Data-Based Decision-Making [chapter]

Stanley L. Deno
2015 Handbook of Response to Intervention  
Early in the my tenure as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, I was fortunate to receive funding to develop a collaborative training program for special education teachers in a nearby Minneapolis elementary school (Seward Elementary). A primary feature of that project involved spending my days in the school to help create a noncategorical special education resource program by disestablishing two segregated special classes. At the time, the setting was referred to as a university
more » ... ld station, and my role included working there each day with six to eight university students. The goal for the university students was to learn how to function in, what was then, a new special education program model in which students with high-incidence disabilities would spend most of their days in general education classrooms rather than special classes and receive supplementary instruction from resource teachers. The role and procedures for functioning as special education resource teachers in such a setting were, as yet, undeveloped. And so the author's job was to develop both program and the role requirements for the resource teachers in training. The primary goal of our work there was to create a supportive academic program for all special education students that would enable them to acquire basic academic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Since the students, now integrated, presented significant management challenges for their teacher, it was also necessary to develop the capacity of the teachers to address the social behavior of the special education students. In the approach to teacher education, each university student assumed responsibility for the programs of several of the Seward special education students who were now integrated into general education classrooms. My role was to provide direction and support for the university students as they assumed responsibility for designing the special education students' programs and that, typically, included supplementary tutoring. Moving ahead in this project, the decision that was most challenging for me was the type of instructional program that the university students would use in attempting to increase the basic skills
doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-7568-3_2 fatcat:arovf5qgxnc4dp5ppqqczcjfqa