Designing for Learning: How Communities of Practice Affect Schools’ Capacities to Meet Students’ Special Needs

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership for Social Justice Roundtable on Culturally Responsive Practice

Abstract

Meeting students’ special needs is a pressing educational concern, as these students have traditionally been marginalized in schools. “Special needs” is a broad category referring to multifarious barriers to school success. This cross-case study examined four schools, two of which were striving to implement the learning consultant model, which emphasizes heterogeneous, flexible grouping of students and collaborative relationships of faculty, especially amongst special education and general education teachers. To examine how educators in schools learn to better meet students’ special needs, I gathered data in two schools implementing this model and two schools not doing so. My central research question asks, “In what ways do communities of practice affect the capacity of a school to meet students’ special needs?”

Author

• Martin Scanlan, Boston College