Preparing special education intern teachers remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the effectiveness of remote teacher preparation during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically special education teachers participating at an Intern Credentialing Program in Northern California.In addition to remote teacher preparation, the study explored how intern teachers experienced delivering special services remotely, how they perceived the Intern Program prepared them compared to traditional programs, and how they experienced their preparation to become agents of change in public education. Data for this study was collected through field journals, surveys and interviews. The findings of this study revealed that Intern Teachers experienced remote Teacher Education as having more benefits than challenges, however the delivery of services to students with disabilities had more challenges than benefits. The interviews indicated that the Intern Teachers believe they are not well prepared to be agents of change.Implications of the study include recommendations to continue teacher education remotely, to develop a tool to determine student benefit from delivery of special services remotely, and to add to teacher education programs curriculum and activities that support diversity, inclusion, and belonging in the classroom through the frameworks of Emancipatory Pedagogies, Critical Race Theory, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Discrit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)