Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Building Partnerships through Collaboration

Basics of Collaboration (any activity in which professionals work with someone else)

·         Voluntary – choice to form groups and who will be in group

·         Based on Parity – all individual contributions are equally valued

·         Requires a shared goal – everyone has same goal

·         Shared responsibility for key decisions – everyone has equal partners in the fundamental decision making

·         Shared accountability for outcomes

·         Shared resources – resources may include time, expertise, space, equipment, and other assets

·         Emergent – based on a belief in the value of share decision making, trust, and respect among participants

·         Reflect on your personal belief system

·         Refining interaction skills

·         Contributing to a supportive environment

Collaborative Services in Schools

·         Shared Problem Solving – process used by groups of professionals, sometimes including parents for identifying problems, generating potential solutions, selecting and implementing solutions, and evaluating the effectiveness of solutions

o   Steps:

1.       Discover a shared need

2.       Identify the problem

3.       Propose the solution

4.       Evaluate the ideas

5.       Plan specifics

6.       Implement the solution

7.       Evaluate the outcomes

·         Co-Teaching – when two or more educators share the instruction for a single group of students, typically in a single classroom setting

o   One Teach, One Observe

o   Station Teaching

o   Parallel Teaching Alternative Teaching

o   Teaming

o   One Teach, One assist

·         Working on a Team

o   Roles: classroom teacher, personal role, team role

o   Set task goals (business of the team) and maintenance goals (team’s status and functioning as a team)

·         Consultation – a specialized problem-solving process in which one professional who has particular expertise assists another professional (or parent) who needs the benefit of that expertise)

Working with Parents

·         Understanding Perspective of Family Members

o   You do not understand what it is like to be the parent of a child with a disability unless you too are the parent of such a child

o   Strive to recognize that the range of interaction you have with parents is influenced in part by the stresses they are experiencing, their prior dealings with school personnel, and their own beliefs about their child and her future

·         Parents’ Reactions to their child’s disability

o   Grief

o   Ambivalence

o   Optimism

o   Factors:

§  Intensity and complexity of disability

§  How the information about the disability is shared with them

§  Culture

§  Financial support

·         Collaborating with Parents

o   Home-School Communication

o   Parent Conferences

o   Parent Education

o   Parent Involvement

Working with Paraprofessionals

·         Understanding Relationship

o   They enjoy working with students and want to participate actively in that process

o   They complete their instructional assignments under the direction of a teacher who either has already taught the information or has decided what basic work needs to be completed

o   The teacher ahs a key role in setting expectations for a paraprofessional

·         Collaborating

o   Can collaboratively participate in shared problem solving about student needs, planning field trip details, and making decisions regarding how best to adapt information for a specific student

Outside Resources
The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice	http://cecp.air.org
My Education Lab	MyEducationLab.edu
The National Resource Center for Paraprofessionals (NRCP)	www.nrcpara.org

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Special Education Procedures and Services

Professionals in Special Education

·         General Education Teachers

o   Identify students with special needs serious enough to seek input

o   Provide day-to-day instruction

o   Collaborate with parents regarding student strengths and needs

o   Participate in writing IEPs as a member of the multidisciplinary team

o   Implement strategies and activities as part of a response to intervention procedure

·         Special Education Teachers

o   Consulting teacher, inclusion specialist/support facilitator, itinerant teacher, transition specialist

o   Support students by creating adapted materials, collaborating with general education teacher, working directly and separately with students who have disabilities, serve as coordinator for all the services any single student may receive

·         Other Specialists and Related Service Providers

o   School psychologist – responsibility for determining a student’s intellectual, academic, social, emotional, and/or behavioral function and designing strategies to address students’ academic and social or behavior problems

o   Counselors – assess students’ social and emotional functioning

o   Speech/Language Therapist

o   Social Workers – address social and emotional issues

o   Other – physical therapists, nurses, administrators, adaptive physical educators

·         Parents, Students and Advocates

o   Have the right to participate in virtually all aspects of their child’s educational program

How to decide whether a student need might be a disability

·         Analyze Unmet Needs

o   What are specific examples of unmet needs?

o   Is there a chronic pattern negatively affecting learning?

o   Are the unmet needs becoming more serious as time passes?

o   Is the student’s learning or behavior significantly different from that of classmates?

·         Communicate your observations and try your own interventions

o   Contact parents, try simple intervention, document the unmet need

How do students obtain special services?

·         Initial Consideration of Student Problems

o   Intervention Assistance Team – usually includes general education teachers, special service personnel, and an administrator

o   Response to Intervention (RtI) – an approach for the identification of learning disabilities based on whether student learning progress improve or fails to improve after the student receives increasingly intense, research-based interventions

·         Special education referral, assessment, eligibility, planning, and placement process

o   Parents must be involved in all aspects

o   Assessment

·         Decision Making for special services

o   Develop IEP

·         Monitoring special education services

o   Annual reviews, Three-year reevaluations, Additional reviews

o   Due process – the set of procedures outlined in the law for resolving disagreements between school district personnel and parents regarding students with disabilities

What is an Individualize Education Program (IEP)?

·         IEP – addresses all areas of student need, including accommodations to be made in the general education setting and the services and supports to be provided there

·         Required Components of an IEP

o   Present Level of Performance

o   Annual goals and short-term objectives

o   Extent of participation in general education

o   Service and modification needed

o   Behavior intervention plan

o   Date of initiation and frequency and duration of service and anticipated modifications

o   Strategies for evaluation

o   Transition plan – for students 16 years or older; description of strategies and services for ensuring that the students will be prepared to leave school for adult life

What services do students with disabilities receive?

·         Special education and related services

·         Student placement and educational environments

o   Regular classes

o   Resource Programs

o   Separate Classes

o   Separate Schools

o   Residential Facilities

o   Home and Hospital Settings

Outside Resources
MyEducationLab.com
Interventioncentral.org
Nichcy.org/Pages/Home.aspx

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – The Foundation for Educating Students with Special Needs

Definitions

·         Special Education – specially designed instruction provided by the school district or other local education agency that meets the unique needs of students identified as disabled according to federal and state eligibility criteria

·         Least Restrictive Environment – the setting as similar as possible to that for students without disabilities in which a students with a disability can be educated, with appropriate supports provided

o   Resource Room or Self-Contained class

·         Mainstreaming – placing students with disabilities in general education settings when they can meet traditional academic expectations with minimal assistance, or when those expectations are not relevant

·         Inclusive Practices – a professional belief that students with disabilities should be integrated into general education classrooms whether or not they can meet traditional curricular standards and should be full members of those classrooms

o   Physical, social, and instructional integration

History of Special Education

·          Development

o   Became widespread during 1920s and 1930s

o   1950s – programs available but students taught “manual skills” (weaving, bead stringing, etc)

o   1960s – segregated classes not most appropriate

·         Impact of Civil Rights Movement

o   Brown vs. BofE – equal educational opportunity

o   Section 504 – prevents discrimination against all individuals with disabilities in programs that receive federal funds, as do all public schools

o   Americans with Disabilities Act – protects all individuals with disabilities from discrimination, and it requires most employers to make reasonable accommodations for them

·         Legislative Basis

o   First Federal Special Education Legislation (1975) – Federal guidelines for special education and laying the foundation on which current special practice rests

o   Revisions and Refinements to SEL (1990) – law name change to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

o   Current SEL (2004) – further refinements in special education

o   No Child Left Behind Act (2001) – raising academic expectations

Importance of Inclusion Practices in Today’s Schools

·          Improving student outcomes

·         Respecting parent and student rights and views

·         Considering the complexities of inclusive practices

Who receives special education?

Federal Disability Term	Alternative Terms	Brief Description
Learning Disability (LD)	Specific learning disability	A disorder related to processing information that leads to difficulties in reading, writing, and computing (most common)
Speech or language impairment	Communication disorder (CD)	A disorder related to accurately producing the sounds of language or meaningfully using language to communicate
Mental retardation (MR)	Intellectual disability, cognitive impairment	Significant limitations in intellectual ability and adaptive behavior; occurs in a range of severity
Emotional disturbance (ED)	Behavior disorder (BD), emotional disability	Significant problems in the social-emotional area to a degree that learning is negatively affected
Autism	Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)	A disorder characterized by extraordinary difficulty in social responsiveness
Hearing Impairment	Deaf, hard of hearing (DHH)	A partial or complete loss of hearing
Visual impairment	Low vision, blind	A partial or complete loss of vision
Deaf-blindness	-	A simultaneous significant  hearing loss and significant vision loss
Orthopedic impairment (OI)	Physical disability	A significant physical limitation that impairs the ability to move or complete motor activities
Traumatic brain injury (TBI)	-	A medical condition denoting a serious brain injury that occurs as a result of accident or injury
Other health impairment (OHI)	-	A disease or health disorder so significant that it negatively affects learning (Cancer, sickle-cell anemia, diabetes)
Multiple disabilities	-	The simultaneous presence of two or more disabilities such that none can be identified as the primary disability
Developmental delay (DD)	-	A nonspecific disability category that states may choose to use as an alternative to specific disability labels for identifying students up to age 9 needing special education

Other Students with Special Needs

·         Students who are gifted or talented – students who demonstrate ability far above average in one or several areas

·         Students protected by Section 504 – not eligible to receive special education services but are entitled to protection thru Section 504 and receive specialized assistance because of their functional disabilities

·         Students at Risk – students whose characteristics, environment, or experiences make them more likely than other to fail in school (and they also may have disabilities)

Outside Resources
MyEducationLab.com
Inclusion.com
Familyvillage.wisc.edu/education/inclusion.html