Teaching students with severe disabilities is a complex endeavor, and the skills and qualities of... more Teaching students with severe disabilities is a complex endeavor, and the skills and qualities of expert teachers for students with severe disabilities are not well understood. A lack of understanding about the unique roles and expertise of teachers of students with severe disabilities can influence the quality of education students with severe disabilities receive and can also affect teacher preparation, development, and evaluation. In this qualitative study, the authors interviewed 11 teachers of students with severe disabilities identified as expert teachers about their perceptions of expertise in relationship to teaching students with severe disabilities. The findings suggest that expert teachers of students with severe disabilities were perceived to demonstrate four core skills and four core qualities that are evident in their actions inside and outside of their classrooms. The four skills identified are (a) advocacy, (b) systematic instruction and academics, (c) individualization and adaptation, and (d) collegial relationships. The four qualities identified are (a) high expectations, (b) positivity, (c) flexibility and creativity, and (d) continual improvement. Implications for research, practice, and teacher evaluation are discussed.
School administrators play an important role in shaping teaching and learning. However, very litt... more School administrators play an important role in shaping teaching and learning. However, very little is known regarding how school administrators perceive instruction for students with severe disabilities and how those perceptions shape expectations and visions for instruction. Semistructured interviews were used to interview 12 administrators responsible for evaluating teachers of students with severe disabilities across a variety of educational settings. The interviews were designed to ascertain administrators' perceptions about teachers' expertise and their ideal vision of instruction for students with severe disabilities. Findings highlight administrators' varying visions of instruction, which reveal the ways these visions might influence their expectations for teachers and students. Implications for inclusion and instructional practices are discussed.
This project identifies some difficulties when analyzing single-case data and showcases a new met... more This project identifies some difficulties when analyzing single-case data and showcases a new method, dynamic multilevel analysis (DMA). We re-analyze a published, meta-analysis of single-case interventions for participants with autism. Analytic difficulties include missing data, nested data, baseline trends, time periods, recency effects, many hypotheses' false positives, interactions among explanatory variables, indirect effects (including false negatives), and sampling errors. Furthermore, non-overlapping analyses can yield contested results, overvalue data near overlap boundaries, lose statistical power, and lack estimates of explained variance or unexplained residuals. To address these difficulties, DMA integrates several methods, including multilevel and time-series analyses. DMA re-analysis not only showed robust intervention effects, but also time-, outcome-, and intervention component-specific effects. Moreover, DMA informs the suitability of time hypotheses or meta-ana...
Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 2014
Given recent increased attention to teacher evaluation, it is imperative to understand the expert... more Given recent increased attention to teacher evaluation, it is imperative to understand the expertise teachers need to educate students with severe disabilities. In this grounded theory study, the authors interviewed nine special education faculty who specialize in severe disabilities about the job-related skills and qualities exhibited by expert teachers of students with severe disabilities. The results indicate that in addition to systematic and student-centered instruction, expert teachers of students with severe disabilities are guided by a set of non-negotiable principles regarding inclusion and the dignity and value of students with severe disabilities. Implications for teacher preparation and evaluation are discussed.
Teaching students with severe disabilities is a complex endeavor, and the skills and qualities of... more Teaching students with severe disabilities is a complex endeavor, and the skills and qualities of expert teachers for students with severe disabilities are not well understood. A lack of understanding about the unique roles and expertise of teachers of students with severe disabilities can influence the quality of education students with severe disabilities receive and can also affect teacher preparation, development, and evaluation. In this qualitative study, the authors interviewed 11 teachers of students with severe disabilities identified as expert teachers about their perceptions of expertise in relationship to teaching students with severe disabilities. The findings suggest that expert teachers of students with severe disabilities were perceived to demonstrate four core skills and four core qualities that are evident in their actions inside and outside of their classrooms. The four skills identified are (a) advocacy, (b) systematic instruction and academics, (c) individualization and adaptation, and (d) collegial relationships. The four qualities identified are (a) high expectations, (b) positivity, (c) flexibility and creativity, and (d) continual improvement. Implications for research, practice, and teacher evaluation are discussed.
School administrators play an important role in shaping teaching and learning. However, very litt... more School administrators play an important role in shaping teaching and learning. However, very little is known regarding how school administrators perceive instruction for students with severe disabilities and how those perceptions shape expectations and visions for instruction. Semistructured interviews were used to interview 12 administrators responsible for evaluating teachers of students with severe disabilities across a variety of educational settings. The interviews were designed to ascertain administrators' perceptions about teachers' expertise and their ideal vision of instruction for students with severe disabilities. Findings highlight administrators' varying visions of instruction, which reveal the ways these visions might influence their expectations for teachers and students. Implications for inclusion and instructional practices are discussed.
This project identifies some difficulties when analyzing single-case data and showcases a new met... more This project identifies some difficulties when analyzing single-case data and showcases a new method, dynamic multilevel analysis (DMA). We re-analyze a published, meta-analysis of single-case interventions for participants with autism. Analytic difficulties include missing data, nested data, baseline trends, time periods, recency effects, many hypotheses' false positives, interactions among explanatory variables, indirect effects (including false negatives), and sampling errors. Furthermore, non-overlapping analyses can yield contested results, overvalue data near overlap boundaries, lose statistical power, and lack estimates of explained variance or unexplained residuals. To address these difficulties, DMA integrates several methods, including multilevel and time-series analyses. DMA re-analysis not only showed robust intervention effects, but also time-, outcome-, and intervention component-specific effects. Moreover, DMA informs the suitability of time hypotheses or meta-ana...
Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 2014
Given recent increased attention to teacher evaluation, it is imperative to understand the expert... more Given recent increased attention to teacher evaluation, it is imperative to understand the expertise teachers need to educate students with severe disabilities. In this grounded theory study, the authors interviewed nine special education faculty who specialize in severe disabilities about the job-related skills and qualities exhibited by expert teachers of students with severe disabilities. The results indicate that in addition to systematic and student-centered instruction, expert teachers of students with severe disabilities are guided by a set of non-negotiable principles regarding inclusion and the dignity and value of students with severe disabilities. Implications for teacher preparation and evaluation are discussed.
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