tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3038828360589919480.post2027700875931635984..comments2023-10-12T05:22:07.181-04:00Comments on The Prichard Blog!: Special education teacher preparation questionsSPWestonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08602329486466534720noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3038828360589919480.post-61332964131107377242010-09-09T15:55:39.343-04:002010-09-09T15:55:39.343-04:00REALLY!!! Finally a new book addresses the over-e...REALLY!!! Finally a new book addresses the over-emphasis on the what of teaching to the neglect of the how of teaching (Joseph Wise, Power of Teaching—The Science of the Art). What Wise slightly overlooks however is that there is a giant and disruptive step to be taken between realizing the need for an emphasis on how to teach and achieving it. Currently here is no such thing as Teacher Education anywhere on the planet. Fifty years of modern research on teaching and still there is no science of instruction. Schools of Education and Education Professors need a dose of renewal, compliance and accountability. You might wish to look in on my attempt to jump-start such a process of parsing and ranking of teaching methods until we have a simple list of Good, Better and Best Practices. Of course, this alone will not do it we also must initiate department level REGULATION of what professors teach. Currently a course with the same name and syllabus can be entirely different from one professor to another. There is have no core curriculum, every other profession has a body of knowledge that everyone must know. The current “Race to The Top” inadvertently leaves only teachers behind.<br /> http://bestmethodsofinstruction.com/ & http://teacherprofessoraccountability.ning.com/profiles/blog/list <br />avmanzo@aol.comAnthony (Tony) V. Manzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01184974267515843352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3038828360589919480.post-55763927005700257902010-03-03T21:13:17.458-05:002010-03-03T21:13:17.458-05:00I am a special education teacher in NJ. I have bee...I am a special education teacher in NJ. I have been teaching for over 28 years. I teach Math and Science to 8th grade learning disabled students in a departmental situation. I just got a letter from my human resource department stating that I am not highly qualified to teach math and science. I must now develop a plan, in an agreement with my principal, how I am going to obtain a highly qualified status or I lose my tenure. The plan my principal likes, is that before June 2010, I pay around $200 and pass the praxis exam which was not required 28 years ago when I got my teaching certificate. If I fail, I lose my money and my job. A question you might be asking is, “Didn’t you achieve the highly qualified status by going through the HOUSSE route for secondary special education teachers in all the subjects you teach?” Another question you might be asking “Is there such a thing as being grandfathered in after teaching so long?” <br />To answer the first question, yes, as long as I was teaching all four major subjects, but the principal changed my teaching assignment. When I went down to just teaching only two major subjects, I lost my highly qualified status. To answer the second question, there is no grandfathering. NEA, NJEA, teacher’s unions and associations dropped the ball on this little loophole. I can get transferred to a school that has a special education position available that is in an in-class support environment. Those teachers are exempted from being highly qualified. But the teacher association is not sure if can just bump a teacher with less experience than I when dealing with highly qualified status. The waters are so muddy when this subject is discussed by unions and associations. I decided that I not going to take the praxis exam, because I’m too close to retirement and I don’t have time to study for the praxis within that little time. If they said take that exam in the summer, I may have considered that.Rodney.Smith2https://www.blogger.com/profile/15097233321966429329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3038828360589919480.post-61098696724555276732010-02-13T23:12:11.119-05:002010-02-13T23:12:11.119-05:00We need to teach teachers how to successfully reme...We need to teach teachers how to successfully remediate dyslexic students as they learn differently from traditional students.Ruth Laturenoreply@blogger.com