In the current era of educational reform and accountability, co-teaching has emerged as a popular and widely implemented service delivery model for students with special needs. The intent of this inquiry was to examine the roles and responsibilities assumed by the elementary special educator during the practice of co-teaching. Using naturalistic inquiry, 11 pairs of co-teachers in 32 elementary language arts and mathematics classes were observed and the activities of the special educator were documented at 5-minute intervals. Results indicated that the special educator assumed several different roles while co-teaching. These included team teaching, providing individual or small group support, and lead teaching. Overall, the special educator spent the majority of his or her time as the lead instructor of a heterogeneous group of students formed by the special and general educators dividing the class into groups. The special educator then either taught his or her group within the general education classroom or in a separate classroom, frequently the special education classroom. The roles and responsibilities assumed by the special educator also differed by subject matter.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-05032009-173545 |
| Date | 15 June 2009 |
| Creators | Volonino, Victoria |
| Contributors | Rita Bean, PhD, Kathleen Magiera, EdD, Naomi Zigmond, PhD, Steve Lyon, PhD, George Zimmerman, Phd |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05032009-173545/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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