The Influence of Professional Development for Special Education Teachers: Self-Regulated Strategy Development in Writing for Students With Emotional Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

Students with emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) are well known for their challenging, demanding, unpredictable, and difficult behaviors. Many students with EBD exhibit significant academic deficits, especially in writing. Writing instruction is challenging for teachers because they lack knowledge of the writing process, strategies, and resources to teach writing. Professional development (PD) and coaching provides teachers with opportunities for sustained learning of content and pedagogy, which can result in improved student outcomes. In this study, a multiple baseline across participant design was used to examine the effects of PD and coaching on special education teachers' dispositions, instructional practice, and students' writing performance. Special education teachers were able to learn an effective strategy to teach students with EBD how to write persuasive essays. Results indicate that PD and coaching was effective in increasing the percentage of writing instructional behaviors teachers used to teach writing. Students showed improved outcomes in the number of persuasive elements they included in their essays. The results of this study suggest PD and coaching is a promising way to provide teachers with opportunities to learn how to teach an evidence-based writing instructional method.