It's 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, and 12 special education majors from the State University of New York at Old Westbury (SUNY OW) are headed to class, where they are scheduled to engage in a lecture on behavior support strategies. As they walk down the hallway, they dodge around eager and energetic elementary school students also heading to their classrooms.
Though separated by a decade or more in age, the students are all in the correct school building. Thanks to an innovative partnership between SUNY OW and two New York school districts, these education majors are getting a unique hands-on immersive learning experience directly in the type of school where they someday hope to work.
A New Kind of Classroom
The 12 special education majors at SUNY OW are taking a required course called Effective Practices for Students with Low Incidence Disabilities, which is held once a week for three hours at Stratford Road Elementary School in Plainview, New York. On any given class day, professors might lecture for about an hour and a half, and then the students enter their assigned elementary classrooms, where they observe the teacher and interact with the Stratford Road students. Lila, one of the special education majors, is in a classroom providing 1:1 intensive instruction for a student with autism, who is working on telling time to the half hour. Another college student, Jack, records behavioral data on a student who refuses to keep his shoes on for longer than five minutes. Before the end of class, the college students regroup in their classroom to discuss, share data, and write about their experiences that day.
"This experience has definitely increased my comfort level in a school setting," said one of the students currently enrolled in the class. In addition, the experience gives students more confidence as they step into a new role and prepare for student teaching. As another student commented on an end-of-program survey, "I feel less anxious and better prepared to take on my own classroom after being in this class."
A Win-Win Partnership
As teacher-educators and school administrators, we developed this partnership to help SUNY OW better prepare students and next-generation teachers for a changing world. New teachers who are stepping into the classroom for their first jobs need expansive preservice experiences with a range of learners. They must develop a skill set that not only addresses changes within teaching and learning expectations, but also enables them to work collaboratively with a variety of professionals—including speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, and classroom aides—to best support learners in the classroom setting.
To assist pre-teachers in these goals, administrators from the Carle Place School District and Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District in New York partnered with SUNY OW to figure out ways in which they could strengthen and support each other. While this partnership took shape in several different ways—including high school pre-vocational placement opportunities at the college and an enhanced student-teacher training program—the special education-elementary school connection has been particularly effective.
Adding more intensive, on-site clinical experiences earlier in the teaching program has enhanced the college's coursework. Working with Stratford Road Elementary School in particular has allowed students to gain experiences in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). This approach that applies the scientific principles of learning to specialized teaching practices, such as discrete trial training (teaching new skills in small, incremental steps) and naturalistic teaching (creating opportunities to transfer new skills across contexts), when working with students with autism and other developmental disabilities. Of the 30 classes at Stratford Road, four are special education classes that utilize the principles of ABA. The school has a clearly established community mindset of inclusiveness and mainstreaming. While the special education students receive differentiated types of instruction within their classrooms, they also take part in all school programs and activities. Thus, the college students can see firsthand and early on how special education models fit within a general education setting. They are seeing a model of how inclusion works in real-world classrooms.
Preparing Preservice Teachers
Naturally, the college students are excited to have this preservice opportunity. For some, this is their first time being in a classroom as an aspiring educator. For others, the experience brings a new perspective to any prior work in a school. For all of them, this is the first education course that they have taken where they are immersed in a K–12 setting.
The targeted nature of the program supersedes a typical classroom observation. While in class, the elementary classroom teacher supervises the college students as they assess specific skills identified by the students' Individualized Education Program goals, learn how to record and track a student's progress on individualized data sheets, and provide intensive, 1:1 instruction with the young learners. One of the college students commented:
I've really enjoyed the hands-on experience. Working with students with communication and behavioral difficulties can be challenging but very rewarding. Gaining focus and rapport with the children early on was difficult. I'll never forget the day when I walked into the classroom and one of the students independently said, 'hi' to me. The first few times I was there he didn't even look in my direction.
The experiences in the classroom bring the special education course syllabus to life. Although the coursework covers a framework for supporting learning and behavioral needs, the connection within a real setting provides students immediate, real-world examples.
On one occasion, the SUNY OW students were learning about response to intervention, a schoolwide pre-referral process designed to support teachers in addressing a student's academic and behavioral issues. They were subsequently able to observe the school's RTI team during their weekly meeting as they discussed teachers' concerns and developed action plans for each of the students. One classroom teacher expressed concern about one of her 1st grader's progress in reading. After presenting, the team reviewed the student's benchmark data, work samples, and current instructional strategies being used. The team worked together to provide a reading intervention with clearly defined goals, and the SUNY OW college students left the meeting with a much clearer understanding of the RTI process.
A traditional on-campus college classroom cannot replicate the actual discourse taking place among administrators, teachers, and support staff as they discuss students, review data, and establish goals. Through the school lens, the students are not just "observing"; rather, they are gradually becoming practitioners under the close supervision of experts in their field.
In addition to these type of in-school learning experiences, the teachers-in-training have the opportunity to network professionally and build relationships with administrators and teachers. During one class session, the school principal joined the class to discuss résumé design and interview preparation. This is often the first time students are hearing about hiring practices in the field. They love being able to gain a sense of what administrators are looking for when they hire new teachers.
A Student-to-Student Relationship
It is not just the college students that enjoy this immersive experience. Classroom teachers have noted that their young learners respond positively to the college students' time in their rooms. In an ABA setting, students often exhibit difficulties in generalizing and maintaining the skills that they have learned. As the students learn new skills, the education majors can help to expand critical learning opportunities and to ensure generalization has occurred.
For example, Charlie, a 6-year-old with autism, is learning how to engage in appropriate conversation with adults and peers. With college students added to the classroom setting, Charlie can practice his newly developed conversation skills with new individuals as he works toward the ultimate goal of transferring that knowledge across multiple people and contexts.
The classroom teachers in the school district also benefit and learn from the college students who visit; one teacher used the partnership to increase her knowledge of current trends in the field, as well as to become more familiar with updated practices, strategies, and laws. This reciprocal nature of the learning strengthens everyone involved. "It also helps our staff," noted another classroom teacher about the benefits to the school's classroom aides, "because they will have to use their knowledge of applied behavior analysis to explain to the student observers what they are doing."
Relationship Building
A critical aspect of this work is the development of a true partnership with a commitment to advancing best practices in education. The relationships developed between the college and school district include college department leaders, school district leaders, professors, principals, and classroom teachers. Through ongoing communication, feedback sessions, and planning meetings, all stakeholders are invested in the process and share the same vision and goals. The partnership has also allowed for a shift in these roles, as several elementary teachers and administrators not only have been invited as guest lecturers to the on-site college class, but also have also been hired by the college to serve as adjunct professors in the education program.
In addition, a number of college students and recent graduates who've participated in the program have already been hired within the school districts as classroom teachers and classroom aides. The specialized training that the college students receive makes them particularly desirable candidates for positions in special education after-school programs and extended school year or summer programs that can be difficult to fill. And today, the Stratford Road Elementary School employs six staff members that are SUNY OW graduates.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Effective teacher preparation requires collaborative relationships that benefit all stakeholders. As this partnership moves forward, we want to explore ways that the college can better support the schools and districts. For example, districts would greatly benefit from greater access to college resources, such as the use of campus technologies and facilities or access to university TV and radio stations. Additional professional development provided by college professors during early morning faculty meetings can enrich and bring a new perspective to topics such as behavior management and instructional strategies. Parent training sessions on topics such as transition planning and increasing independence can also be offered by college faculty to help extend the resources of the schools.
We are also exploring how the districts can further aid the college with other opportunities for embedded, immersive courses and firsthand input on the current trends in K–12 education, which is integral to improving the university's education programming. Involving classroom teachers in the development of the co-facilitated courses is also critical. Their input into the course syllabus, weekly objectives, class assignments, and grading rubrics can further enhance the education students'—and their own—experiences in the classroom.
As 12:30 p.m. nears at Stratford Road Elementary School, the college students make their final reflections on what they learned in the lecture and in the classroom. In their lecture, they learned about the methods used to teach complex, functional skills by breaking down and reinforcing successive approximations to a terminal goal, which include the critical concepts of "shaping," "chaining," and "backward chaining." One student notes, "When I was in the classroom and Michael was learning the letters in his name, we noticed the teacher gave him the pre-printed letters M I C H A E, and Michael had to write the letter L independently. This was a clear example of backward chaining."
In just one class period, the students have made the connection between theory and practice, an experience that not only will benefit them as they continue their studies and, eventually, their teaching, but also showcases the power and purpose of a partnership that benefits all stakeholders and enhances best practices in education.
