special education

Two Virginia Department of Education grants will help prepare special education teachers

Colleen Rich — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:30:28 +0000

Two Virginia Department of Education grants will help prepare special education teachers Colleen Rich Mon, 01/22/2024 - 12:30

Two new Virginia Department of Education grants to ��AV’s School of Education promise to facilitate a pipeline of well-qualified special education teachers in the commonwealth.

Kelley Regan. Photo by the Office of University Branding

Kelley Regan, a professor in Mason’s Special Education Program, was awarded funding to support two initiatives.

“Although these are two separate awards, they both address the preparation of provisionally licensed special education teachers serving students who access the general education curriculum,” said Regan. “One award provides these teachers with a tuition stipend, and the second award focuses on coaching their development as special educators.”

Working with Regan as co-principal Investigators on one of these projects, Traineeships for Education of Special Education Personnel (Special Education-General Curriculum K-12), are Mason faculty members Pam Baker, Margaret (Peggy) Weiss, and Kristen O’Brien, all associate professors in the Special Education Program.

The goal of this grant is to maintain and expand Mason’s Cohort Outreach Program, which provides high-quality special education teacher training for employed Virginia teachers. If a school division has at least 20 employed individuals who are provisionally licensed and need to complete their Special Education: General Curriculum K-12 five-year, renewable state license, the individuals are provided a 25% discount per 3-credit class. The state grant provides teachers in these cohorts with a tuition stipend to complete a 3-credit licensure course during any single semester.

Pam Baker. Photo by Office of University Branding

The course delivery modes vary, and the Mason team collaborates with division staff and the special education advisors to support the coordination and recruitment of cohort members.

“We have had a long-standing partnership with our district partners, delivering more than 110 cohorts,” said Baker, who serves as division director of special education and disability research and the outreach program coordinator at Mason. “Support from the Virginia Department of Education for our students makes an incredible difference in how accessible our programs continue to be.”

Regan, Baker, and Weiss are also co-principal investigators on the second project titled Traineeships for Special Education Personnel: A Dynamic Coaching Outreach Program in Special Education: General Curriculum, also known as DCOP. The award supports the School of Education’s teaching internship course (EDSE 783) for provisionally licensed teachers in the cohorts.

Margaret Weiss. Photo by Office of University Branding

This grant focuses on using technology to provide provisionally licensed teachers with timely and relevant performance-based feedback while in the classroom. It also facilitates a more dynamic coaching experience during the required 10-week internship of provisionally licensed teachers enrolled in Mason’s general curriculum (K-12) licensure program.

Weiss provided an overview of the different technologies that have been integrated into this project. “We call it ‘eCoaching’ where we use email, Zoom, video capture, and bug-in-ear technology to provide delayed and immediate feedback to our students as they are teaching,” Weiss said. “It has been a great success. Our newest eCoaches value this model of supervision.”

As the program advancement liaison in the school’s Division of Special Education, O’Brien orients cohort students to their internship, supports the onboarding of university supervisors, and works with the research team to expand the eCoaching model.

Kristen O'Brien. Photo by Office of University Branding

“During the internship, the teachers receive mentoring, coaching, and supervision from an on-site experienced special education teacher and a [Mason] faculty supervisor,” said O’Brien. “In 2023, 48 provisionally licensed teachers completed on-the-job internships. Each semester, 10 to 15 faculty members supervise these internships.”

Regan said the financial support provided by this award has allowed the research team to develop a flexible model of eCoaching and a series of professional development modules on eCoaching with built-in measures of fidelity. The team is conducting research to better understand the role of the coach and how eCoaching’s professional development influences their supervisory practice.

Regan believes that the eCoaching design has the potential for more widespread use in the future. “Not all on-the-job internships use eCoaching at this time, but the research team is piloting the model, and we are encouraged by the data outcomes so far,” she said.

According to Regan, the faculty involved in these projects have taught courses in the cohort outreach model and both grant initiatives closely align with their research interests in providing high-quality teacher preparation, which aligns with Mason’s strategic goal of meeting workforce demands.

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K-12 Partnerships

Mason professors promote technology-based coaching method for special education teachers

Colleen Rich — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 17:26:17 +0000

Mason professors promote technology-based coaching method for special education teachers Colleen Rich Mon, 03/29/2021 - 13:26

Photo by Getty Images

In the past few years, ��AV professors Margaret Weiss and Kelley Regan have become experts in a technology-based coaching method aimed specifically at helping special education teachers get feedback in real time.

The practice, called Bug-in-Ear (BIE) or eCoaching, allows a coach to observe special education teachers or teachers-in-training as they work with students, then give real-time feedback through a Bluetooth earpiece. The earpiece is synced with a device, such as a laptop or phone, and the coach can watch remotely, from home or an office, for example. While relatively simple technology-wise, BIE coaching is not widely used in teacher preparation programs, said Regan, academic program coordinator for Special Education in Mason’s College of Education and Human Development.

“It’s more powerful to have someone coaching you while you are in practice, rather than talking about it later,” said Regan. “Coaching a special education teacher while teaching in real-time allows that person to get immediate feedback and change what they are doing right away. It can also mean providing them with positive feedback right away or helping them think of an alternative way to approach their students.”

Another benefit to the BIE coaching is that a classroom situation isn’t interrupted by someone new coming into the classroom to observe, said Weiss.

“It’s intrusive to have someone new in the classroom, and this way the coach can be sitting remotely, observing through a screen,” said Weiss, an associate professor in special education. “And post-COVID, it may also be a benefit to have fewer people in a classroom.”

Mason has used BIE coaching in observing its students during their teaching internships. Each wireless earpiece costs between $15 and $35, and Mason has about 25 devices in stock for its student teachers. Student teachers are coached one at a time. They can be coached multiple times using the BIE method during a semester.

In addition, Regan and Weiss have worked with Loudoun County Public Schools to train their specialized reading coaches on the technology. In turn, they have been using the technology to guide their reading teachers.

Weiss and Regan suggest using BIE coaching to focus on one instructional area targeted for improvement at a time so as not to overload the teacher with too much feedback.

BIE coaching makes “the instructional improvement process more efficient and more focused,” said Jennifer Sassano, a supervisor in Loudoun County Public Schools Office of Special Education and an adjunct education professor at Mason.

In February, Weiss and Regan were invited to present BIE coaching best practices during a virtual conference for the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform Center (CEEDAR). The presentation, said Regan, allowed them to reach special education teachers and school leaders across the country to promote BIE coaching as a useful tool to improve teaching.

“We were thrilled to present the technology and to tell them about the lessons we’ve learned using it. We have seen the results and are very passionate about this work. We want to share it with as many people as possible,” said Regan.