Through a mixed-methods study, teacher education faculty members investigated the implementation of a new block of courses and an associated secondary clinical experience designed to prepare preservice secondary special educators. Seventy-three preservice candidates (a) completed then-and-now surveys assessing their confidence implementing 25…

"Teachers Teaching Teachers" ("T3") focuses on coaches' roles in the professional development of teachers. Each issue also explores the challenges and rewards that teacher leaders encounter. This issue includes: (1) Districts Harness the Expertise of Classroom Teachers (Valerie von Frank); (2) Tool: Measuring Collaborative…

Any given year, general and special education teachers may find themselves managing and supervising one or more paraprofessionals within their classrooms. Paraprofessionals represent a growing and important segment of personnel used to provide support for students with severe learning or behavioral needs in self-contained and inclusive settings.…

Adolescents with learning disabilities are not educated in a vacuum. Successful programming for these students involves many school professionals working together to integrate their programs for the benefit of students with learning disabilities. Collaborative teaming probably can best be described as an attitude rather than a certain way of…

Discussions with exemplary Colorado general and special education coteachers led to development of three metaphors for the coteaching process: (1) yin and yang (the uniqueness and unity of the two teachers); (2) the dance (the rhythm, fluidity, and automaticity of effective collaboration); and (3) the particle and the stream (the thriving of…

The collaborative teaching/learning model encompasses peer and cross age tutoring, as well as team teaching, consulting, and professional pairing on the part of teachers, and focuses on learning as a cooperative rather than competitive process for nondisabled and disabled students. Rewards accrue to the tutee (such as increased individualized…

Many middle schools use teaming or other models to create smaller teaching and learning units. Too often, schools align these models with characteristics advocated in the literature, rather than focusing on collaborative work environments' effects on teachers' and students' lives. These structures' true value lies in the collaborative work…

Two university educators use reflective dialogue to discuss processes they went through in understanding the political nature and assumptions of their own pedagogical practices as they searched for methods which would promote teacher empowerment and actively involve students in shaping course curriculum for a language arts class they team taught.…

Adolescents with learning disabilities are not educated in a vacuum. Successful programming for these students involves many school professionals working together to integrate their programs for the benefit of students with learning disabilities. Collaborative teaming probably can best be described as an attitude rather than a certain way of…