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Collaboration as a Valued Practice

Abstract

Given the history of collaborative efforts in teacher education programs in the country, and results from a recent survey of teacher-education programs in the State of Ohio, it is evident that deliberately de- signed collaboration is not readily taught as a needed skill set in personnel preparation. However it appears to be valued in schools as new teachers enter the field (Michael & Miller, 2011). A survey of teacher educators’ perceptions, completed by teacher educators representing all of Ohio teacher education programs, has indicated a need for teacher education programs to shift from discrete to integrated or merged programming. While a study by Michael and Miller (2011) reveals an overwhelming need for continuing reform in teacher education programs in order to incor- porate deliberately designed collaboration as a skill to be taught to both special and general educators alike, modeling of this approach at the higher education level could promote the practice most effectively. Recently, in a follow-up phone survey, it was found to be valued enough to be taught as a discrete skill set in less than 5% of Ohio teacher education programs, though 95.5% of responding pro- grams had this as a goal.

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