Special education and general education preservice teachers’ co-teaching experiences: a comparative synthesis of qualitative research

Co-teaching is commonly used to support students with disabilities in inclusive educational settings. However, there is often a gap between the potential effectiveness of co-teaching and actual classroom practice. This study examined preservice teachers’ co-teaching experiences to better understand this gap to identify potential practices for improving teacher training and service delivery. A review of 11 studies revealed that both special education and general education preservice teachers believed that co-teaching practices provided them opportunities to communicate and work collaboratively. Both groups agreed on the significant impact of personality in co-teaching as well as challenges in implementing co-teaching. Furthermore, special education preservice teachers noted that they lacked content knowledge, whereas general education preservice teachers thought they needed more training in the provision of accommodations and modifications. Study limitations, areas for future research, and implications for preservice teacher preparation are discussed.     

Adjustment scales for preschool intervention: Extending validity and relevance across multiple perspectives

A series of studies extended psychometric research on the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI). The ASPI is a multidimensional measure of preschool emotional and behavioral adjustment for use within formal early childhood educational programs. These studies used a multiple method, multisource approach to provide additional evidence for the reliability and validity of the ASPI. Findings documented inter‐rater reliability of the ASPI across key informants within early childhood educational programs—teachers and teacher assistants. Findings supported concurrent validity of the ASPI with direct observations of preschool classroom adjustment problems and the developmentally salient constructs of temperament and emotion regulation. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 725–736, 2004.     

The virtual class is coming

A long term action research programme initiated in 1987 by the Department of Communication Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, is seeking to develop a virtual class. The virtual class is regarded as the critical component of a new educational paradigm for an information society. The action research programme takes the form of a spiral of cyclical attempts to create a virtual class. Each attempt is seen as a syntagmatic episode of a virtual class paradigm attempted in the light of an existing paradigm. The results of each syntagmatic episode are seen as influencing the further development of the paradigm.     

The Representation of Extendedness in Children''s Drawings of Sticks and Discs

Piaget has suggested that the reason why children find it difficult to draw foreshortened views is because they lack any conscious awareness of their own viewpoint. Instead, it is proposed that most of these difficulties derive from the constraints of drawing as a representational system: for example, although a round region shows a true view of a foreshortened stick, it is unsatisfactory as a representation. To test between these alternative proposals, 4-, 7-, and 12-year-olds were asked to draw sticks and discs in foreshortened and nonforeshortened positions. As predicted, fewer 7- and 12-year-olds used a round region to represent a foreshortened stick, compared with children of the same age who used a long region to represent a foreshortened disc. In addition, the 12-year-olds used a different and more effective denotation system compared with the 7-year-olds.     

Classroom dialogue and science achievement

Conclusion This study indicates the responsibility that rests with the teacher in an activity-oriented classroom as far as providing the structural support necessary for effective learning (Note 4). The teacher is acting as a “surrogate textbook”. Using their own organization of knowledge-albiet wrong or incomplete-teachers provide the structure that is lacking. As the results indicate, some teachers can do this better than others. A challenge for teachers and teacher educators is to devise ways to improving the structure and sequencing of classroom dialogue. The TSA Technique could help here in two ways. It allows a sophisticated analysis of dialogue, indicating specific areas of weakness which could then be remedied by appropriate training. A similar approach has been used successfully with text material to rewrite and restructure deficient segments (Clarke; 1973). It could also be used to produce ideal “templates” of various models of teaching (e.g. Brady; 1985) for use as a guide for lesson planning.