Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

Reading Comprehension Interventions For Students With Autism, Mary Andrews

Dissertations

Research focused on reading comprehension interventions for students with autism is limited. Available research focuses primarily on the impact of single intervention methods, whether teacher-led or technology-based. Research on intervention methods paired with technology is limited. The researcher conducted a survey of 51 special education teachers to identify what interventions, whether teacher-led or technology-based, are most frequently and effectively utilized within the classroom, as well as what methods teachers prefer to utilize within the classroom. The researcher also interviewed a sample of 5 teachers and conducted a thematic analysis to identify factors that teachers identify as most important in teaching …

Closing The Knowledge Gap With Literacy-Infused And Rich Social Studies Content, Jeffrey Leffler, Ksenia Zhbanova

Journal of Research Initiatives

Social studies have been marginalized in early childhood education amid the prevalence of standardized testing and political issues. However, a comprehensive approach to early education, including social studies, is gaining attention. This article emphasizes the significance of incorporating social studies into early childhood curriculum, illuminating its potential to enhance children's cognitive and social-emotional development. The second important aspect of this article focuses on the role of social studies in literacy skill development through building background knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills of young children.

Educator Motivation For Acquiring Expertise To Support Students With Dyslexia: A Phenomenological Study, Maria T. Casale

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the invested motivation for acquiring expertise to support students with dyslexia for elementary school teachers at a charter school in a northeastern state. Teachers employed at Oakdale-Mission Charter School are uniquely positioned to receive in-service teacher training support regarding teaching those with dyslexia. The lack of Orton Gillingham-certified teachers to provide for those with dyslexia prevents these students from adequately receiving access and equity in a school district in a large metropolitan city in a northeastern state. Therefore, Oakdale-Mission Charter School was explored as a unique and innovative solution for those …

Incorporating Books As Strength-Based Examples Of Characters With Dyslexia, Vera Sotirovska, Margaret Vaughn

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Incorporating books that facilitate inclusive understandings of dyslexia can be a challenging yet important pedagogical approach to promoting equitable practices. As realistically portrayed characters and stories provide a way for students to see not only themselves but also others, and enter different worlds, the need for multiple representations of children with dyslexia is necessary when working to create equity-oriented classrooms. First, we discuss strategies on how to select and use books with diverse representations of individuals with dyslexia. Next, we provide book selection criteria to guide teachers in curating their own classroom libraries with similar texts. Finally, we include activities …

Clinical Opportunities For Special Education Teacher Candidates: Developing Professional Identities That Endure Beyond Candidacy, Christine M. Davila

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

There is an ongoing shortage of special education teachers, particularly due to early burnout. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were utilized to explore field experience needs for special education teacher candidates that positively affected their ability to maintain self-efficacy toward classroom and behavior management in self-contained settings into their early years of teaching. Findings indicated that special education teacher candidates need opportunities for experiences that allow them to imagine themselves in the role and foster professional identity development that endures beyond candidacy. Embedding opportunities for preservice special education teachers to develop their professional identities within their formal preservice training programs …

Elementary Science Essential Elements Curriculum Map & Progress Monitoring With Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies, Tasha Jenkins

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Little research has explored the field of science instruction tailored to students with significant disabilities. However, research studies have begun to emerge that suggest, with specific instructional strategies, these students can be successful in learning science curriculum. This project evaluated literature to find evidence-based instructional strategies for teaching science to students with significant cognitive disabilities. Six strategies were consistently found across multiple studies. The six strategies include (1) time delay, (2) systematic instruction, (3) multiple exemplar training, (4) task analysis, (5) graphic organizers, and (6) guided inquiry-based learning. These strategies were shared with a team of nine special education teachers …

Inside Out Creativity: Nurturing Teachers As Creative Catalysts To Transform Education, Katie Ravich

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project is a thought piece aimed at re-evaluating and clarifying the potential of activating transformational creative change leadership in teachers. By embracing creativity as a human process, teachers can become catalysts for change within themselves and their students. This approach requires a nurturing and relational co-creative process, fostering a learning environment that values emotional well-being alongside intellectual growth for everyone. For teachers to stimulate others to be creative and innovative, they must challenge their own beliefs about creativity. There needs to be an explicit process that underpins these behaviors, integrated with a high level of emotional intelligence to nurture …

Building A Culture Of Creativity And Thinking In The Special Education Classroom, Megan Pitrat, Kimberley D'Adamo

Kimberley D'Adamo: Publications, Art, and Other Scholarly Works

Building a Culture of Creativity and Thinking in the Special Education Classroom

National Art Education Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2024

Art TEAMs Contributors

About Megan Pitrat

About Kimberley D'Adamo

Grounded in theory and evidence

Evolution of Kimberley's practice

Searching for better

Art TEAMs: Teaching with arts and emerging media, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Re-imagining my teaching practice

Metacognitive visual metaphor project

Exhibition of learning

Generalizing across the curricula

Generalizing creativity for life

From The Editors, Michele H. Koomen, Thomastine A. Sarchet-Maher, Jessica Williams

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

JSESD remains a venue for the dissemination of research and practice related to the education of students with disabilities in the science classroom and laboratory since 1998. Volumes #1 through 11 were published in a print format. Starting with Volume #12, the journal has been published online and Open Access. Having JSESD in the Open Access format maximizes access for readers and authors and allows the journal to remain economically sustainable. JSESD is proud to now be publishing articles in both PDF and HTML formats (the HTML versions can be accessed through a link from the main articles’ web-page).

The Power Of Team Sports And One Caring Adult, Don Poole

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

When team sports are combined with one adult(Synergy) you can give a child a "Why". Also when you committ to not use limiting beliefs or make judgements about a child's future the sky is the limit. Using the Goldfish principles amazing outcomes will happen!

Your Story, Your Life, Your Learning: Autobiography Reveals Basis For Supporting Personalized, Holistic Pedagogy, Michael Maser

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Each person ongoingly experiences the world uniquely through vital processes shaping their subjectivity, personhood and sense of self. Learning, an innate characteristic or modality of each human life, of living, likewise arises subjectively or idiosyncratically. In this paper, a phenomenological lens is applied to auto/biographical excerpts concerned with various learning experiences to help reveal essential, subjective characteristics of emergent learning. The insights help establish a basis for challenging the primacy of objectivist learning evaluations. The insights also confirm the importance of personalizing learning as a pedagogical gesture nurturing and enfranchising student learning in significant ways beyond conventional educational approaches …

Unlocking Understanding About Giftedness, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

The goal of undergraduate teacher preparation programs is to prepare future teachers to work with all learners. Gifted and talented learners are likely found in every classroom regardless of where they reside, however, according to Rinn et al. (2022), Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Nebraska do not require undergraduate teacher candidates to take university coursework on gifted education. The goal of this presentation is to provide a general overview of gifted education specific to Kansas. This presentation aims to address myths and misconceptions about gifted education and gifted learners, characteristics of gifted learners, a basic overview of a general identification …

Differential Effects Of Criteria For Increasing Delay Intervals In Progressive Time Delay, Kai O'Neill

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

The purpose of the study was to compare the differential effects of response independent and response-dependent criteria used to determine when to increase to the next delay interval in the progressive time delay (PTD) procedure. An adapted alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the relative efficiency of three variations of the PTD procedure when teaching expressive word identification to first-grade children with moderate to severe intellectual or developmental disabilities, language impairments, and reading deficits. All three PTD variations consisted of increasing the delay interval in 1-s increments from 0s to 4s. The three PTD variations compared included (a) a …