Teachers’ perceptions of personal program plan requirements and school team collaboration

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the overall perceptions that resource room teachers had of the required SMART goals, rubric outcome sampling, and the collaborative effort of Personal Program Planning team. This study included a descriptive, embedded single-case study having three sub-units. Each subunit consisted of one resource room teacher who was teaching in a central Saskatchewan urban school division at the elementary level. Each resource room teacher was asked to select one student with a cognitive, behavioural, or multiple disability and a previous PPP document written for him or her (i.e., this is not the student’s first year of meeting the criteria for Intensive Supports) by that particular resource room teacher. Each resource room teacher participated in three separate focus open-ended interviews designed to explore their perceptions of SMART goals, rubric outcome sampling, and the collaborative nature of the PPP process.

Pattern-matching and exploration building were the two analytic techniques used in this study. Numerous themes were identified in the data. The themes present in data collected from at least two of the participants included: the need to be flexible with parents; resource room teachers have large workloads; concern over EAs not being able to attend PPP meetings; the need for rubrics to be discussed within the context of a PPP meeting; the effect of having different knowledge bases and levels of expertise represented in a PPP team; the use of visual aides during the PPP meeting; and working with the dual role of resource room teacher and vice principal.