[Download] "Special Education Teacher Quality and Preparation: Exposing Foundations, Constructing a New Model (Report)" by Exceptional Children ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Special Education Teacher Quality and Preparation: Exposing Foundations, Constructing a New Model (Report)
- Author : Exceptional Children
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 269 KB
Description
Special education teacher preparation has evolved over the past 150 years, since special education teachers were first prepared in residential settings. Shifting perspectives on disabilities, effective practice, and providing services to students with disabilities has led to changes in how special education is conceptualized and organized, and, consequently, how special education preparation programs are structured. Today, special education teacher preparation has lost focus, and there is enormous heterogeneity among programs (Goe, 2006). Redefining special education teacher preparation is difficult, especially when the need to do so occurs as serious questions are being raised about the effectiveness of teacher education generally, and when, for students with disabilities, successful teaching has been redefined to mean satisfactory progress in the general education curriculum. These changes occur against a backdrop of high-stakes assessments, rigorous academic standards, and individualized accountability--and persistent shortages of highly qualified special education teachers. Clearly, special education teacher educators must rethink what makes a quality special education teacher, and that process should be informed by the field's history and by the trends in policy, service delivery, and research that have shaped special education and teacher education practice. This in turn will enable the creation of a framework for redesigning teacher education to fit the current educational context. Special education teacher preparation has evolved from specialized, clinical preparation in residential facilities into an enterprise that now lacks clear conceptual boundaries. In discussing these conceptual shifts, we will discuss key trends and ways teacher quality and preparation have been linked. Advances in research on teaching and learning have raised serious questions about special education teacher quality and conceptual models for organizing teacher preparation. Current research provides some guidance for ways that special education teacher preparation might be reconceptualized to better prepare teachers to meet the needs of students with disabilities. There are, however, barriers that will need to be overcome, as the field reshapes itself both to meet the challenges of contemporary education and to move toward a clear self-definition that solidifies the professional status of teachers.