High-Leverage Practices and Teacher Preparation in Special Education. Practice Review. CEEDAR Document No. PR-1.

Overview & Synopsis

Poor outcomes for students with disabilities and others who academically lag behind their peers (e.g., those from high-poverty backgrounds) place pressure on educators to produce learner-ready teachers with the necessary skills to demonstrably improve achievement outcomes for all students (Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation [CAEP], 2013b; Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2012). Prominent teacher educators in general education (Ball & Forzani, 2011; Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009; Lampert, 2010; McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanaugh, 2013; Windschitl, Thompson, Braaten, & Stroupe, 2012) have called their colleagues to action by arguing the need for teacher education to more deliberately focus on instructional practice and develop teacher education programs that directly address this goal. These professionals center teacher education on what teachers do by identifying a set of high-leverage classroom practices that all teachers must learn (i.e., those that are frequently used in classrooms and have been shown to improve student outcomes) and developing practice-based teacher education programs that systematically train pre-service teachers to use these practices in classroom settings (Grossman et al., 2009). It is important to note that some special education teacher education researchers have focused on the need to improve instructional practice for quite some time (e.g., Alexander, Lignugaris/Kraft, & Forbush, 2007; Goe & Coggshall, 2007; Maheady, Jabot, Rey, & Michielli-Pendl, 2007; Scheeler, McAfee, Ruhl, & Lee, 2006; Spear-Swerling, 2009); however, the teacher education community in special education has not actively engaged in the movement to identify high-leverage practices (HLPs) and develop practice-based programs to ensure that pre-service teachers learn to use these practices. The intention for this paper is to provide a general overview of recent changes in teacher education programs to produce classroom-ready teachers by using HLPs as the core curriculum for these practice-based programs (e.g., Grossman et al., 2009; McDonald et al., 2013; Windschitl et al., 2012). In this paper, the authors first address recent developments in program accreditation and teacher education that provide a rationale for these changes. The authors then describe an emerging approach to teacher education centered in classroom practice and built around a curriculum of HLPs that all teachers should learn to use before entering the classroom. The authors follow with a description of an HLP that is used across disciplines by general educators and a description of an HLP considered important for all special education teachers. The authors conclude with a brief discussion of several key challenges related to the use of HLPs as the core curriculum for teacher preparation in special education.