SPE 495 Special Education Student Teaching

This experience is designed as the capstone professional course in the Special Education program. It is to be the final course taken in the Special Education sequence. The student teaching experience approximates a full-time working experience for the fourteen week semester. It includes a supervised teaching experience in the field, as well as a seminar class each week in which issues related to student teaching are studied. Evaluations will be conducted by the seminar instructor, the cooperating teacher, and a university supervisor.

Candidates will develop effective, evidence-based instructional strategies for all levels of support (PreK-8). These will include: lesson plans, unit plans, IEPs, IFSPs, 504 plans, and intervention strategies that employ Pennsylvania’s Standards Aligned Systems (http://www.pdesas.org). Candidates will be able to modify and implement curriculum including appropriate adaptations and technology, using the appropriate Academic Standards, Alternate Academic Standards where necessary, Assessment Anchors, and eligible content.

In addition, candidates will demonstrate the ability to collaborate and plan for student outcomes and transition at designated times throughout the student's education, including Age 3 transition for Pre K-8, secondary transition procedures (7-12), and transition to post school success. This course of study will include: applying the knowledge of transition-related legislation in fields of special and vocational education, rehabilitation, labor and civil rights; developing and implementing a transition plan that integrates functional, academic, and vocational data aligned to identified post school outcomes; and administering and interpreting formal and informal career and vocational assessment approaches.