Classroom Literacy Artifacts as a Vehicle for Collaborative Mentoring in Special Education

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Classroom Literacy Artifacts as a Vehicle for
Collaborative Mentoring in Special Education

• Michelle Parker-Katz
• Marie Tejero Hughes
• University of Illinois at Chicago

NTC 2007
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About the STEPUP

• Funded by the U.S. Department of Education to
  prepare teachers to work with children with
  disabilities
• Designed to prepare 76 highly qualified special
  education teachers to work with linguistically
  and culturally diverse children with disabilities
  in an urban community
• Students are accepted into the special education
  masters program and take courses and participate
  in field experiences that include children with
  disabilities ages 3-21
• Graduates will be eligible to receive an Illinois
  teaching certificate as Learning Behavior
  Specialist I
• Emphasis on support is provided through three
  innovative structures of field advisories, a
  strong mentoring component throughout the program
  and into the first years of teaching, and an
  induction program
• Students are required to complete a service
  obligation by accepting a position as a special
  education teacher

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Field Advisories

• Regularly-scheduled large-group and small-group
  sessions around major topics of teaching, with
  semi-structured agendas
• Meetings enable extension of the field
  experiences that happen in in every course.
• Meetings allow novices to actually engage in
  professional and collaborative problem-solving.

• Group discussions help novices construct
  knowledge, skills and attitudes essential to
  understanding multiple dynamics that shape
  learning and teaching.
• Novices learn about teaching students with varied
  disabilities.
• Meetings enable novices to practice demonstrating
  competence to colleagues.

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Mentoring

• Each novice at the beginning of the program is
  matched to an exemplary CPS special education
  teacher.
• Major goals of this unique kind of mentoring
  include a) expose novices to varied disability
  populations, b) learn how teachers teach content
  and life skills, c) learn about different
  instructional delivery models (e.g., co-teaching,
  resource).

• Mentors are recruited and selected based on
  ongoing partnership work in the masters program.
  
• Novices and mentors communicate through multiple
  vehicles (email, phone, meetings).
• Mentors are prepared for their new roles in an
  ongoing way.

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In-Program Student Supports

• Doctoral Advisors
• Quarterly Newsletters
• Curriculum Resource Library
• Full Tuition Support
• Listserv and Website www.uic.edu/orgs/stepup
• Conference travel or book stipends

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Sample Artifacts

• Student writing about a field trip

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Sample Artifact

• House of Voice

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Sample Artifact
Illustration of Romeo and Juliet
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Sample Artifact

• Sight Words

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Sample Artifact

• Schedules

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Sample Artifact

• Menu Choice Board

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Sample Artifact

• Mystery Word Lesson Plan

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Sample Artifact

• Vocabulary Square

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Research Findings

• Using artifacts, mentors can demonstrate their
  practice around that which they know best their
  students, their learning, and their instruction.
• The artifact can help teachers focus their
  mentoring on teaching and learning content.
• The artifact discussion can serve as a strategy
  for focusing novices on particulars of a lesson
  or situation, and they can then use that to
  generalize to other related situations -- a key
  aspect of learning.
• The artifact also serves as a collaborative
  vehicle through which teachers in different
  phases of their professional lives can discuss
  student learning as well as conditions and
  cultures of teaching.

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Implications for professional learning

• Work with mentors to help them select, plan and
  discuss their classroom artifacts.
• Situation-specific professional learning -- base
  the professional development on the actual work
  mentors do.
• Mentors learn new literacy strategies and skills
  for teaching academic content to a range of
  student populations.
• Mentors learn varied approaches and ideas for
  working with adult learners.
• Learn ways to facilitate authentic conversation,
  marked by interchanges and full engagement by all
  participants, including students who are not as
  experienced.

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Transitioning into Special Education Teaching
A Multimedia Resource Module
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From Teachers to Teachers

• An authentic resource to help novice teachers
  reason about teaching and learning.
• Artifacts from experienced special educators
  classrooms serve as resources for constructing
  effective teaching.
• Artifacts are from diverse learners in urban
  classrooms, and provide new special educators
  with exposure to many additional classrooms.

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The Modules Organization

• The module is organized around four main
  components

• Serving Students with Disabilities
• Creating Learning Environments
• Planning and Preparation
• Collaboration, Co-teaching and Consulting

• An easy-to-use color scheme helps teachers
  navigate among the different components.

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A Multimedia Resource

• Web-based, allowing teachers to access help any
  time, anywhere.
• The module is multimedia digital video, audio
  and photography provide a rich and inviting
  environment for users to learn and explore.
• Links between and among different artifacts and
  resources give teachers a multi-faceted view of
  teaching and learning.

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Encouraging Interactivityand Exploration

• A rich, graphical interface provides multiple
  ways for teachers to discover the content of the
  module and navigate through it organically.

Direct links to other artifacts that may be of
interest
Links to other topics
An option to move straight through the module
sequentially
Links to other topics