with Families • Place the focus of any discussion on the needs and wants of the family and the students and not on their values. • Accept the family and the student as they are. Stop wishing that they were different. • Remember that most family members are not trying to provide poor parenting. Rather, they are often doing the best they can in their given circumstances. • Respect the family’s right to have different values than you do. That does not make them poor parents.

33. Collaborating with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families • Learn as much as you can about your students’ backgrounds. • 4-step plan: (Matuszny, Banda, and Coleman (2007)) • First phase – initiation • Second phase – building the foundation • Third phase – maintenance and support • Fourth phase – wrap-up and reflection

34. Collaboration in a Response to Intervention Model • Helps schools identify what supplemental instruction or intervention students may need to “catch up” to their grade-level peers • Communication among classroom teacher, intervention provider, and other school personnel needs to be consistent and frequent. • Helps with #1 challenge to successful implementation of RTI: scheduling. • Collaboration on pacing and content helps with preteaching. • Collaboration can be used to ensure that intervention teachers are delivering interventions with fidelity.

35. Communication With Other Professionals • Principles of communication: • Mutual respect and trust • Acceptance • Listening • Questioning • Staying directed

36. Developing Interviewing Skills • Interviews are the key to open communication and effective intervention. Special education teachers often work as consultants to paraprofessionals, regular classroom teachers, to other educational and psychological specialists, and to families. These interviewing skills help to meet the need to ask questions that inform and to follow up appropriately on information provided.

37. Five Steps to Good Interviewing • Ask open questions. • Obtain specificity. • Identify the problem. • Problem solve. • Summarize and give feedback.

38. Special Education Teacher’s Steps to Effective Communication with General Education Teachers • Describe the type of learning or behavior problem the child has and some general guidelines for how to deal with it in the regular classroom. • Provide a copy of the child’s IEP to the classroom teacher, and discuss the goals, objectives, special materials, and procedures needed. • Describe the progress reports you will be providing to the home and putting in your files. • Develop a schedule for regular meetings, and discuss other times that both the classroom teacher and special teacher are available for meetings. • Ask the classroom teacher how you can help, and describe the special accommodations that are needed.

39. Potential Barriers to Successful Inclusion • The general education teacher may feel unable to meet the need of the included student with disabilities. • The general education classroom teacher may not want to work with the included student with disabilities. • Finding time to meet regularly with all classroom teachers is difficult. • Students may not be accepted socially by peers in the general education classroom.

40. Working with FamiliesTeacher’s Role • Family adjustment • Siblings • Family-centered practice • Family involvement with schools • Family involvement in planning and placement conferences • Conferences with family members: planned and unplanned

41. Individuals with Disabilities Act and Family Involvement • The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed in 1990 and was most recently amended in 2004. This law ensures that all youngsters with disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education, which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs. All students between the ages of 3 and 21 are eligible for a program of special education and related services under Part B of the IDEA; children with disabilities from birth through age three are eligible for special education and related services under Part C. Part C, which is a subchapter of the IDEA, is about infants and toddlers with disabilities.