Collaboration, Consultation and Teamwork for Students with Special Needs Book

PART 1 focuses on contexts of collaboration, consultation, and teamwork.

o Chapter 1 describes collaborative consultation and co-teaching and introduces key elements in the collaborative environment.

o Chapter 2 emphasizes the array of differences in professional perspectives and personal preferences among educators, and highlights variables that create these differences.

o Chapter 3 provides a brief overview of school improvement issues and collaborative school consultation history, theory, and research.

PART 2 features processes that facilitate collaborative school consultation and working in teams.

o Chapter 4 develops co-educators' verbal and nonverbal communication skills.

o Chapter 5 presents a format for finding the problems that affect student learning and behavior, and then planning ways to address those problems so that students with special needs can succeed.

o Chapter 6 focuses on avoiding stress that can lead to burnout from the profession.

PART 3 provides content needed by co-educators to work effectively in partnerships for students' special needs.

o Chapter 7 introduces co-teaching as a way of addressing all students' special needs collaboratively.

o Chapter 8 features family partnerships as the focus of collaborative consultation between home-based co-educators and school-based.

o Chapter 9 addresses needs of many diverse populations, including culturally and linguistically diverse students, those in rural and isolated areas, military dependent students, students who more frequently, those who are home schooled, and more.

PART 4 addresses the collaborative roles among a variety of co-educators in the schools and communities, the place of technology in collaborative consultation and team efforts, and advocacy and leadership among educators for the future.

o Chapter 10 involves school administrators as partners in collaborative activities and addresses the paraeducator role and supervising teachers of paras.

o Chapter 11 explores the electronic role of technology as it relates to collaborative communication and networking.

o Chapter 12 concludes the text with attention to mentorships among veteran teachers and novice teachers, leadership development for effective schools, and resource acquisition through grants and other funded projects.