Abstract
This paper describes how one teacher educator used action research methodology to investigate the feasibility of using Web 2.0 technology to build a virtual professional learning community (PLC) in special education to support the preparation of highly qualified special education teachers. Study participants included 218 pre-service and in-service teachers who joined the virtual PLC over a four-year period. Data were collected using two Web 2.0 tools, wiki and Ning, and analyzed to evaluate the degree to which the virtual community met the essential characteristics of a PLC. The results showed that 200 of the 218 graduate students who joined the PLC as graduate students continued their membership after graduation but participated in community work as observers only, rarely if ever contributing anything to community growth and development. The implication of the results are discussed with respect to the importance of preparing teachers for service in today’s modern 21st Century academically diverse, inclusive learning communities.
Highlights
This paper describes how one teacher educator used action research methodology to investigate the feasibility of using Web 2.0 technology to build a virtual professional learning community (PLC) in special education to support the preparation of highly qualified special education teachers
The mastery of pedagogy is of critical importance in the development of quality special education teachers (Blanton, Sindelar, & Correa, 2006), but the pedagogy learned in pre-service preparation will not take root in practice without ample opportunities to engage in a wide variety related field experiences and induction support during the first few years of teaching (Kozleski, Mainzer, & Deshler, 2000; National Council for the Accreditation of Teachers [NCATE], 2008)
Many schools employ only a few special education teachers at best and sometimes just one or two, which means it may be necessary to build multiple partnerships at widely scattered schools to satisfy students’ field experience needs (e.g., Epanchin & Colucci, 2002; Jenkins, Pateman, & Black, 2002). This solution, is impractical in terms of time, travel, and institutional resources available for partnership building in the field (Conderman, Morin, & Stephens, 2005) but may explain why many special education personnel preparation programs are disconnected from the realities of schooling, lack an organized approach toward linking pedagogy with practice, and have produced little research on the benefits of field experiences and induction support (Billingsley, 2004; Boyer, 2005; Jones, 2009; Sindelar, Brownell, & Billingsley, 2010)
Summary
This paper describes how one teacher educator used action research methodology to investigate the feasibility of using Web 2.0 technology to build a virtual professional learning community (PLC) in special education to support the preparation of highly qualified special education teachers. Others programs provide an office of field experiences that assigns students to schools and employs clinical instructors to supervise fieldwork (Cochran-Smith et al, 2012) This model, can result in a lack of quality control because there is no assurance that the practices observed in the field will match the pedagogy taught during personnel preparation (Epanchin & Colucci, 2002; Prater & Sileo, 2002, 2004)
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