Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

A Study Of Assistive Technology Competencies Of Specialists In Public Schools, Betsy B. Burgos

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Despite the rapid proliferation of assistive technology implementation, studies have revealed that a number of professionals that provide assistive technology services do not have adequate competencies to recommend and deliver assistive technologies in school settings. The purpose of the study was to examine the competencies of assistive technology specialists in Florida K-12 public schools, and identify training opportunities that may have helped them achieve professional competence in the evaluation and provision of assistive technology devices and services across AT service providers from different preparations.

The study applied quantitative and qualitative methods to determine answers to the following six research questions: …

Collaborative Teaching: A Delivery Model To Increase Responsiveness To The Needs Of All Learners Through Academic And Social Inclusion, Dayna Reilly

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Students with special needs often miss out on classroom curricula for specialized instruction. While these services are valued for educational benefits, this instruction method often has negative impacts on social-emotional development and targets students for their differing needs.

Integrated collaborative teaching models include collaborative teaching among general and special educators in an inclusive environment. In this descriptive study, the author examined integrated collaborative teaching as a delivery model to increase responsiveness to the needs of all learners through academic and social inclusion.

This study involved students with a wide range of disabilities from two different grade leveled collaborative classrooms, who …

Communication: The Key To Collaboration Between Special And General Education Teachers, Alexandra Slatoff

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Teachers often do not communicate with one another when working to meet the needs of their students. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the need, nature and manner by which general and special education teachers communicate and collaborate to address the educational needs of their students.

A review of the educational literature reveals that a burden is placed on the educational community given the often conflicting statutory obligations to: fully include special needs students in the general classroom, comply with State mandated general education curriculum requirements and implement instructional guidelines required by Individual Educational Plans (IEP) …

Each One, Teach One: A Blackprint For Mentoring Postsecondary “Twice Exceptional” Student Scholars In “Search Of Education, Elevation And Knowledge”, Selena T. Rodgers, Tiffany Cudjoe

Journal of Research Initiatives

Through the prism of a faculty-student mentoring relationship, this article highlights best practices to gain insight into resources for “twice exceptional” student scholars. Practical application stands at a position of intersecting domains—changing the tapestry of scholarly service and undergraduate research mentoring, and as an Each One, Teach One black-print model for mentoring. The article concludes with recommendations for best practices for post secondary mentors, educators, and counselors invested in developing student scholars in Search of Education, Elevation, and Knowledge.

Providing The Fuel (And Passing The Flame), Todd Pagano

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

At the risk of opening with a cliché statement- at the heart of the most effective mentor is a burning passion. The fuel for this passion is a desire to convince, not just try to, but actually convince your mentee that you care about their success (be it in the classroom, career, or personal life). I am guilty of believing in, and living by, this cliché. However, despite passion being my primary motivator, I am not unwilling to admit that rationale for mentoring can sometimes transcend this ethically normative line of thinking. I believe that there are also sometimes quantitative, …

Evaluating The Use Of The Math Reasoning Inventory For Improvement In Fraction Instruction, Kathy Huffman Boyer

Dissertations

In an attempt to close the mathematic achievement gap between students from the United States and students from other countries, a new national set of standards, the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, was developed and adopted by the state of Michigan in 2010. These standards emphasize mathematical reasoning and application, rather than the previous emphasis on performing calculations. Unfortunately, teachers generally have had little training in how to assess students’ mathematical reasoning, how to teach mathematical reasoning, or how to provide remediation to those students who show need. The purpose of this study was to see if use of …

Elementary Principals’ Perspectives On Newly Graduated General Education Teachers’ Abilities To Teach Students With Disabilities In Inclusion Classrooms, Darla Jane England

Dissertations

Increasing numbers of students with disabilities are being educated in inclusive settings within elementary public schools across the United States. General education teachers are being hired to fill these positions, yet the characteristics principals view as necessary for them to be effective in such classrooms had yet to be explored. This study captured data on the knowledge, skills, and experiences candidates, coming directly out of college, should and do possess in order to be effective inclusion teachers. Principals’ perspectives on inclusion, as well as possible predictors for such perspectives, were also examined.

An online survey was used to collect the …

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Increasing The Accessibility Of Science For All Students, Samantha Langley - Turnbaugh, Glenn Wilson, Lynn Lovewell

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This paper evaluates the accessibility of selected field and laboratory high school science activities, and provides suggestions for increasing accessibility for students with disabilities. We focused on GLOBE (Global Learning Observations to Benefit the Environment) protocols, specifically the new Seasons and Biomes investigation currently being developed as part of the GLOBE program. Five university students with disabilities majoring in science or technology were recruited to test the GLOBE protocols, and 10 protocols were evaluated for accessibility. Based on our results, we make several suggestions with regards to instructions, equipment, safety, outcomes and activity significance that will increase the accessibility of …

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Exploration Of Co-Teachers' Best Practices Within A Vocational Technical School District, Eric Menell

Theses and Dissertations

Co-teaching is defined as a situation in which two educators, one a general education teacher and one a special education teacher, work together to lead a classroom that contains both mainstream and special education learners. The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study using a convenience sample of 15 (10 general education, 5 special education) co-teachers in a New Jersey vocational and technical school was to explore participants' working relationships, factors that contribute to successful working relationships, and best practices that can be derived from an examination of successful co-teaching relationships. In-depth interviews and a brief, post-interview survey were employed to …

Differences In Elementary School Team Communication And Practices For Students Of Varied Educational Status, Kathleen Kroll

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on interdisciplinary problem-solving teams used to address the academic needs of elementary students struggling with reading. Use of teams has a strong theoretical base and wide endorsement by educational leaders, but limited empirical base. Three studies explore teams that convene students of differing academic status: typical learners (TL), literacy-learning risk (LLR), or language-learning disability (LLD).

The first, a survey study of 183 elementary school personnel in 8 professional categories, examines perceptions of teams convened for students with identified learning disabilities in the area of reading, compared with students struggling but unidentified. Results indicate principals, general education teachers, …

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Teachers Adapting Common Core Informational-Text Writing Instruction For Students With Mild To Moderate Disabilities, Diana Hawley

Doctoral Dissertations

With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, students must now become skilled at using different types of writing to help them critique text and process information. They also are required to write informational text. Informational-text writing is challenging for students with mild to moderate disabilities, including students with language-learning disabilities, who often struggle with aspects of language necessary for learning to read and write. These students show striking challenges with productivity, grammatical and spelling accuracy, and sentence complexity, with differences in performance by genre (Koutsoftas & Gray, 2012; Scott & Windsor, 2000; Troia, Lin, Cohen, & Monroe, 2011). …

How A Teacher Educator In The Field Of The Education Of Hearing-Impaired Children Provides Feedback To A Student Teacher, Hasan Gürgür

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The aim of this article was to investigate how an experienced teacher educator (TE) specialized in the education of hearing-impaired children provides feedback to a student teacher regarding a planned, one-to-one conversation activity. This case study was conducted at Anadolu University, Education and Research Center for Hearing-Impaired Children with the participation of a TE, a student teacher, and a hearing-impaired student. Based on the study results, main themes relating to the TE’s activities before, during, and after the conversation and his feedback were identified. The study findings were discussed in light of the current literature, and various recommendations were proposed.

The Perceptions Of Caucasian Female Elementary Teachers And The Overrepresentation Of African-American Males In Special Education, Thomas Seaberry

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There is a disproportionate amount of African-American males in special education programs. Several factors have been offered by researchers as to why this phenomenon continues to be a problem throughout the county. The purpose of this study was to understand how Caucasian female teachers' perceptions of African-American male students might influence their overrepresentation in special education. This qualitative study employed an ethnographic case study method, and relied primarily on a pilot study and teacher interviews to obtain data related to this phenomenon. Using this research design, the researcher established six themes related to the research phenomenon: (1) cultural discontinuity between …

The Effects Of Collaborative Strategic Reading On Informational Text Comprehension And Metacognitive Awareness Of Fifth Grade Students, Margaret Mccown

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examined the effects of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on informational text comprehension and metacognitive awareness of fifth grade students. This study tested the theories of metacognition and social cognition with a focus on self-regulation and self-efficacy. Participating students included a heterogeneous mix of regular education students, students with disabilities, and English learners (ELs). Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design, this study examined the effects of CSR on informational text comprehension using the Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI-5) and Georgia's Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). Metacognitive awareness was measured using the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI). Data …

The Use Of Graphing And An Effort And Achievement Rubric To Increase Students' Multiplication Fact Accuracy And Fluency, Joan Hackl

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of self-graphing and an effort and achievement rubric on increasing students' multiplication fact accuracy and fluency. The research design was a two-group pretest/posttest research design. Data was collected from student multiplication math fact quizzes. Students were given the same math fact quiz for a month before a new set of facts was introduced the next month. For each month, the first quiz of the month served as baseline data as no interventions were introduced for those quizzes. The second month of quizzes served as the self-graphing alone data, and the …

Professional Development And Teacher Perception Of Efficacy For Inclusion, Susan E. Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed for the purpose of quantitatively examining the significant elements of reform-based professional development and their relationship to teachers’ self-efficacies for inclusion. The theoretical frameworks for this study were drawn from Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy and social cognitive theory in addition to pre-existing research pertaining to professional development and teacher efficacy for inclusion.

A web based survey was developed and made available for voluntary participation to a total population of 385 elementary school teachers in one East Tennessee school district. Data were collected from 79 elementary school teachers in 14 of the district’s elementary schools.

Findings included no …

Parental Perceptions Of A Summer Esl Parent Institute: A Retrospective Case Study, John Scott Cascone

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Kit And Dick Schmoker Reading Center- By The Numbers, Guy Trainin, Amanda Hall, Britney Tonniges

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This is an infographic showing the activity at the UNL Reading Center since it's inception.

A Study Of West Virginia Elementary Special Education Teachers' Roles, Responsibilities, And Practices Within A Multitiered Instructional Support System: Implications For Policy And Practice, Linda M. Palenchar

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of the study was to provide a data-based description of West Virginia special education teachers’ roles, responsibilities, and practices relevant to their participation in selected components of the Response to Intervention (RTI) process. Special educators’ practices related to assessment, tiered instruction, decision making, and collaboration comprise the main components of study and were based on a conceptual framework developed by Hoover and Patton (2008). A researcher-developed survey, the Special Educator Response to Intervention Inventory (SERTII), was used to explore the extent and characteristics of special educators’ participation in RTI. The study population included all elementary special education teachers …

12 Museum Theorists At Play, Marian Howard, Lauren Appel, Nicole Ferrin, David Vining, Katherine Hillman, Marissa Corwin, Berry Stein, Nicole Keller, William Elliston, David Bowles, Tiffany Reedy, Kathryn Eliza Harris, Liat Olenick

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Introduction by Lauren Appel
1. Learning by Do-weyan, by Marian Howard, with Nicole Ferrin
2: Dewey Defines Himself and Education, by David Vining
3. Benjamin Ives Gilman: Arts in People’s Lives, by Katherine Hillman
4. John Cotton Dana: The Social Construction of Museums, by Marissa Corwin
5. Piaget in the Art Museum: Constructing Knowledge Through Active Engagement, by Berry Stein
6. Lev Vygotsky: The Social Aspects of Learning, by Nicole Keller
7. Paulo Freire: Literacy, Democracy, and Context, by Nicole Keller
8. Maxine Greene: Aesthetic Education, by Lauren Appel
9. Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligence Theory: A Practical Application of …

Preparing Elementary Teachers To Teach Students With Disabilities A Comparison Of Program Structures & Elements Across Teacher Preparation Institutions, Jessica Close

HIM 1990-2015

Students with disabilities have the right to the least restrictive environment (IDEA, 2004). Elementary teachers are teaching more of these students in the inclusive classroom because of this right. Elementary teachers are willing to take on this responsibility, but most feel they are not prepared to do so. In order to address this concern, elementary teacher preparation at the institution level must be addressed. This is a descriptive thesis which identifies and compares methods that different institutions across the country use to prepare teachers to teach students with disabilities. Institutions chosen for this thesis were recognized by either the U.S. …

Investigating The Effects Of Addition With Regrouping Strategy Instruction Among Elementary Students With Learning Disabilities, Christi Miller Carmack

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many students, specifically those with learning disabilities, struggle to master foundational computation skills such as addition with regrouping. With this in mind, the purpose of this research was to examine the effects of strategy instruction that involved the use of the concrete-representational-abstract teaching sequence on the addition with regrouping computation and word problem-solving skills of students with learning disabilities. This study involved the use of a multiple probe across participants design with two replications. The participants included nine second through sixth graders who had been identified as having a learning disability and were demonstrating mathematics difficulties. There were three females …

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

Investigating The Effects Of A Combined Problem-Solving Strategy For Students With Learning Difficulties In Mathematics, Dustin B. Mancl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many students, specifically those with learning difficulties in mathematics, struggle when presented with word problems to solve. With this in mind, the purpose of this research was to examine the effects of the READER Strategyon word problem performance of students with mathematics disabilities and students who are at-risk to fail in mathematics. There were two parts to this research. Part One was implemented using a single-subject design (i.e., multiple-probe across participants) and Part Two was implemented using a group design (i.e., 2 x 4 factorial design). The single-subject design included three participants identified as having mathematics disabilities. There were two …

Rap: A Reading Comprehension Strategy For Students With Learning Disabilities, Courtney D. Blume

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Students with learning disabilities frequently struggle with reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a paraphrasing cognitive strategy, RAP, on reading comprehension and the maintenance effects two months after treatment for students with learning disabilities. RAP was taught using the Strategic Intervention Model (SIM) developed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (Schumaker, Deshler, & Ellis, 1986). This study utilized a multiple baseline design across participants for three fourth grade students with learning disabilities from the Midwest. In addition to a learning disability, two of the students also had speech-language impairments …