Resources from the Council for Exceptional Children

The Council for Exceptional Children’s website offers a plethora of resources for special educators. Under the “Support for Teachers” heading, instructors can access teacher-written articles related to streamlining SPED paperwork, collaborating and developing mentor/mentee relationships, co-teaching with general educators, retaining one’s initial passion for students with exceptionalities, and other topical issues related to special education. While these resources will continue to be beneficial to me, I can currently use them to augment what I am learning in class with perspectives of teachers already in the field. Below are three links to articles taken from the site:

My Dirty Dozen
by Sheila Amato, CEC Clarissa Hug Teacher of the Year 2008

Sheila was right: her title certainly piqued my interest. More importantly, however, her tips for both novice and experienced teachers rewarded my attention. Although I found all Sheila's tips helpful, number 11 was particularly memorable!

Co-Teaching 101: Lessons from the Trenches
by Marie Huggins, Jennifer Huyghe, and Elizabeth Iljkoski

Marie Huggins, Jennifer Huyghe, and Elizabeth Iljkoski's tone is less playful, but the information they share is no less pertinent. Grounded in their classroom experiences at the secondary level, their article provides a brief definition of co-teaching before delving into their own unique experiences as special and content area (biology and English) educators. Their stories gave life to the information about co-teaching offered in our Including Students with Special Needs text (p.76-79). One quotation from their article particularly struck me: "When arranging for co-teaching between general and special education in your schook, keep in mind that special education is a service, not a place." Too often—especially in the past—special education relegated students to a separate room instead of making them participants in a shared classrom. This sentence succintly sums up how I believe special education should be treated and delivered.

Five Strategies to Limit the Burdens of Paperwork
by Lynne Cook and K. Sarah Hall

Though I am dedicated to becoming a special educator, I am concerned about managing the paperwork it entails. Lynne Cook and K. Sarah Hall try to expedite the paperwork process while retaining its essential value. Their five strategies call for increased focus on student needs, using one source for a variety of contexts, reducing the amount of "informal" record keeping, understanding legal requirments, and finally encouraging student ownership of their IEPs by allowing students to participate in their IEP's development.