lable at ScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582

Contents lists avai

Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tate

A framework for conducting research on collaborative teacher education

Marleen C. Pugach a,*,1, Linda P. Blanton b,2

a Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USAb Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, College of Education, Florida International University, University Park, ZEB 244B, 11200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, FL 33199, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 6 May 2008Received in revised form17 September 2008Accepted 3 February 2009

Keywords:Teacher collaborationTeacher educationTeacher education curriculumRegular and special education relationshipInclusionSpecial education

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 414 229 6071; faxE-mail addresses: mpugach@uwm.edu (M.C. Pu

Blanton).1 Marleen C. Pugach is Professor, Department of

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wiscedu).

2 Linda P. Blanton is Professor, Department of EdStudies, Florida International University, Miami, Florid

0742-051X/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.02.007

a b s t r a c t

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for conducting research on teacher educationprogrammes that practise collaboration between special and general education faculty to advanceinclusion. Such a framework can establish a common language for collaborative teacher education andprovide a structure for conducting research on individual programmes as well as cross-site comparisons.It is based on the assumption that collaboration represents a robust, systematic integration of special andgeneral education across all aspects of the preservice curriculum. The proposed framework includesthree collaborative program models and five programme dimensions.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Preparing teachers for inclusive education has been a goal ofteacher education in the United States since the enactment ofmodern special education legislation in 1975 (The Individuals withDisabilities Education Act, or IDEA, first passed as Public Law 94-142, The Education of All Handicapped Children Act). Thiscommitment to equity in education for individuals who havedisabilities is not limited to the United States, but rather is aninternational movement evidenced in both the 1994 SalamancaStatement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education(UNESCO, 1994) and the subsequent UNESCO Guidelines for Inclu-sion: Ensuring Access to Education for All (UNESCO, 1995). In theUnited States, collaboration at colleges and universities thatprepare general education and special education teachers to takeon the roles needed to create and sustain inclusive teachereducation, however, has not been fully realised.

This is a particularly important area of concern because, incontrast to the situation in several other countries, in the UnitedStates there is a strong tradition of having teachers earn an initial

: þ1 414 229 5571.gach), blantonl@fiu.edu (L.P.

Curriculum and Instruction,onsin, USA (mpugach@uwm.

ucational and Psychologicala, USA (blantonl@fiu.edu).

All rights reserved.

teaching licence in either special or general education alone.General education teachers typically have insufficient backgroundin special education and, conversely, special education teacherstend to have insufficient background in academic content andpedagogical content knowledge. As a strategy to reform teachereducation such that all teachers are better prepared to work withstudents who have disabilities, collaboration in teacher education isincreasingly visible as a teacher education practice. Yet collabora-tive teacher education is not a well documented phenomenon inthe U.S. Little systematic study of this practice has occurred and themajority of what is available in the teacher education literature todate takes the form of brief programme descriptions rather thanstudies of programme dynamics or data on programme outcomes(Pugach, 2005).

A description and review of several early attempts at collab-orative teacher education programming in the U.S. (Blanton,Griffin, Winn, & Pugach, 1997) illustrate the wide differences interminology and programme designs that have been used todescribe such practices at the preservice level, including, but notlimited to, blended, integrated, merged, or unified. Other frequentlyused terms refer to licensure outcomes (e.g., dual certificationprogrammes) rather than programme characteristics. Since then,despite increased efforts to establish collaborative teachereducation since the Blanton et al. review appeared, the samevaried terminology remains in use todaydstill failing to provideconsistency or to describe specific programme designs, structuresand features.

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582576

As a result, it is often difficult to know exactly how much andwhat kind of collaboration is taking place in the name of inclusiveteacher education, or whether collaborative programmes arerequired or optional at any given college or university (Blanton &Pugach, 2007). For example, two very different collaborativeteacher education programmes might use the same terminology(e.g., a blended programme or a unified programme or a dual pro-gramme) but actually vary widely in the degree of programme/curricular coordination or faculty interaction that is practiced.Alternatively, programmes might use different terminology todescribe their collaborative work but actually engage in very similarprogramme practices. Given these circumstances, getting reliableestimates of what is actually going on in the name of collaborativeteacher educationdas well as making valid comparisons acrossprogrammesdis nearly impossible.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for con-ducting research on teacher education programmes that claimcollaboration between special and general education for thepurpose of preparing graduates for inclusive teaching practice. Thisframework is based on the need to clarify the range of collaborativepractices currently in place and to consider the degree to whichcollaboration represents a robust, systematic integration of specialand general education across all aspects of the preservice curric-ulum. The analysis has the potential to facilitate not only researchon individual teacher education programmes, but also cross-sitecomparisons in relationship to programme descriptions, practices,and outcomes.

The paper is divided into four sections. The first sectiondescribes the national context for collaborative teacher educationin the United States and provides an historical perspective on thispractice. The second and third sections present the components ofthe proposed framework for the study of collaborative teachereducation. Specifically, the second section introduces a commonlanguage to classify various collaborative programme models forthe purpose of clarifying what comprises collaboration in teachereducation. The third section identifies five dimensions of collabo-rative teacher education that have the potential to serve asa common set of research variables. The final section includes a setof key questions related to advancing the research agenda oncollaborative teacher education programmes as well as a discussionof several philosophical challenges that need to be taken intoconsideration as this agenda moves forward.

1. History and national context in the United States

Prior to 1975, teacher education programmes in the U.S. ingeneral and special education, like their PK-12 counterparts, weresegregated and discrete entities. At that time, programmes toprepare special education teachers and administrators were juststarting to flourish. In 1974, anticipating federal special educationlegislation, the Deans’ Grants projects signalled the first federallyfunded efforts to prepare general education teachers to work withstudents who have disabilities and were deliberately designed tomove teacher education away from discrete, segregated models ingeneral and special education. These grants represented animportant step forward and eventually included over two hundredprojects in departments, schools, and colleges of education across45 states (Kleinhammer-Tramill, 2003). The architects of the Deans’Grants often envisioned them as an opportunity for broad-basedreform in teacher education (see, for example, Grosenick & Rey-nolds, 1978). In practice, however, they were often focused morenarrowly on including special education content and experiences inthe general teacher education curriculum and less on redesigningthe preservice curriculum as a whole or taking students’ differencesinto consideration as a fundamental premise of teaching and

teacher education. Further, no larger context of reform existed ingeneral teacher education at that time to support a broader visionof preservice curricular redesign (Pugach, 2001, 2005).

Funding for the Deans’ Grants ended in 1982, effectively endingthis early national dialogue on the need for collaboration in teachereducation. Nevertheless, various colleges and universitiescontinued to develop collaborative preservice programmes,sometimes shaping federal funding priorities to serve this purpose.Many of these early programmatic efforts were short-term andgrant-based, although in a few cases such changes were eventuallyinstitutionalised (e.g., Bondy & Ross, 2005). At the same time, manyother schools and colleges of education continued to address thepreparation of all teachers for students who have disabilities byoffering what quickly became the norm in most preservice pro-grammesda single required course in special education for allgeneral education teachers. The only systematic exception occurredin early childhood education, where the Council for ExceptionalChildren (CEC) and its Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and theNational Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)agreed to support collaborative teacher education as part of theaccreditation process (Stayton & McCollum, 2002).

In an attempt to renew a national dialogue on collaborativeteacher education, in 2001 the Interstate New Teacher Assistanceand Support Consortium (INTASC) developed an interpretation ofits ten national teacher education standards specifically to describewhat all teachers should know and be able to do to educatestudents who have disabilities (INTASC, 2001). At about the sametime, a new round of federal legislation, the No Child Left BehindAct of 2001 (NCLB), combined with the 2004 reauthorisation of theIndividuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), once againfocused a spotlight on the question of how best to prepare teachersfor working with students who have disabilities. Specifically, NoChild Left Behind, through its teacher quality provisions, requiredall teachers to be qualified to teach in the academic content areas inwhich they instruct. This provision is typically defined as passinga test of academic content knowledge or completing a college oruniversity major in the content area. The 2004 reauthorisation ofIDEA clarified that this regulation applies to special education aswell as general education teachers. In addition, the testingrequirements of NCLB highlighted the low achievement of manystudents who have disabilitiesdstudents who often spend largeparts of their school day in general education classrooms taught bygeneral education teachers. The convergence of these two legisla-tive mandates precipitated a new national conversation regardingwhat it means to be prepared to teach all students, including thosewho have disabilities, and further, what, if anything, shoulddifferentiate the preparation of special education teachers fromother teachers.

Following the development of the 2001 INTASC standards, in2002 the U.S. Department of Education, through its Office of SpecialEducation Programmes, funded a five-year project, the Centre forImproving Teacher Quality (CTQ), which supported regular collab-oration between state departments of education (i.e., programmeapproval and teacher licensure for general and special education)and higher education. The goal of CTQ was to address the prepa-ration, licensing, and professional development of all teachers towork with students who have disabilities, including teachers inboth general and special education (CTQ, 2007). As the lead orga-nisation for CTQ, INTASC partnered with the American Associationof Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the National Asso-ciation of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) andengaged 45 states and territories in annual forums and activities.The purposes of CTQ sponsored activities were to encourage statesand higher education to rethink the meaning of policies and thepractice of collaborative teacher preparation and to join together in

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582 577

planning strategically for teacher education reform that wouldmore systematically improve the teaching and learning of studentswho have disabilities.

More recently, the U.S. federal government once again began tofund inclusion-oriented preservice teacher education grants(known as ‘‘325T grants’’). A total of 42 such five-year grants havealready been awarded to institutions of higher education, withapproximately another 20 to be funded in 2009, to improve thepreparation of special education teachers in high incidencedisabilities and to assist them in meeting the requirements of bothNCLB and IDEA. These projects are specifically directed toward thepreparation of K-12 special education teachers. To accomplish theredesign of programmes such that special education teachers haveboth academic content and pedagogical knowledge, these preser-vice programmes will need to collaborate not only across generaland special education, but also across education and the arts andsciences.

The ongoing culture of reform in U.S. teacher education providesa rich opportunity to explore the new levels of collaboration thatwill be needed to achieve the goal of preparing teachers to workeffectively across the full range of students they encounter intoday’s classroomsdamong them students who have disabilities.Yet despite these recent advances, many preparation programmesin the U.S. continue to lag behind in working collaboratively acrossgeneral and special education for the purpose of redesigningteacher education. As such, any framework to promote a commonlanguage and common variables must take into account the fullrange of practices that exists to date.

2. Establishing a common language: programme models

The classification system proposed in this paper includes threemodels: discrete, integrated, and merged. These teacher educationprogramme models are differentiated generally along a continuumdefined by the degree to which faculty collaborate and the degreeof curricular integration and coordination that has been achievedthrough a process of collaborative programme development/rede-sign. It is important to note that the names given to these models donot identify the types of initial teaching licence(s) a candidateultimately obtains; the terms dual model or a dual licensure modelare not used. This is the case because within any of the threeproposed models a candidate could conceivably earn both a generaland special education licence. Instead, the discussion focuses onhow key programme dimensions are manifested in each model andhow these dimensions may influence or be influenced by statelicensure requirements. Moreover, these models do not necessarilyrefer to administrative arrangements within schools and colleges ofeducation, that is, whether separate departments exist to preparespecial education and general education teachers and/or adminis-trators. Rather, collaboration for teacher preparation can take placeacross a range of administrative arrangements.

2.1. Discrete models

Discrete models refer to teacher education programmes whereminimal interaction takes place between teacher education facultyin general and special education and where the preservice curric-ulum in both general and special education contains courseworkand clinical experiences that are for the most part unrelated to oneanother. In discrete programmes, a student studying to obtaina general education teaching licence might be required to takea stand-alone course in special education. Likewise, specialeducation students might be required to complete a course orcourses in the general teacher education curriculum, althoughdiscrete special education programmes tend to include very few

requirements for academic contentdan issue that is directlyrelated to the highly qualified teacher requirements of currentfederal legislation under NCLB and IDEA. Specific required coursessuch as these are often referred to as ‘‘service courses,’’ a termwhich suggests that faculty in one department or programme aremerely providing a service, mostly on their own terms, to anotherdepartment or programme. In other words, the content of thecourse or courses is dropped into the existing curriculum ratherthan organised within a coherent curriculum designed collabora-tively by a group of faculty.

What further defines the discrete programme model is thatthere is little or no expectation for faculty to collaborate. Teacherpreparation programmes for special and general education arebasically independent of one another; interactions that do takeplace are not programmatic in scope. That is, there is an absence ofintentional, deliberate collaboration across courses and clinicalexperiences. A sense of mutual exclusion may exist, and in suchdiscrete programmes, teacher educators in special and generaleducation may be most at risk for failing to value one another’sexpertise. As the least collaborative option in this continuum ofmodels, discrete programmes are also the least desirable. Never-theless, discrete programmes continue to be prevalent in practice.

Graduates of discrete programmes may obtain either a generalor special education initial teaching licence, or both. However,obtaining both licences is typically a lengthy process requiringstudents to add on all of the courses and clinical experiences for thesecond licence to the first preservice programme they havecompleted. In the absence of a systematic, programmatic rela-tionship between preservice preparation in special and generaleducation, coursework and clinical experiences for the secondlicence (whether it is in special or general education) tend to havelittle, if any, relationship to those required for the initial licence anddo not build purposefully upon one another. The term dual licensureis sometimes used when students who graduate from discreteprogrammes earn both a general and special education licence, butthe two programmes have not been intentionally designed tocomplement one another and students who earn dual licensureunder these conditions do so in the absence of curricular alignmentand integration. In other words, in discrete programmes, duallicensure represents an additive curriculum structure rather thana coordinated integration of the preservice curriculum.

2.2. Integrated models

Integrated models are programmes in which deliberate,systematic efforts have been made by faculty in general and specialeducation to integrate and coordinate coursework and/or clinicalexperiences leading to some level of interdependence across pro-grammes. In this model, portions of the preservice curriculum (i.e.,courses and/or clinical experiences) are intentionally redesigned tocomplement one another. Programme integration moves beyondoffering stand-alone service courses toward faculty workingcollaboratively to redesign components of the curricula in bothgeneral and special education; a programmatic perspective drivesthe redesign.

The assumption driving most integrated programmes is thatgeneral education teachers are prepared to work with a wide rangeof students, including many students who have disabilities. Thegeneral education portion of an integrated programme is rede-signed from a broadly inclusive philosophical perspective thatincreases the capacity of every teacher candidate to successfullymeet their students’ needs. This necessitates a well-integrated,intentionally redesigned base, or core programme of studies thatserves as the foundation for building specialist programmesbeyond this base programme. The role of special education teachers

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582578

is distinct and their programmes, usually in the form of endorse-ments and/or master’s degree programmes, build on and enhancethe base programme. In the integrated model, special educationprogrammes retain their individual identities.

In these programmes, teacher preparation faculty in generaland special education acknowledge each other’s expertise, valuethe relative contributions made by each other to the preserviceprogramme, and demonstrate insight into the roles both specialand general educators play. They meet regularly to sustaina collaborative approach to the curriculum and to build on oneanother’s coursework and clinical experiences. Further, the valueof collaboration is articulated publicly when searches for newfaculty members in both special and general education areconducted. By integrating several core programme components,the goal is to better prepare general educators while alsoassuring that future special educators possess a solid core ofcurricular and pedagogical knowledge across the academiccontent curricular areas. Examples of integrated programmes,among others, include Teachers College, the University of Florida,and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Blanton & Pugach,2007).

Preservice candidates in integrated programmes may earn onelicence or two; it is typical for candidates to earn a generaleducation licence first and then make a choice to continue on toobtain a special education licence that deliberately builds on andcomplements the general education licence. Because of the integratednature of the core preservice general education programme,candidates desiring to become special educators should be able toobtain a special education licence more efficiently either by addingadditional coursework (sometimes completed in one additionalsemester) and/or by continuing into a masters degree programme.Only those candidates who see themselves as ready to focus theirwork more specifically on students who have disabilitiesdinclud-ing those who have significant disabilities depending on the state’slicensing structuredwould continue on for special educationlicensure. But they would have first gained a sound grounding ingeneral education and specifically in the general education curric-ulum as a firm basis for their advanced, specialised work.

2.3. Merged models

In merged models, a single preservice curriculum is designed forall students in general and special education. As a result ofcompleting a fully coordinated curriculum, all candidates obtaininitial licensure in both general education and special education.Merged programmes are based on the assumption that all preser-vice students are willing to take on the role of either general orspecial educator once they are employed in the schools and that,based on the merged preservice curriculum, they will be wellprepared to do so. These programmes begin to blur the distinctionbetween general and special education teachers.

Merged programmes demand routine and consistent collabo-ration across faculty in general and special education and a highdegree of interdependence. In order to achieve a fully mergedcurriculum based on a set of shared values, faculty must worktogether in an extensive programme review of both general andspecial education leading to a complete reconceptualisation ofprogramme content, coursework, and clinical experiences. Mergedprogrammes address the preservice curriculum from a program-matic perspective that is intentional and deliberate. But unlikeintegrated programmes, merged redesigns must take into accountthe outcome that every graduate will be prepared to take on boththe general and special education roles and will receive bothlicences.

In some colleges and universities merged programmes repre-sent the only option for all students who enroll. When this is thecase, inclusion operates as the framing philosophy for all studentsand faculty. Merged programmes are the only choice for students inthe elementary programmes at Syracuse University and ProvidenceCollege and for secondary students at the University of Saint Francis(Blanton & Pugach, 2007). At other institutions of higher education,however, merged programmes have been developed as an optionthat exist alongside other discrete programmes in general andspecial education. When merged programmes are an option ratherthan the only choice, the depth and breadth of faculty participationand institutional commitment to inclusion and collaboration arelimited to those faculty members who choose to participate. Suchoptions can, however, lead to merged programmes growing inpopularity and eventually becoming the programme of choice formost teacher candidates.

One important characteristic of merged programmes to date isthat the special education licence is usually limited to mild andmoderate disabilities and does not typically include work in severeand profound disabilities or sensory disabilities (Blanton & Pugach,2007). The result of this approach is that a college or universitymight offer multiple optionsdfor example, a merged programmefor mild and moderate disabilities resulting in two licencesdanddiscrete programmes focused on low incidence disabilities result-ing in a single special education licence.

Decisions regarding the preparation of both general andspecial education teachers to work with students who have moresignificant disabilities are dependent on several possible vari-ables, such as the degree to which faculty with expertise insignificant disabilities subscribe to an inclusive philosophy ora traditional medical model, the adequacy of programme space,and state licensure regulations. If the licensure structure ina particular state offers only a single special education licenceacross all disability categories for all grade levels, for example,the assumption in merged programmes is that graduates areprepared to teach across the full range of disabilities as well as ingeneral education. Alternatively, we may see the emergence ofmerged programmes that prepare teachers of students withsignificant disabilities in general education and in one area ofsignificant disability alone.

Merged programmes can be developed even if general andspecial education preservice faculty are not housed in the sameadministrative unit. The key is achieving the level of facultycollaboration that enables the fully integrated preservice curric-ulum to be offered.

2.4. Interpreting the continuum

These programme models represent a continuum from least tomost collaborative and from least to most coordinated program-matically. As noted earlier, although substantial numbers ofdiscrete programmes appear to exist, and perhaps may even be thestatus quo, they do not move the field ahead in terms of thinkingsystematically about how every teacher is prepared for workingwith students who have disabilities.. At the other end of thecontinuum are merged programmes. When they are the onlyoption offered to preservice students, merged programmes repre-sent the highest degree of faculty collaboration and curricularintegration. The fact that merged programmes fall at the high endof the collaboration continuum, however, does not necessarilymean that they are the preferred model for collaborative teachereducation. High quality integrated preservice programmes thatprovide an option for earning a special education licence canprovide a way to increase the skills of all teachers for their workwith students who have disabilities, while simultaneously forcing

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582 579

the question of redefining the distinct value added of a specialeducation teacher.

How might such a continuum apply in countries where pro-gramme graduates can teach in either special or general educationbased on receiving only a general education licencedas is the case,for example, in Canada and New Zealand? In contexts such as these,faculties of education often include those who have expertise inspecial education and who teach a required course or courses inspecial education. Therefore, although the specific question ofobtaining one or two licences does not pertain, the question ofwhether these courses are implemented in a more discrete or moreintegrated fashion from a programmatic perspective is still germaneto the practice of inclusive, collaborative teacher education.

3. Establishing common study variables: five programmedimensions

What gives depth to an understanding of these models is theidentification of a set of five programme dimensions that canfunction to capture the variation among programmesdboth withineach model as well as across all three. Each of these variablesaddresses a critical issue for collaborative teacher education thatwarrants discussion and action on the part of faculty as pro-grammes are reconceptualised. Once new programmes have beenestablished, these dimensions can provide an ongoing focus fororganising individual studies as well as programmatic researchboth within and across programmes at multiple colleges anduniversities. They include:

1. Curricular coherence2. Faculty collaboration3. Depth of knowledge4. Performance/portfolio assessments5. PK-12 partnerships

3.1. Variable 1: curricular coherence

At the heart of collaborative teacher education is a vision ofa preservice curriculum that is connected and in which eachcourse/experience is aligned with and builds upon all other priorcourses/experiences. Ideally, this programmatic view of curricularcoherence applies not only to the relationships that are builtbetween special and general education, but extend to all preservicecurricular components, including educational foundations andmulticultural education. Further, the commitment to assuring thatstudents who have disabilities have access to the general educationcurriculum means that it is also critical to create strong curricularcoordination not only among experiences in the professionalpreparation programme but also across professional preparationand preservice education in the arts, letters and sciences.

Achieving a coherent preservice curriculum has been identifiedas one of the most salient features of contemporary, reformedteacher education (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Howey,1996). This means that faculty not only know what one another areteaching across disciplines, departments, and units, but that theyalso take part in assuring that the curriculum being taught ismeaningfully related and applied. Rather than making theassumption that preservice students will automatically makeconnections across their coursework and clinical experiences,faculty play a critical role in scaffolding their students’ abilities toconnect and apply what they are learning across settings tostrengthen their teaching practice.

Theoretically, curricular coherence is driven by a shared view ofwhat is important for preservice students to know and be able to do

as a result of their specific teacher preparation programme.Coherence is meant to foster the ‘‘big picture’’ that a programmemay be trying to achieve. But how does that big picture requireinterpretation and nuance when teaching practices are carried outwith students who have particular individual needs? More specif-ically, when and how are the needs of students who have disabil-ities explicitly addressed across the preservice curriculum? Whenpedagogies that are viewed as ‘‘good teaching’’ for every studentare promoted, how do candidates understand these pedagogies inrelationship to how they might need to be shaped for students whohave disabilitiesdwithout relegating those students to uninter-esting and unmotivating school experiences? Finally, how limitedor expansive is the curricular redesign and coordination, and towhat degree does it permeate the entire curriculum? Is it viewed ascoherence solely as a function of special education, or is itembedded in a larger reform that seriously addresses what itmeans to educate ‘‘all’’ children?

In other words, what exactly constitutes a shared, coherent viewrelative to educating students who have disabilities and how wasthat view developed? More important, how does this view mani-fest itself across the curriculum, and with what degree ofintentionality?

3.2. Variable 2: faculty collaboration

Closely related to curricular coherence is the degree of facultycollaboration that takes place in a given programme. How do facultywork together to achieve and maintain a coherent curriculum? Thisdimension not only refers to the frequency of faculties meetingtogether, but what actually occurs when faculty come togetheracross a given semester or year.

Does faculty meet, for example, to develop course syllabi jointlyand to coordinate courses with field experience? Do they meetregularly during the semester to assure ongoing coordination oftheir teaching practice? Do they develop and implement pro-gramme assessments together? Which faculty do in fact meet? Forinstance, is it only faculty in general and special teacher education,or are foundations faculty included? This particular issue addressesthe need for greater curricular clarity regarding some of the mostcritical issues in education, namely, the relationship betweendiversity as an overriding construct and the specific marker ofdiversity that operates for special education, namely, disability(Pugach & Seidl, 1998). A further consideration is whether faculty inthe arts, letters and sciences participate in any way, and if so, how.

This variable may lead to studies regarding new structures thathave been created and implemented to support faculty engage-ment in collaboration. For example, it may be the case that newgovernance structures at the level of programme, or fundingstreams for co-teaching have been established. Faculty may co-teach a required special education course within what functionsprimarily as a discrete programme model, or, alternatively, severalcourses may be co-taught in an integrated or merged model. Afocus on faculty collaboration can begin to unpack these variousapproaches to how faculty work together.

This variable is not meant to imply that faculty have to spend allof their time together. Rather, it does suggest that withouta purposeful approach to faculty collaboration, curricular coher-ence is difficult to accomplish.

3.3. Variable 3: depth of knowledge

Depth of knowledge refers to how much knowledge graduatesare expected to acquire during their programme and to use in theirpractice. Because programme space is often limited at the preser-vice level, assuring adequate depth of knowledge becomes critical;

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582580

this is the case whether or not collaboration is driving the inquiryinto and redesign of teacher education. With regard to the rela-tionship between special and general education, however, it isparticularly significant due to the range of disabilities for whicha special education teacherdor all teachers, depending upon theprogrammedare prepared.

For example, when a merged programme prepares graduates forboth general and special education roles within a traditional four-year programme, how much depth of knowledgedand whatknowledgedis included? What is most appropriate to include?Because graduates of merged programmes are all prepared to beboth special and general educators, what faculty view as ‘‘enough’’knowledge about special education for graduates to take on thatrole is a fundamental consideration. Whether a four-year pro-gramme model is adequate in the first place for attaining the goal ofhigh quality preparation for both general and special education is atissue. In contrast, in integrated programmes, the central depth ofknowledge issue is how much knowledge regarding working withstudents who have disabilities is considered appropriate for everygeneral education teacher and where the demarcation point islocated regarding what differentiates the knowledge of those whocontinue on to become licenced as special educators.

More important, perhaps, is the kind of knowledge about whichdepth is to be acquired in the first place. It is not simply collabo-rating around ‘‘depth of traditional knowledge’’ (W. Kimball,personal communication, September 20, 2007) that will propelcollaborative teacher education programmes ahead, but ratherusing policy levers that are promoting collaboration as an occasionfor rethinking the preservice curriculum as a whole. For example, towhat extent does the core teacher education curriculum preparestudents for the kinds of differentiated instruction they will need toprovide to a diverse classroom of students? What range of behav-ioural supports is included? How does the core programmeconceptualise the classroom as an inclusive community? How doesfaculty represent diversity and how is disability presented withinthat larger diversity framework?

In other words, it is critical to consider how the basic view andpractice of teacher education have been redefined to improvewhat is considered acceptable as basic preparation for all teachers.If depth of knowledge is defined by simply adding moreconventional special education knowledge to the general educa-tion curriculum, especially more existing coursework in specialeducation in the absence of intentional programmatic thinking, itis likely that a discrete model is persisting despite the additionalcoursework. Beyond that, in integrated programmes, what isdefined as the programme of studies for students who elect to goon to become special education teachers, and which knowledgerelated to students who have disabilities is included and valued?Across all programmes it is critical to address the challenge ofpreparing special education teachers with academic content andthe pedagogical content knowledge that should help them beeffective in raising the expectations for students who havedisabilities.

Finally across all of these considerations regarding depth ofknowledge is the question of preparing teachers for the fullrange of students who have disabilities. To date most mergedand integrated programmes address high incidence disabilities(Blanton & Pugach, 2007). Given the fact that it is the highincidence categories that continue to be more subjective andthat contribute to the persistent disproportionate representationof racial and ethnic minority students in special education, thisshould not be surprising. However, if collaboration in teachereducation is to reach its full potential, the question of studentswho have more significant disabilities will have to be addressedsimultaneously.

3.4. Variable 4: performance/portfolio assessments

A fourth dimension relates to how performance/portfolioassessments are used to determine graduates’ knowledge, skills anddispositions for teaching. Preservice candidates increasinglyrepresent their knowledge and skills to teach in standards-basedportfolios and other performance assessments. The specificrequirements guiding how a candidate addresses teacher standardsdiffers from state to state and from programme to programme.

For programmes that claim to be collaborative, one importantdimension related to assessment that can be studied is how theprogramme structures candidate portfolios and how those portfo-lios are evaluated. What is asked of students with regard to diver-sity generally and disability more specifically? In someprogrammes candidates might be required to produce a uniqueportfolio entry on diversity and another on disability, while othersmight ask for substantial evidence of curricular adaptations acrossall portfolio entries and student learning across a range of students,including those with disabilities.

A related issue is whether faculty are willing to accept a port-folio entry on disability as the sole evidence for a candidate’spractice around the broader issue of diversity (Pugach, 2005). If thisportfolio practice is the case, how are candidates being encouragedto think about the multiple diversities that any individual studentmight represent? It will be important to document the kinds ofassessments that take place in collaborative programmes anddisaggregate those assessments by programme model.

3.5. Variable 5: PK-12 partnerships

Finally, how are clinical experiences conceptualised in collabo-rative programmes of teacher education and how are colleges anduniversities working in PK-12 partnerships to build greater capacityto develop high quality field sites in the schools? The quality of fieldplacements and the degree to which teacher and district practice inthe field match what preservice students are learning, and learningto value, is a consistent challenge in teacher education. In rela-tionship to preparing teachers for inclusive education as they teachstudents who have disabilities, there is a need to identify anddevelop field placement sites where collaboration among generaland special education teachers is practiced and where whateverspecific model of collaboration being used is based upon strong andproductive relationships among teachers.

A seminal lesson from the original work of the Holmes Group(1986) is that the reform of teaching and teacher education mustoccur simultaneously and that both higher education and localschool districts need one another to improve the outcomes of theirrespective work. The professional development school (PDS)movement in the U.S. (Teitel, 2003) has begun to institutionalisestronger relationships between PK-12 schools and postsecondaryeducation institutions, but the degree to which collaboration acrossspecial and general education exists within these arrangements isnot well documented or understood. In at least some cases,different PDS sites have been used for special and general educationpreservice programmes.

Further, a wide range of special education practice exists withinPK-12 schools that differ from local school to school and from stateto state. In some schools and communities inclusive practice is wellestablished and in others, despite legal mandates, inclusion andcollaboration are less likely to occur. As teacher education pro-grammes engage in redesign related to preparing teachers forworking with students who have disabilities, there is an over-whelming need to engage in robust PK-12 partnerships. Thesepartnerships should simultaneously support and challenge schoolsto use the resources colleges and universities have, as represented

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582 581

by their field students and faculty, to fully embed the education ofstudents who have disabilities within the school community asa whole. How various colleges and universities engage in suchcapacity-building with local schools and the degree of success thatresults is a central consideration for inquiry.

4. Identifying key research questions for collaborativeteacher education

A major purpose for presenting these three models of teachereducation alongside five programme dimensions is to createa common language and structure for initiating a cohesive researchagenda in collaborative teacher education. To move research in thisfield ahead, Fig. 1 represents a matrix that can be used to developkey research questions for the study of collaborative teachereducation. This 15-cell matrix crosses the three programme models(discrete, integrated and merged) with the five programmedimensions described above (curricular coherence, faculty collab-oration, depth of knowledge, performance/portfolio assessments,and PK-12 partnerships). By using such a matrix, a single pro-gramme dimension could be isolated for study across all threeprogramme models or several variables could be considered withinor across each model. This approach should enable the field tobegin to establish an empirical understanding of several criticalquestions with respect to collaborative teacher education.

Further, a whole set of studies could be conducted on what eachof these five variables looks like within one programme model orwhat any single variable looks like within and across models. Whatmight we learn from studying PK-12 partnerships for merged ascompared to integrated programme models? Are those who go onto earn a second special education licence spending their time inself-contained or inclusive settings, and to what end in terms oftheir students’ learning? Regarding depth of knowledge, what isthe relationship between depth of knowledge at the preservicelevel and a novice special education teacher’s success depending onwhether he or she completed a merged or an integrated pro-gramme? Regarding faculty collaboration, is the collaborationa function of special education and elementary/secondary educa-tion alone, or does it extend to faculty in foundational disciplines,and to what end?

It is also essential to understand that in initiating sucha research agenda, within any given teacher education pro-gramme these variables may co-exist at different levels ofdevelopment. Understanding within-programme variation acrossthe five variables can help document whether certain aspects ofcollaborative teacher education are developing faster thanothers, and why. For example, high levels of faculty collaborationcould be developing in the absence of attention to programme

MajorProgrammeDimensions/ProgrammeType

CurricularCoherence

FacultyCollaboration

DK

Discrete

Integrated

Merged

Fig. 1. Study matrix of major programme variables across t

assessments. Or, as commonly occurs, what is considered to bea strong collaborative teacher education programme could beoperating in the absence of adequate PK-12 placements wherehigh quality inclusive education is practiced. These situationsillustrate the breadth of curricular redesign that is required asa programme moves toward becoming integrated or merged. Asfaculty set their sights on a particular programme model, each ofthese variables can serve as a locus for reform goals and activi-ties, and then subsequent research. Such a matrix might also beused to frame in-depth case studies of programmes across themodels.

Establishing a common language for conducting research oncollaborative teacher education might also facilitate researchersfrom different colleges and universities nationwide to begin todevelop and use common measures as they engage in systematicstudy of their programmes. Such cross-site comparisons could alsotake the form of multi-site, mixed-method case studies, thuscreating useful cross-site comparisons.

What is perhaps most critical to the whole enterprise ofresearch in teacher education is linking programme variation tooutcomesdboth for preservice candidates themselves and for thelearning of their future students in the PK-12 schools (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). As teacher educator researchers in generaland special education begin to study collaborative teacher educa-tion more systematically, there is a need for longitudinal studiesthat follow graduates of collaborative programmes into the fieldand document their effectiveness (Pugach, 2005). Whethercollaborative programmes are better positioned to prepare teachersfor today’s complex schools is a rich area of research that demandsthe attention of teacher educators in general and special educationalike.

5. Collaborative teacher education as tinkering ortransformation?

Finally, a compelling set of philosophical issues bears consid-eration in relationship to initiating a research agenda on collabo-rative teacher education. These issues revolve chiefly arounddefining a transformative vision of teaching and learning for everystudent, among those students who have disabilities, that is carriedout by all teachers. An overarching consideration as research oncollaboration moves forward is the degree to which it does or doesnot transcend the general/special education duality and becomea lever for transformation. In other words, are collaborative struc-tures of teacher education transforming the preservice curriculumand how faculty conceptualise teaching the full range of students,or do they instead function to maintain traditional views of teachereducation with merely some tinkering around the edges?

epth ofnowledge

Performance/PortfolioAssessments

PK-12Partnerships

ypology of models of collaborative teacher education.

M.C. Pugach, L.P. Blanton / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 575–582582

At first glance it may appear that the merged programme modelmay be the most consistent with a vision of inclusive education andhave the greatest potential for transformation. In this modeldthatis, when merged programmes are the sole optiondevery teacher isprepared to teach every student, including those who do and do nothave disabilities. When every teacher earns both a general andspecial education licence, which is the fundamental criterion fora merged programme, the artificial distinction between the twobegins to erode and all teachers are meant to acquire the expertise toteach the full range of students. However, many questions remainunanswered. For example, whether merged programmes do a goodjob of situating disability within the larger framework of diversityhas not been documented. Further, what is the result of notaddressing the field of significant disabilities in merged programmesand how does this relate to a vision of inclusive education?

As noted above, to date most merged programmes do notappear to be addressing significant disabilities (Blanton & Pugach,2007). In some institutions where merged programmes are theonly option for high incidence disabilities, preservice students whowish to earn licences in significant disabilities may continue to doso in traditional segregated special education programmes ordepartments. This enables teacher education faculty in specialeducation who are not interested in collaboration to maintaina segregated status, while at the same time depriving their teachereducation colleagues in general education of the opportunity toaddress the problem of how students with significant disabilitiesbecome part of the school community. How faculty in mergedprogrammes view the expertise of special educators, especiallywith respect to significant disabilities, is an important andunstudied aspect of the collaborative research agenda. In otherinstitutions, merged programmes that address high incidencedisabilities and discrete programmes for significant disabilities mayco-exist within the same department. When merged programmesare configured as a choice among several choices and representa special cohort, the historical divisions between general andspecial education may be maintained in traditional, discrete pro-grammes for general and special education for both high and lowincidence disabilities. When such a two-tiered system is main-tained, special education teachers with expertise in significantdisabilities may continue to be prepared without a strong basis inthe general education curriculum, which raises important ques-tions regarding expectations for what students who have disabil-ities can learn and limits the reach of collaborative teachereducation.

In contrast, integrated programmes often place more focus onhow identifiable special education expertise builds upon a commonbase of general preparation for teaching that includes pedagogicalpreparation across the academic content areas. Students whocontinue on to earn a special education licence once they havecompleted the general education portion of their preservice prep-aration spend focused time preparing for this expanded role.However, how the role of special educators in integrated models isconceptualised or the extent to which extended programmes inspecial education intentionally build on prior work in generaleducation is not well documented. It will be important to under-stand what in these programmes, for example, is defined as theexpertise, that is, the depth of knowledge of special educators. Canthis differential knowledge be well-defined and its teachers exist aspart of a unified school community? Or is it the case that the specialeducation system is so engrained as a separate entity that even an

integrated model unduly reinforces segregated systems? To whatdegree do these programmes represent a traditional or trans-formed view of the role and purpose of a special education teacher?

The transformative potential of collaborative teacher educationmay not be realised in the initial construction and study of anysingle collaborative programme. Yet the existence of at least someform of collaboration, even a small merged programme option, hasthe potential to serve as a catalyst for more extensive deliberationon the need to transform the entire preservice curriculum (Blanton& Pugach, 2007). But in the absence of a robust research agenda, itwill be difficult to determine whether collaboration is con-ceptualised only as creating relationships between general andspecial educationdunnecessarily limiting the unique opportunityat handdor whether it is functioning as a deeper and moretransformative dynamic in the quest to prepare teachers foreverybody’s children.

References

Blanton, L. P., Griffin, C. C., Winn, J. A., & Pugach, M. C. (Eds.). (1997). Teachereducation in transition: Collaborative programmes to prepare general and specialeducators. Denver: Love Publishing Co.

Blanton, L. P., & Pugach, M. C. (2007). Collaborative programmes in general and specialteacher education: An action guide for higher education and state policymakers.Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers. Retrieved May 4, 2008from. http://www.ccsso.org/projects/centre_for_improving_teacher_quality/Resources_Links/.

Bondy, E., & Ross, D. D. (2005). Preparing for inclusive practice. Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press.

Centre for Improving Teacher Quality. (2007). Centre for improving teacher quality.Retrieved May 4, 2008 from. http://www.ccsso.org/projects/Centre_for_Improving_Teacher_Quality.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Zeichner, K. (Eds.). (2005). Studying teacher education: Thereport of the AERA panel on research in teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Associates.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (Eds.). (2005). Preparing teachers for a changingworld: What teachers should know and be able to do. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,A Wiley Imprint.

Grosenick, J. K., & Reynolds, M. C. (Eds.). (1978). Teacher education: Renegotiatingroles for mainstreaming. Minneapolis, MN: National Support Systems Project,University of Minnesota and the Council for Exceptional Children.

Holmes Group. (1986). Tomorrow’s teachers. East Lansing, MI: Author.Howey, K. (1996). Designing coherent and effective teacher education programmes.

In J. Sikula, T. J. Buttery, & E. Guyton (Eds.), Handbook of research on teachereducation (pp. 143–170). New York: Macmillan.

Interstate New Teacher Assistance and Support Consortium. (May 2001). Modelstandards for licensing general and special education teachers of students withdisabilities: A resource for state dialogue. Washington, DC: Council of Chief StateSchool Officers. Retrieved May 4, 2008 from. http://www.ccsso.org/content/pdfs/SpedStds.pdf.

Kleinhammer-Tramill, J. (2003). An analysis of federal initiatives to prepare regulareducation students to serve students with disabilities: Deans’ grants, REGI andbeyond. Teacher Education and Special Education, 26, 230–245.

Pugach, M. C. (2001). A Dean’s grant initiative for the 21st century? TeacherEducation and Special Education, 24, 256–261.

Pugach, M. C. (2005). Research on preparing general education teachers to workwith students with disabilities. In M. Cochran-Smith, & K. Zeichner (Eds.),Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research in teachereducation (pp. 549–590). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Pugach, M. C., & Seidl, B. L. (1998). Responsible linkages between diversity anddisability: a challenge for special education. Teacher Education and SpecialEducation, 21, 319–333.

Stayton, V. D., & McCollum, J. (2002). Unifying general and special education: whatdoes the research tell us? Teacher Education and Special Education, 25, 211–218.

Teitel, L. (2003). The professional development schools handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

UNESCO. (1994). The Salamanca statement and framework for action on specialneeds education. Retrieved August 24, 2008 from. http://www.unesco.org/education.

UNESCO. (1995). Guidelines for inclusion: Ensuring access to education for all. Paris:Author. Retrieved August 24, 2008 from. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001402/140224e.pdf.