Paraprofessionals:

Instructional Effectiveness in Special Education

SPED 584BCreated by: Irine Arrieta

01-24-15

Purpose of Presentation

The purpose of this presentation is to inform my fellow classmates on the communication issues that affect

educators in the Special Education Field. My goal is to provide the opportunity to hear, understand, practice or apply the information given in hopes to change or advocate the way we collaborate & train our teaching

teams.

Title of Project

Paraprofessionals:Instructional Effectiveness in Special

Education

Dedication & Acknowledgements

I dedicate this study to my fellow present and future first year teachers

Abstract

• Roles of paraprofessionals in Special Educational settings

• Understand if the correlation of collaborating with lead teachers has an affect on the instructional implementation of paraprofessionals

• Understand if the amount of pre service training affects the instructional implementation of paraprofessionals

CH-1Introduction

• Today’s paraprofessional duties includes a blended mixture of clerical support, non instructional classroom routines, directed teaching and taking over apprentice roles (Fortner, Kernshaw, Bastain & Lynn, 2014)

• New roles affecting the hiring of paraprofessionals.

Topic

• Studying paraprofessionals and their instructional effectiveness in Special Education settings.

• What increases/decreases their performance

Statement of the Problem and Research Problem

• IDEA’s limited guidelines in properly training paraprofessionals.

• Studies proved that such limited training leads to ineffective teaching from paraprofessionals.

• Poor quality of collaboration amongst lead teachers and paraprofessionals result in miscommunication of job roles.

• Consequently paraprofessionals are using their own intuition

Purpose and Significance of the Study

• The absence of proper guidelines in adequately training paraprofessionals, together with collaboration flaws within school classrooms, has brought the need to study paraprofessionals and their effectiveness in instructional settings.

• correlation with the increase of paraprofessionals entering teaching positions and previous experiences influencing their roles as a lead teacher

• IDEA of 97 & NCLB changes standards on Title 1 Schools

Significance of Study cont. & Research Question

• Bridging the gap of instructional delivery

• Understand how collaboration should be conducted

• Discuss if a change in pre or in-service should be considered

• The goal is to find out if students instruction benefit from an increase of collaboration and training from paraprofessionals and lead teachers.

Ch-2Background Information & Personal

Context

• Teaching teams have a major role in effectively participating in the structure of the classroom

• Although first year teachers come in well prepared theoretically, I am finding that they are insufficiently prepared to work with those around them

Review of Literature

• Characteristics of Paraprofessionals

• Trends of Paraprofessionals in Educational Settings

• Paraprofessionals and Inclusive Settings

• District Policies

• Schools and Paraprofessionals

Assumptions and Beliefs

• Lack of communication and preparedness of BOTH lead and

PARAPROFESSIONALS

Research Question & Approach

• Research Question-

Does the amount of collaboration between paraprofessionals and lead teachers, together with the amount of existing readiness, affect the overall quality of instruction within Special Education?

-Does the amount of communication affect small group instruction between paraprofessionals and special needs students?

• Quantitative Study

CH-3Study Design

• Ethnographic quantitative design

• Objective Perspective

Participants & Setting

• 1 lead Special Education teacher and 5 paraprofessionals

• School: Linda Verde Centre- Lancaster School District

Planned Activity& Methods of Data Collection and

Analysis Data Collection Schedule

Activity Setting Participants

WEEK 1 QUESTIONARES Email or Paper All participants except

students

WEEK 2 Observation 2

days/week

Before and after

school 9-1 pm.

All participants

WEEK 3 Observation 2

days/week

Before and after

school 9-1 pm.

All participants

WEEK 4 Observation 2

days/week

*Interviews

Before and after

school 9-1 pm.

*Interviews

All participants

• Week 1 Survey for Paraprofessionals

• Week 1 Survey for Lead Teacher

• Weeks 2-4 Naturalistic Observation

• Weeks 2-4 Present Behavioral Inventories

• Week 4 Interviews

Reliability & Validity

• Interviews followed a strict guideline

• Researcher is objective

CH-4Findings

Years of Experience as a Paraprofessional

Findings of Survey from Paraprofessionals

• Timing

• Managing Student Conduct

• Teacher Leadership

• Professional Development

• Overall

ObservationAppendix H

Teaching Ratio

0.0%$

10.0%$

20.0%$

30.0%$

40.0%$

50.0%$

60.0%$

70.0%$

80.0%$

Day$1$ Day$2$ Day$3$$ Day$4$ Day$5$ Day$6$

Teacher$

Paraeducator$

Results of Communication TallysAppendix I

Communication Tally’s

0"

5"

10"

15"

20"

25"

Par)cipant"1"

Par)cipant"2"

Par)cipant"3"

Par)cipant"4"

Teacher"5"

Par)cipant"6"

8"to"9"am"

9"to"10"am"

10"to"11"am"

11"to"12"pm"

Student Behavior Inventories

• The amount of paraprofessionals in a group greatly affected the outcome of the student’s attention and behavior

• Not having similar levels of function resulted in students displaying disinterest and uncooperativeness

• Being knowledgeable of teaching strategies and communication can in fact increase the level of attention amongst students

Results of Interviews

• Describe the skills and personal characteristics required for your job.

• Describe the hardest and easiest parts of your job and why.

• Describe what would help you do your job better.

• Describe anything that gets in the way of doing your job well.

Ch-5Findings and Analysis

• After careful analysis in comparing and contrasting results, it was found that both readiness and amount of collaboration indeed affected the overall quality of instruction within Special Education

• participants mainly made informal communication throughout the six weeks of the study, there was no scheduled meetings, nor a change in schedule throughout the time of observation

New Insights

• Teaching Ratio 1

• Pairing strengths amongst para’s 3

• More Para educators in classrooms 5

• No same schedule 7

• Speech pathologists as lead teachers 8

Ethical Issues and Applications

• Commitment form

• Higher communication=effective teaching

Next step for Inquiry & Limitations

• Nurses in Instructional Settings

• Limited Gen. Ed. Setting

Conclusion

• This study has opened new concepts of increasing better effective collaboration within team teaching. The job of a paraprofessional is now seen as more than just clerical position. They are in fact hidden teachers who support and run the classroom on a daily basis. There is a need for more understanding of professional development training for both paraprofessionals and lead teachers as well as a push for more formal classroom meetings and extended hours of work in order to fulfill duties that can potentially inhibit instructional sessions