Online doctoral programming geared toward working professionals can provide unprecedented flexibility in terms of time and place that affords greater access to a broader student demographic. At the same time, online learning poses its own unique set of challenges and limitations for students with and without disabilities. Universal Design (UD) is…

This dissertation focused on the process of designing, implementing, and formatively evaluating an eight week Classroom Aide Professional Development Training Program (CAPD-TP) on behavior management and academic instruction within the context of a New Jersey state approved private special education school for students with behavioral and/or…

This article reports on the design and performance of ALAS (Acquisition of Language Skills and Academic Literacy) Teacher Education Project designed to bridge Biliteracy and Special Education teacher preparation. ALAS was designed by faculty in two higher education departments engaged in teacher preparation to respond to California's need for…

As middle and secondary classrooms become increasingly inclusive, some special educators may not be prepared to teach content, and some general educators may not be prepared to address diverse learning needs. This mismatch between the reality of today's schools and traditional teacher preparation has led to the development of new models for…

This article delineates the results of 7 gifted program evaluation studies conducted in 20 different school districts and places them in the context of major areas for gifted program improvement. The author suggests that the field of gifted education may be vulnerable to losing its infrastructure at local levels if enhanced program development in…

A systems model offers an orderly way of identifying and evaluating the complex components and relationships that are present in special education systems. When applied to national or local systems of special education, it is possible to derive convenient profiles of their strengths and weaknesses, and thus to generate future improvements. As well…

This bibliography presents material relating to the development and implementation of instructional programs for special needs students. It addresses a number of instructional concerns such as program design, student behavior, evaluation, individualizing instruction, and job placement. Material cuts across the various categories of disadvantaged…

The objective of the Adaptive Learning Environments Model (ALEM) is to establish and maintain school environments that ensure optimal learning success opportunities for most students through adaptive instruction. Modification of the environment to accommodate student differences has been an important design consideration in the development of the…

This document provides guidelines for designing, implementing, and evaluating the effectiveness of a district-specific career education program for special education students. Part I lists 10 activities to design, implement, and evaluate a cost-effective career education program. Examples are included of the outcome of each activity. Activities…

This article describes a successful school-based program for students with emotional disturbances served in a special education setting. Program features include a professional training program, development and implementation of a strengths-based plan in which students and families are included as partners, and a method for evaluating the…

Provided by North Carolina's Division for Exceptional Children are guidelines to assist local school systems in their self-evaluations of programs and services for crippled, deaf blind, educable and trainable mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, gifted and talented, hearing impaired, homebound, hospitalized, learning disabled, speech and…

As increasing numbers of students with disabilities are placed in regular classrooms, the shortage of rural special educators means that many rural classroom teachers are the primary providers of individualized programming to meet special needs. Since 1994, West Virginia University has been expanding its existing teacher education programs to…

Activities conducted by the Massachusetts Bureau of Special Needs (BSN) Division of Occupational Education designed to strengthen communication between BSN central staff and regional staff, and to explain more fully to the regional staff the goals and priorities for service to the disadvantaged and handicapped, are described in this handbook.…

This document is a monograph in a personnel development series addressing issues that are pertinent for policy-making personnel concerned with preservice personnel preparation of vocational/special educators. Section 1 presents a review of the selected literature related to the development of personnel preparation programs and the results of a…

This paper describes a model program for training pre-service elementary and secondary school principals in educationally sound and legally defensible inclusion programs extending to students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD). The program has three major objectives: (1) to train pre-service school administrators (principals and…