Building Successful Collaborative Practices Among Early Childhood Educators: Understanding the Role of Educator Preparation Programs

This qualitative case study was designed to explore the role of early childhood education and early childhood special education personnel preparation programs in providing training in effective professional collaboration knowledge and skills to preservice early childhood professionals. Effective collaboration practices are important processes that contribute to the creation of successful inclusion programs. Preparing preservice educators to demonstrate effective collaboration skills is critical to promoting positive attitudes and initiating successful collaboration practices that support inclusion in preschools. The evidence was collected through different sources such as interviews with program faculty and undergraduate students, reviews of course documents, and observations of classes. The data provided in-depth information regarding the extent that the two programs prepare their pre-service teachers to develop effective collaboration skills. The experiences of the program faculty and students toward collaboration and teaming were positive and supportive in general. The program faculty and students identified several challenges in teaching and learning about professional collaboration and provided multiple recommendations to improve training of preservice teachers in professional collaboration practices. Furthermore, the findings of the study regarding the methods of training in collaboration and teaming indicated a need to increase applied collaboration skills through coursework, field experiences, and practica. Providing professional collaboration knowledge with limited opportunities to practice collaboration skills was insufficient to prepare preservice early childhood teachers to be effective collaborators with other professionals in inclusive preschools. In addition, the findings highlighted similarities and differences between the early childhood education program and the early childhood special education program regarding training in collaboration. The findings of this study led to recommendations for policy, personnel preparation practices, and future research in order to prepare early childhood professionals to collaborate with other education professionals to enhance the quality of inclusive programs in early childhood settings

Addressing barriers to learning: In the classroom and schoolwide.

IntroductionPublic education is at a crossroads. Moving in new directions is imperative. Just tweaking and tinkering with old ideas is a recipe for disaster.Continuing challenges confronting public education highlight why moving school improvement policy and practice in new directions is imperative. With a view to enhancing graduation rates and successful transitions to post-secondary opportunities and well-being, pressing challenges include:Increasing equity of opportunity for every student to succeed, narrowing the achievement gap, and countering the school to prison pipeline Reducing unnecessary referrals for special assistance and special education; Improving school climate and retaining good teachers Reducing the number of low performing schools.As education leaders well know, meeting these challenges requires making sustainable progress inimproving supports for specific subgroups (e.g., English Learners, immigrant newcomers, lagging minorities, homeless students, students with disabilities) increasing the number of disconnected students who re-engage in classroom learning and thus improving attendance, reducing disruptive behaviors (e.g., including bullying and sexual harassment), and decreasing suspensions and dropouts increasing family and community engagement with schools responding effectively when schools experience crises events and preventing crises whenever possible.In some schools, continuous progress related to these concerns is being made. For many districts, however, sustainable progress remains elusive – and will continue to be so as long as the focus of school improvement policy and practice is mainly on improving instruction. Efforts to expand the use of instructional technology, develop new curriculum standards, make teachers more accountable, and improve teacher preparation and licensing all have merit; but they are insufficient for addressing the many everyday barriers to learning and teaching that interfere with effective student engagement in classroom instruction.Most policy makers and administrators know that good instruction delivered by highly qualified teachers cannot ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed at school.Even the best teacher can’t do the job alone. Teachers need student and learning supports in the classroom and schoolwide in order to personalize instruction and provide special assistance when students manifest learning, behavior, and emotional problems. Unfortunately, school improvement plans continue to give short shrift to these critical matters.We recognize, as did a Carnegie Task Force on Education, that school systems are not responsible for meeting every need of their students. But as the task force stressed: when the need directly affects learning, the school must meet the challenge.The most pressing challenge is to enhance equity of opportunity by fundamentally improving how schools address barriers to learning and teaching. The future of public education depends on moving in new directions to accomplish this.Now is the time to fundamentally transform how schools address factors that keep too many students from doing well at school. And while transformation is never easy, pioneering work across the country is showing the way. Trailblazers are redeploying existing funds allocated for addressing barriers to learning and weaving these together with the invaluable resources that can be garnered by collaboration with other agencies and with community stakeholders, family members, and students themselves.The first step in moving forward is to escape old ideas. The second step is to incorporate a new vision in school improvement planning for addressing barriers to learning and teaching and re-engaging disconnected students. Our analyses envision a plan that designs and develops a unified, comprehensive, and equitable system of student and learning supports. The third step is to develop a strategic plan for systemic change, scale-up, and sustainability.This book highlights each of these matters. We invite you to join us in the quest to enhance equity of opportunity for all students to succeed at school and beyond. And we look forward to hearing from you about moving schools forward to make the rhetoric of the Every Student Succeeds Act a reality

Ready for Tomorrow: Demand-Side Emerging Skills for the 21st Century

As part of the Ready for the Job demand-side skill assessment, the Heldrich Center explored emerging work skills that will affect New Jersey's workforce in the next three to five years. The Heldrich Center identified five specific areas likely to generate new skill demands: biotechnology, security, e-learning, e-commerce, and food/agribusiness. This report explores the study's findings and offers recommendations for improving education and training in New Jersey

Teaming Multi-level Classes on Industry Projects

For the past few years we experimented with teaming students from a sophomore-level class and a senior-level class to work on industry projects. The classes are “work design” and “facilities design.” Projects are selected to require the application of knowledge from both disciplines. In addition, the projects are selected from small local companies. The intent of this paper is to describe the benefits and difficulties associated with this methodology. While specific classes in this experience are typical of an industrial engineering curriculum, the lessons learned and benefits could translate to other disciplines

A Team Science Training Approach to Enhance Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Communication Science and Disorders Programs

This paper aims to describe the core components of a cross-disciplinary team science training offered in a Communication Science and Disorders (CSD) program delivered to 17 doctoral scholars in CSD, education, special education, psychology, and social work. The team science training model is offered as one approach to consider in preparing pre-service leaders and faculty in CSD to engage in scientific collaboration with other researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds. In addition to an overview of training, the paper includes preliminary data on participants\u27 perceptions of team science training and recommendations for future offerings

Improving School Improvement

PREFACEIn opening this volume, you might be thinking:Is another book on school improvement really needed?Clearly our answer is yes. Our analyses of prevailing school improvement legislation, planning, and literature indicates fundamental deficiencies, especially with respect to enhancing equity of opportunity and closing the achievement gap.Here is what our work uniquely brings to policy and planning tables:(1) An expanded framework for school improvement – We highlight that moving from a two- to a three-component policy and practice framework is essential for closing the opportunity and achievement gaps. (That is, expanding from focusing primarily on instruction and management/government concerns by establishing a third primary component to improve how schools address barriers to learning and teaching.)(2) An emphasis on integrating a deep understanding of motivation – We underscore that concerns about engagement, management of behavior, school climate, equity of opportunity, and student outcomes require an up-to-date grasp of motivation and especially intrinsic motivation.(3) Clarification of the nature and scope of personalized teaching – We define personalization as the process of matching learner motivation and capabilities and stress that it is the learner's perception that determines whether the match is a good one.(4) A reframing of remediation and special education – We formulate these processes as personalized special assistance that is applied in and out of classrooms and practiced in a sequential and hierarchical manner.(5) A prototype for transforming student and learning supports – We provide a framework for a unified, comprehensive, and equitable system designed to address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students and families.(6) A reworking of the leadership structure for whole school improvement --We outline how the operational infrastructure can and must be realigned in keeping with a three component school improvement framework.(7) A systemic approach to enhancing school-community collaboration – We delineate a leadership role for schools in outreaching to communities in order to work on shared concerns through a formal collaborative operational infrastructure that enables weaving together resources to advance the work.(8) An expanded framework for school accountability – We reframe school accountability to ensure a balanced approach that accounts for a shift to a three component school improvement policy.(9) Guidance for substantive, scalable, and sustainable systemic changes –We frame mechanisms and discuss lessons learned related to facilitating fundamental systemic changes and replicating and sustaining them across a district.The frameworks and practices presented are based on our many years of work in schools and from efforts to enhance school-community collaboration. We incorporate insights from various theories and the large body of relevant research and from lessons learned and shared by many school leaders and staff who strive everyday to do their best for children.Our emphasis on new directions in no way is meant to demean current efforts. We know that the demands placed on those working in schools go well beyond what anyone should be asked to do. Given the current working conditions in many schools, our intent is to help make the hard work generate better results. To this end, we highlight new directions and systemic pathways for improving school outcomes.Some of what we propose is difficult to accomplish. Hopefully, the fact that there are schools, districts, and state agencies already trailblazing the way will engender a sense of hope and encouragement to those committed to innovation.It will be obvious that our work owes much to many. We are especially grateful to those who are pioneering major systemic changes across the country. These leaders and so many in the field have generously offered their insights and wisdom. And, of course, we are indebted to hundreds of scholars whose research and writing is a shared treasure. As always, we take this opportunity to thank Perry Nelson and the host of graduate and undergraduate students at UCLA who contribute so much to our work each day, and to the many young people and their families who continue to teach us all.Respectfully submitted for your consideration,Howard Adelman & Linda Taylo

School-based service delivery models for students with exceptionalities: Stakeholders\u27 perceptions of effectiveness.

This study investigated the use of school-based service delivery models for students with exceptionalities and the perceptions of their effectiveness by key stakeholders: principals and vice-principals, classroom teachers, and special education teachers. There were 260 participants in this study; 29 administrators, 164 classroom teachers, and 67 special education teachers. An electronic survey was constructed and access to this survey was made available to the participants via their work intranet system. The survey solicited information using both quantitative and qualitative measures regarding participant demographics, the use of school-based teams, and perceptions of effective special education practices. In addition, two senior administrators from the school board were interviewed. There were significant differences between the groups in this study regarding the use of school-based teams, collaboration between special educators and classroom teachers, administrative support, and student success. Trends resulting from this study indicated a need to remove barriers to successful collaboration, that more human, financial, and material supports be made available, that greater options for programming and placements for exceptional students need to be available, that more training for classroom teachers is needed, and that formal school-based teams need to be implemented more widely to maximize effectiveness of special education services to students with exceptionalities.Dept. of Education. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .B68. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0052. Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

Enhancing Faculty Competency in Lean Thinking Bodies of Knowledge

The Lean Aerospace Initiative’s (LAI) Educational Network (EdNet) established in 2002 is comprised of 32 universities who share a common interest to collaborate on developing and deploying curriculum for teaching lean six sigma fundamentals. Supported by a small staff centered at MIT, collaborating faculty have developed a week-long LAI Lean Academy® course, and delivered it to multiple audiences on-campus and in industry and government. The topics of the course map to many CDIO syllabus topics, and the pedagogy and assessment methods have borrowed on the CDIO knowledge base. This paper reports on this undertaking and on the extent to which it has contributed to developing faculty competency for teaching Lean Thinking in engineering and management. Results from this study reveal that instructors have significantly improved their competency to teach Lean Thinking during their affiliation with the LAI EdNet. On average, the instructors’ proficiency in twelve Lean Enterprise knowledge areas has increased a full level, from 3.2 to 4.2, on the CDIO Syllabus MIT Activity Based Proficiency Scale. The instructors report that collaboration on conceiving, developing and implementing the curriculum has been the most valuable EdNet activity for increasing their competency