Supporting Preservice Teachers’ Collaboration With School Leaders

Abstract

To meet state and national standards, preservice special education training programs include content on communicating and collaborating effectively with school administrators. To incorporate modeling in teacher training, preservice special education programs must structure collaboration throughout the content of the program and provide field experiences that meet the challenges of establishing appropriate types of communication for collaborative endeavors. This study found that the clinical practice experiences of 29 preservice special educators were linked to the course content of their collaboration classes. Special education teacher candidates collaborated and communicated with school administrators mostly about student assessments, placements, and progress. Participants also stated that their conversations with administrators focused on teacher observations and evaluations. These communicative and collaborative activities with administrators occurred primarily during faculty meetings, special education department meetings, and individualized education plan meetings. Although the topics, as well as the strategies, that participants used in their communication met the standards, it did not always translate into collaboration. Results suggest that the connection between fieldwork experiences and course content is essential in creating links between theory and practice.