Special Education in General Education Classrooms

Abstract Disputes about where to best educate students with disabilities remain unresolved, and concerns about mainstreaming, inclusive schools, and full inclusion are continuously resurfacing. Cooperative leaching has emerged as an alternative for service delivery in an era motivated by a need to reform current practices. With a supportive learning approach to cooperative teaching, the general education teacher is responsible for teaching content, and the special education teacher is responsible for developing and implementing student activities. In this research, supportive learning activities were implemented in a multiple-baseline time series design across four, 5th-grade classrooms. To ensure continuity of core curriculum between special and general education teachers, necessary interventions for student success were designed and implemented collaboratively by both teachers. The purpose was to evaluate the effects of a cooperative teaching alternative (supportive learning) on teaching behavior, the b...