COLLABORATION BY DESIGN: INTEGRATING CORE PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT AND SPECIAL EDUCATION METHODS COURSES IN A PRESERVICE SECONDARY EDUCATION PROGRAM

In this article the authors describe a collaboratively designed secondary teacher education program focused on the preparation of preservice general education teachers to work effectively with children who have diverse learning needs in inclusive classrooms. The focus of the article is on the collaborative development and initial evaluation of the program by secondary teacher education faculty and special education faculty. The instructional design emphasized a co-teaching model where principles of Universal Design for Learning and instructional adaptation were integrated and assessed in multiple courses by collaborating university faculty. Data from the initial evaluation included student teaching portfolios, formal teacher observations, and 6th- through 12th-grade student assessments. The data suggest that preservice teachers appropriately used strategies for adapting their instruction to meet the needs of students with exceptionalities.     

Reliability and Preliminary Use of a Rubric to Assess Pre-Kindergarten Teachers’ Video Uses

The presence and use of new technologies in early childhood settings are rapidly increasing. One technology tool used in early childhood settings is monthly DVD classroom newsletters, yet there is a lack of assessments to support pre-kindergarten teachers’ uses of such DVD newsletter technology—in general and in specific. The present study helps to fill this gap by developing and testing a revised rubric to evaluate the quality of monthly DVD classroom newsletters. Results indicate that the revised Monthly DVD Classroom Newsletter-Rubric exhibited good overall reliability. We suggest that the use of a rubric to assess pre-kindergarten teacher-created monthly DVD classroom newsletters supports teachers’ decision making about technology uses and professional development.     

A Developmental Approach to Graduate Education Review: A New Take on a Traditional Process

In this article we describe the Graduate Review and Improvement Process (GRIP), an innovative evaluation process that makes student input central, now beginning its fifth year of implementation at the University of Minnesota. We begin by contrasting GRIP with traditional graduate program review, and we then explain the conceptual underpinnings of action research and developmental evaluation. We next explain how the process began and evolved from 2011 to the present, including discussion of the perceived benefits that participants reported. The article concludes with four challenges to this process: resources, changing leadership, turnover, and faculty engagement.