Project Coordinate: Engaging Teams of General and Special Education Teachers in Collaborative Professional Development

• In Event: Addressing Students' Special Educational Needs When Implementing Inclusive Education

Abstract

In inclusive schools within the United States, over 61% of students with disabilities spend 80% or more of their instructional time within the general education classroom (Kena, Hussar et al., 2016). To support students with disabilities learning disabilities, and other students that struggle to learn, experience success in the general education curriculum, many states are leveraging Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). MTSS is premised on the assumption that students with disabilities, and other struggling learners, receive some combination of core instruction, or tier 1 instruction, provided by the general education teacher, and supplemental instruction or intervention in tiers 2 and 3. Tier 3 instruction is often provided by the special education teacher, as most students with identified disabilities are served at this tier. In order for an MTSS approach to be effective, coordination between general and special educators is paramount. This means that general educators and special educators must design and teach instruction in tightly connected ways. In this study, we examined how participation in Project Coordinate, a year-long, research-based, collaborative professional development effort, designed to increase 4th grade general and special educators’ shared knowledge and skill for effective and coordinated literacy instruction across the MTSS tiers, changed the ways that teachers think about supporting students receiving tiers 2 and 3 intervention in tier 1, and how changes in their thinking are reflected in their instruction.
In this study, we employed mixed-methods, using both quantitative and qualitative data, to examine the ways that general and special education teachers' knowledge and practices about instruction for students with disabilities within an MTSS framework changed as a result of their participation in Project Coordinate. Three schools, each with one team of general and special education teachers participated in the innovation. Instruments used to understand change and teacher' experience include: a researcher designed and validated measure of teacher knowledge for reading, observation tool of practice, lesson study planning sessions, and semi-structured interviews.

Authors

• Amber Benedict, Arizona State University

• Mary T. Brownell, University of Florida

• Kelly Acosta, University of Florida

• Hyojong Sohn, University of Florida