This paper attempts to answer a key question in teacher education: what does it mean to be a literacy teacher in K-12 schools in challenging times? The question emerges from a series of dialogues between student teachers and the instructor in a graduate course in education to prepare pre-service teachers to support students in elementary schools…

Success in primary and secondary school mathematics is becoming increasingly important to today's teachers, students, parents and employment providers in Australia. Mathematics is viewed as high status and essential for a range of employment opportunities. The Disability Standards for Education [1] and the Australian Curriculum, Reporting and…

This investigation addressed the use of problem-solving teams (PST) to support general education teachers working in inclusive classrooms. Eight teams in a high-poverty elementary school that had recently implemented an inclusive program were the focus of the study. Teachers noted several benefits of PSTs, including social support, learning new…

The purpose of this study was to examine phenomenologically a special needs fieldwork experience through the perceptions of seven participants. All of the participants were a part of a long-term field experience. The research question was: How was this experience, assisting and teaching students with special needs in an elementary general music…

The present study explored how cross-cultural collaboration involving university lecturers from Norway (the North) and Egypt (the South), and student-teachers from Egypt, can be an arena for facilitating student-teachers' reflection and for challenging student-teachers' preconceived beliefs and perspectives about disability and education. The…

This paper details how one city in the north-east of England set out to explore the concept of inclusion and to develop more inclusive early years and childcare services through the use of an action research/reflective practice approach with practitioners. It describes a local project, the Inclusive Practice Pilot Project (IPP), designed to…

This paper addresses ethical issues in the inclusion of children with disabilities in general education programs and reports on interviews with 11 female elementary school teachers in four states. Interviews examined teachers' reflections on the moral aspects of four inclusionary scenarios and their bases, including those based on law and rights,…

Presents three research stories from participants in Project ASSIST (All Students in Supported Inquiry-Based Science with Technology), an effort designed to improve the achievement of students with disabilities in the general science curriculum in grades K-6. Describes the project's attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice through…

In this paper the author would like to share a small section of text that emerged in the process of analyzing and synthesizing data from her self-study research into her role as a coordinator for special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream infant education in the UK. The section consists of three Imaginative Conjectures in which she re-envisions…

A study involving 127 undergraduates investigated the effectiveness of an innovative preservice training program designed to teach general education teachers how to use applied behavioral analysis to become reflective, responsive, educators. Participants in the field-based Instructional Assistants Program provided direct instruction and most felt…

A study investigated the impact of training and reflective frameworks (concerning effective instruction and problem solving) on reflective patterns of seven preservice special education teachers. Results indicated that the effective teaching frameworks had minimal impact on problem solving. However, direct training and use of a problem-solving…

This study, part of a larger study on special education teacher expertise, compared the instructional decision making of expert and novice special education teachers in familiar instructional settings to determine differences in the allocation of attention to different instructional themes. Participants were 19 expert special education teachers…

The journals of six special education graduate students were examined in order to define operational categories of reflective thought. The development of reliable and operational definitions for classifying, coding, and evaluating written journals of preservice teachers is described. Past research on the importance of reflective teaching is…