Association for Behavior Analysis International

This study takes a new twist on functional assessment interviews by employing qualitative research methods to determine how virtual learning environments function for preservice special education teachers enrolled in a distance teacher education program. The individualized education program is a critical component of providing special education services to children with disabilities, outlining the services and modifications that will be provided to help them make progress toward the general curriculum. While simulations have been shown to be an effective means of teaching special education policies and procedures, this can be challenging when working with distance students. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine how virtual simulations function to train preservice teachers learning to conduct individualized education program team meetings. Seven preservice special education teachers enrolled in a mild/moderate distance degree and licensure program participated in this research. Through multiple case study analysis, this study examined the specific behaviors emitted by each participant throughout these simulated meetings, as well as the antecedent stimuli and consequences controlling these behaviors. Results indicate that virtual simulations serve a variety of functions for training teachers to work on a collaborative team.

Training programs, including teacher education programs, often provide employees with a set of rules to follow in performing their job functions. Typically, the trainee is taught to identify certain conditions, and then state the rule about how to respond in that situation. With skills that are frequently practiced, the behavior eventually comes under control of the natural contingencies in the environment, and rule-governance fades out. However, newly acquired behaviors may not come into contact with the natural contingencies frequently enough to fine-tune or maintain these behaviors. While many teaching behaviors are shaped by day-to-day interaction with students and faculty, others only have the opportunity to occur every so often, and therefore must be maintained by rules. When the natural consequences are too infrequent to maintain such behaviors, preservice teachers may construct specific rules to specify the contingencies of their teaching behaviors. One example of the latter is developing individualized education programs for students with disabilities. This study examined simulation training as a means of teacher development, seeking to uncover the rules generated by each pre-service teacher to manage his or her own behavior within an individualized education program meeting.

In recent years, the K-12 public school system in many states has begun to implement the response to intervention (RtI) model as a new way to respond to the instructional needs of their students. In an effort to eliminate the use of labels for deficits, RtI emphasizes the examination of the learning environment and how it might be contributing to the student's academic deficits as well the use of instructional strategies in an increasingly intense systematic way for struggling students. The challenges and needs of students in higher education are clearly different from those in the K-12 setting, yet the principles of RtI can be adapted to provide a multitiered system of supports and services at this level of learning as well. The focus in this model is on academic as well as professional behaviors of students as they prepare to be teachers.