Competency Standard of Special Education Teachers: A Basis for Pre-service Teacher Development Program

Capacete, Eron Karl M. Gapas, Guia Ann Gonzales, Ralph Phillip C. Rey-Matias, Thomas John A. Villena, Sydney Marielle S.

Introduction In this research article, we focus on the level of competency of each pre-service teacher whether they have the qualities, perception and qualifications or standards that a special education teacher must have. We gathered research articles that will help them gain further knowledge about the study. The goal was to develop pre-service special education teacher to become competitive and to have a positive attitude towards the teaching profession. Chapter 2 contains three variables: Examining the Quality of the Evidence in Pre-Service Teacher Portfolio, Competency standards in Special Education and Students Experience during Practicum. Each variable covers a number of related articles that supports the sub-topic.

Examining

the

Quality

of

the

Evidence

in

Pre-service

Teacher

Portfolio

According to this research article by Ginette Delandshere and Sheila Arens (2003), portfolio seems to be considered a preferred method of assessment for making decisions about teaching. Meaning, this article can add information on how pre-service special education teachers can be competent in terms of developing a portfolio. By developing a portfolio, pre-

service special education students can examine or assess the quality of their work. Also, this tool reflects the difficult position in which teacher educators find themselves. On another note, Based from an article entitled Enhancing Pre-service Teachers Professionalism through Daily Teaching Reflection written by Robichaux and Guarino (2012), assembling a professional portfolio appears to develop more reflective practitioners, which in turn leads to the development of more effective educator capable of handling the complexities of the teaching profession. Moreover, it is stated there that student teaching can be demanding and stressful so to assist pre-service teacher on their daily struggles and in their own professional growth, it seems imperative that pre-service teachers used daily reflection. By using daily reflection, pre-service special education teachers can construct their own learning and understanding based on the experience they get during practicum or simply exposure handling a child with special needs. Competency Standards in Special Education Agreeing to a research article entitled Increasing the Teaching Efficacy of a Beginning Special Education Teacher using Differentiated Instruction a beginning Special education teacher in an inclusion classroom should use pre-assessment, on-going assessment, self-assessment, and an on-going assessment to implement the principles of differentiated instruction in order to become more responsive to their students needs in a systematic way. In this regard, research moved that teachers who were trained to use evidence-based instructional practices were more likely to continue using these practices if they observed the frequent and positive impact on their students learning and behavior (Klingner, Arguelles, Hughes, and Vaughn, 2001).

On another point of view, we also included a research study that describes the critical features of special education program written by Brownell et al (2003). These features are crafting extensive field experiences, creating links between theory and practice, working together, evaluating the impact of teacher education programs, focusing on inclusion and cultural diversity and maintaining a positivist or constructivist orientation toward learning and teaching. The Special education programs are reviewed appear to share features with programs considered exemplary in both; general and special education. Some special education faculty follows these features and believes that these are effective. According to a research article entitled, Enhancing the Inclusive Self-Efficacy of Pre-service Teachers Through Embedded Course Design by Lucia Zundans-Fraser and Julie Lancaster (2012), One of the major changes in the preparation of teachers for mainstream schools has been the need to prepare them for the diverse student populations they will be increasingly required to teach, the main topic here is the efficacy of the pre-service teacher due to the fast increase of students, the question is if the pre-service teachers' knowledge would be reliable when put into test. It is state that pre-service teachers gain positive attitudes and self-efficacy in participating in special or inclusive education. Embedded design involves explicitly repeating the content of cooperative learning in all parts of the topic design. In practice, these meant that the roles and structures discussed in the lecture were created and modeled in the tutorial. Students were then required to practice the specific pedagogy, listen to feedback on their own practice, and provide feedback to others on theirs. This feedback was reflected upon and incorporated in their lesson design assessment submissions (Zundan-Fraser and Lancaster, 2012).

Students Experience during Practicum According to a research article Beginner Pre-service special education teachers learning experience during Practicum written by Nonis and Jernice (2011), it is stated there that preservice special education teachers had positive experiences during their practicum period. Of course they would experience occupational stress, but this also serves as a part of their training, to learn how to cope up and find ways to overcome it. Moreover, the pre-service special education teachers enjoyed their teaching practicum is because they were provided with good techniques and strategies in organizing and delivering their lesson plans well, they obtained constructive feedback from both schools and supervisors to improve their lessons better and received affirmative report such as cooperation, mentoring and rapport received from cooperating teacher and both school and supervisors. However, there are instances that pre-services special education teachers did not enjoyed their teaching practicum because of too much paperwork needed to handle, felt stress during practicum having being watched, sticking to lesson plan and setting too many objectives but not having enough opportunities with pupils beforehand and received limited support from school and cooperating teacher to prepare well for practicum. On another note, effective teaching approach in teaching in a diverse classroom is a dilemma that most teachers are concerned about. Spandagou, Evans and Little (2008) stated from the study entitled Primary education pre-service teachers attitude on inclusion and perception on preparedness to respond to classroom diversity, that there is a new teaching framework that will help each pre-service teachers in order to be ready in dealing with different kind of

students and therefore have a positive effect towards the pre-service teachers to have positive outlook to special education and inclusion education. The authors of the study conducted needs analysis to identify which approaches fits the students to improve their learning experience, which is known as the Problem-Based Learning (PBL). A PBL teaching framework was considered appropriate for integrating further the philosophical, theoretical, pedagogical, practical, and assessment elements of the course, as well as the practical experience undertaken by the students (Johnson, 2004; Ockjean, Utke, and Hupp, 2005; Van Laarhoven et al., 2006; Lambe, 2007). Conclusion We believe that all articles that we have gathered are all significant to our research study. Although, some of the ideas that we get are just a portion of those related research literature still, it is important and we included it in our chapter 2. To sum up, everything that we gain from those related research articles are considered a basis of competency standards for preservice special education teachers. Learning from that information, we can also make assumptions on intensifying developmental program for aspiring future special educators.