interview with a special education professional (teacher or paraprofessional).

Key Assessment #4: CHILDD 187
Interviewing an EC Professional
You will conduct an interview with a special education professional (teacher or paraprofessional). Your choice must be someone who works directly with children in an early education program and carries out adaptations on a daily basis. In this assignment, you are to focus on curriculum adaptations and the professional’s role in the classroom. You will investigate how the family has been involved in assessment and adaptation..
STEP ONE: Identify a center you would like to interview a teacher from. He or she should have regular interaction with a child who has known learning or developmental differences. This ECE professional must be in an inclusive setting that serves children birth-8 years of age that have typical and atypical developmental needs.
Ideas of centers that offer Birth – 3 programming
STEP TWO: Call the agency /school to set up the observation. The object is to provide a clear explanation of who you are, the purpose of the interview (to find out about how the professional works with children and families); and why it would be helpful to you in your studies and future career as an early childhood professional. Be sure to mention that you are a student in the Early Childhood Education program at MATC. (NAEYC Key element 6a).
SET UP AN INTERVIEW – should take about 30 minutes to conduct the interview
STEP THREE: Conduct an interview virtually or by phone with your ECE professional.
A basic set of questions is below in bold and red. You may need to ask follow-up questions to get enough information to complete the assignment. For example, if the teacher gives a very short answer, ask her/him to explain or elaborate. It’s your responsibility to get meaningful answers you can use to complete the assignment.
How do you establish a relationship with a child’s family? (NAEYC Key Element 2a)
From the professional’s response you want to determine which approaches the teacher uses or has used to understand a child’s family and that child’s community. You may need to ask more than one question to reach this goal.
What other professionals do you normally work with and what kind of support do they give you?
Examples of other professionals might include a speech pathologist or a physical therapist. The support they provide includes anything designed to give the professional information, skills or strategies or otherwise in order to assist with particular children under her/his care.
What assessments/tests do you use to identify developmental and learning needs of the children in your room?
Please note at least one developmental assessment tool used by the professional interviewed. Use information you’ve learned in class to understand the professional’s answer. Remember to ask if they use observation and documentation as a form of assessment. In your notes, also note why this tool’s objectives are a “good fit” for the children in this environment. (NAEYC Key Element 3b).
How do your assessments help you to meet the individual needs of children?
Here you want to find out how assessments are used to structure what the teacher does for the children. What benefits does this professional find in using assessment, and why? Did you, the interviewer, observe any additional benefits while watching the professional in action? (NAEYC Key Elements 3a)
How does your agency/school collaborate with families to assess the needs of their children? (NAEYC Key Element 2a)
Examples of this include but are not limited to the intake procedure (where initial information about the child is gathered from family members); family members receiving regular reports (verbal and/or written) about their child’s progress (if so, get a description of how these reports are done and what they contain); formal assessments done to determine the child’s level of function; and families reporting back to the professionals involved with their child about the child’s progress/experiences outside of the agency/school environment. Remember, your job isn’t to find out the results of these assessments but to find out how the agency or school partners with a family to assist the child. Assessments of all kinds are an important set of tools in this process (NAEYC Key Element 3d)
Any other comments?
Here you can ask another question(s), perhaps one related to something you want to know more about.
STEP FOUR: Write a report that includes:
Write out the questions you used for the interview (teacher comments) and the responses the professional shared with you. At least a paragraph per question should be written for full credit. (paragraph is 4-5 sentences)
Be sure to write the name of the teacher you interviewed and where she/he works as a teacher.
Look over the answers and pull out the meaningful information. Make your own comments about what you learned during the interview. Write out these questions and make your own comments (4-5 sentences):
Connecting to what you’ve learned in this course and at other courses at MATC. In particular, what did you learn about how this school uses assessment to provide service to children and families, and the types of assessments it uses to do so?(NAEYC Key Assessment 3b)
Comment on whether you think these assessments are being used appropriately. Why? How does context matter? (NAEYC Key Element 2a )
What did you learn about the way this agency collaborates with families? A self-assessment that answers the questions below.
Would you like to work as a paraprofessional or teacher in an early childhood special education program? Why or why not?
What did you experience in the interview that influenced your answer? (NAEYC Key Element 6d)
Review:
Interview a teacher who works with children with special needs in early childhood education. (Questions 1-6 in red above) (Step 3)
Type up each question and the answer the teacher provided. Be sure that your answer is at least 3-4 sentences long. Provide the name of the teacher and where she/he works as a teacher.
Type up each question in STEP 4 (a-e) and answer those from what you’ve learned in class/es and what your thoughts are. Again, answers should be 3-4 sentences.
Submit your work in Blackboard. This should be a 3-4 page paper.

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