Enhancing quality: Listening to participant voices to improve our Master's program in special education |
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| Institution: | 2. Professor, Associate Dean for Graduate Nursing Programs, The University of Texas at Tyler, College of Nursing, Tyler, TX.;3. Associate Professor, University Nevada at Las Vegas, School of Nursing, Las Vegas, NV.;4. Executive Director, Western Institute of Nursing, Portland, OR. |
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| Abstract: | Newly inducted special education teachers must be well-prepared to address changes in today's schools, including increased student diversity, implementation of tiered systems of support, and the need for increased collaboration with general education teachers and specialists. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop and implement a data-based continual improvement approach to identify the strengths of our special education Master's program and address changes needed to ensure that graduates are ready to engage with the demands of their chosen profession. Using data gathered from 24 recent graduates and 20 field mentors, we describe our model and what we have done with our results over two years. An important finding is that our students greatly value the relationships they form during the program and the relationships the faculty model, and participants attribute our graduates' skills in collaboration to our program's modeling of collaborative processes and positive relationships. Implications for effective approaches to continuous improvement of special education teacher preparation programs are discussed. |
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| Keywords: | Teacher education Higher education Special education |
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