Co-teaching has developed as a successful instructional strategy to support various learning requirements and differentiation, especially as more students with disabilities are integrated into general education classrooms. To establish efficacious co-teaching partnerships, it is important to surmount some interpersonal barriers and apply…

In the United States, educators are tasked with responding to the increased needs of diverse K-12 students in mainstream classrooms through co-teaching roles that require collaborative partnerships. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to understand how students in teacher preparation programs within the United States describe the…

Collaborative teaching may provide classroom support, professional development, and mentoring for teachers (Gallo-Fox & Scantlebury, 2016; Guise et al., 2017; Friend et al., 2015; Rytivaara et al., 2019). Recent scholarship in music education has indicated that collaborative teaching may also provide a more holistic approach to student teacher…

This study aimed to investigate and improve collaborative educational leadership to eliminate the barriers created by the lack of inclusive pedagogy and the deficit approaches to instructing students with disabilities, which together limit access to the general education curriculum and classroom in school districts in the Northeast. The Cycle 1…

The purpose of this quantitative ex post-facto study was to determine if differences exist in 4th-grade students' reading and math learning outcomes between co-taught classrooms and traditional classrooms in a Florida public school district. The study was conducted with archival data from the school district's fall and winter progress monitoring…

Knowledge development, application, and refinement are essential parts of students' reading. One way to observe how students use their knowledge as they read is through talk. Studies routinely indicate that though reading is a social endeavor, teachers spend most of the allotted instructional time talking or using discourse patterns that do not…

This dissertation presents the results from a mixed methods study designed to understand what beliefs urban middle school general education teachers hold when it comes to supporting students with disabilities (SWDs) in an inclusion classroom including classrooms that implement the integrated co-teaching (ICT) model. The quantitative portion of…

The population in the United States continues to become more diverse each year. Our education system is not designed to support students that do not have English as a first language. The population of multilingual learners are falling behind their English Proficient peers. Inadequate teacher training and program design are contributing factors as…

Many elementary schools are shifting from traditional pull-out service models to push-in approaches, where multilingual learners collaborate with their English-only peers. However, research emphasizes the need for further investigation into implementing collaboration between elementary teachers and English Language Development (ELD) Specialists.…

The Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) is one of the six elements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The practice, definition, and intention have been debated throughout its history. This study focuses on the elementary school educators' understanding and perspectives on how LRE affects how they support students with…

Mathematical learning is supported by caring teaching, which is complex, political work particularly for white teachers in racially diverse classrooms. To investigate white teachers' understandings of care and its influence on mathematics instruction, I conducted a six-month qualitative study in two racially diverse ninth-grade Algebra 1…

Students with disabilities have progressed in achievement compared to their general education peers, but learning gaps remain. The problem is elementary and secondary school students with disabilities have achievement gaps despite receiving specially designed instruction through an individualized education program by an intervention specialist in…

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of elementary teachers in inclusion classrooms. The theory which guided this study was Bandura's (2006) social cognitive theory as it related to the lived experiences of teacher preparedness for teaching in inclusion classrooms. Successful…

There is not a great body of research that exists exploring literacy self-efficacy perceptions of teachers through a qualitative lens, and it was noted that the voices of teachers were missing in literacy self-efficacy research. This qualitative study investigates teachers' perceptions about their literacy self-efficacy, as well as what factors…

This phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of eleven current or former remote team leaders from five different job sectors, including Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), medical, insurance and personal finance, international aid, and academia. Analysis of the data gained through interviews identified five…