1. What Teachers want from their Specialist Support Professionals
Emma Goodall
PhD Canterbury University
2011

2. Copyright Emma Goodall 2011
Contents
Teachers’ needs
Practical input
Emotional support and feedback
Positive reflections
Changes to my own practice
Implications for senior teachers and specialist support professionals in New Zealand
Copyright Emma Goodall 2011

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Teachers’ needs
Teacher voice is often unheard in the context of supporting students via the use of specialist support professionals. I asked teachers what support they felt they would need during the upcoming year and then at the end of the year asked them what support they had found most useful.
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Practical Input
All the teachers felt that they would need practical support and input over the upcoming year:
Teacher aide working with the student(s) 1:1 or in a small group
Specialist support professional removing student(s) to work with them outside of the classroom
Information about strategies used by the professional when working with the student(s)
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5. Other practical requests:
Readings about specific special needs
Provided but teachers had little time to read and process the information
Teachers will make the time to read when the article or paper is based on ‘real life’. Academic or theoretical papers did not interest the teachers.
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6. Other practical requests cont.:
Group time to share information about strategies with other teachers Not provided as Friday after school was the only available time! This study only involved four teachers but due to the workload requirements, at least one teacher was either on duty on in a meeting every day before school, at play and lunch times and after school, except Friday. I felt that in all good consciousness I could not ask them to meet on a Friday after school.
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7. Other practical requests cont.:
Professional development (PD) about
meeting students’ needs
Provided at the start of the year, teachers found useful
The teachers received a half day PD about Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and differentiated learning. This PD was interactive with good participation and feedback from the teachers. Teachers were introduced to a new IEP system and given examples and explanations. Following discussion they created their own example IEPs for actual students.
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Difference between perceived needs and what teachers actually felt was useful at the end of the year.
The three core teacher requests of; a teacher aide working with the student(s) 1:1 or in a small group, specialist support professional removing student(s) to work with them outside of the classroom and information about strategies used by the professional when working with the student(s), were all valued at the end of the year. However, none of the other practical requests were mentioned at the end of the year. Instead teachers felt that the emotional support and feedback and positive reflections provided were the most useful supports for them and their professional practice.
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9. Emotional Support and Feedback
When the teachers said that this was one of the most useful supports given by a specialist support professional I was a bit bewildered because I was not aware that I had been giving emotional support and feedback in relation to the teachers and their teaching of the student(s) with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs).
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10. Emotional Support and Feedback as Humanising Teachers
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In further discussions it became apparent that the teachers felt more valued when they could see that they had a positive relationship with the specialist support professional; the expert. They appreciated that the expert saw them as a human being first and a teacher second, particularly after the earthquakes started. They also felt they could be more open and honest with someone that valued them enough to ask genuinely caring questions.
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12. Examples of Emotional Support
Greeting the teacher properly and asking how they are before asking about the students.
Accepting the teacher’s emotional state and validating that everyone has days where they feel like that.
Offering to get a teacher a cup of coffee whilst they finish up before meeting with you.
Hearing a teacher say how tired/stressed etc they are and offering to take a student out of class for half an hour to give everyone a break.
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Positive Reflections
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14. Teachers most valued positive reflections about their practice.
Whilst wanting to learn from ‘the experts’ they also disliked being “only told what I’m doing wrong, as if I never do anything right.”
“If you say that something I am doing is right, then even if I hadn’t seen that I can make sure I use that strategy again. It’s hard to see progress sometimes, but you get to observe from the outside and can see the little changes more easily.”
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15. Criticism and ‘the expert’
Specialist support professionals are usually brought in when a teacher in not able to meet the needs of a student. This sets up a power imbalance of ‘expert’ vs ‘mere’ teacher. When these experts then explain what the teacher ‘should’ be doing, the teachers often perceive this as criticism.
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16. Criticism as a basis for support is unworkable.
Teachers are human beings, professionals and generally very caring, compassionate and dedicated. Criticism can and does make teachers defensive. Surprisingly it also encourages teachers to come up with reasons why the expert’s plan is useless.
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17. Positive reflections are good support mechanisms
When a teacher is told how they are meeting specific needs of a student – what they are doing right, they feel both valued as a professional and they “can see that the expert does know what they are talking about.”
This two way validation encourages teachers to accept support strategies and plans developed by or with the ‘expert’. It removes the perceived power imbalance felt by ‘mere’ teachers.
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18. Positive reflections increase teacher knowledge
With a busy class and no opportunities to step out of role, teachers often miss signs of progress. Knowing that they already meet some needs of the student increases teacher confidence that they can meet more needs. Knowing what it is that they do that meets some needs increases teacher knowledge about effective practice.
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19. Changes to my own practice
I offer to go ahead and get the teacher a coffee whilst they finish up.
If I’m having a lunch time meeting I bring kai
I take the time to chat before getting down to business
I make sure I reflect positively on at least one aspect of the teacher-student interactions
I talk with principals and SENCOs about time out
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Time Out
Time out is not just for students, teachers can benefit from time out too.
Teacher time out can be used to recharge or to have the opportunity to observe adult-student interactions from the outside.
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Implications for senior teachers and special needs support professionals in New Zealand
Teachers will accept input more readily from those they have a positive relationship with, which means effective teaching is impacted by the relationships (or lack thereof). High staff turnover affects these relationships. Teachers want and value positive feedback over all other forms of support – this costs nothing and is invaluable in positive relationship building.
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Senior teachers and specialist support professionals need to acknowledge the teacher as a professional.
They need to prove that they are worth listening to. Otherwise the teacher presumes “that they know nothing about real life teaching in a real life classroom, resulting in yet another completely useless plan that I am expected to implement”
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This means the model of peripatetic support professional can be made more effective if the person is also given time within their job to get to know the teacher of the student and to develop a positive relationship within which to frame suggested teaching strategies.
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Thanks:
Many thanks to the teachers at Canterbury Primary for their honesty and openness and to their students and the families/whanau of these students for letting me carry out my research ‘on them’. Quotes are from Kaiako
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