Putting the distance in distance education: An international experience in rural special education personnel preparation

Rural Special Education Quarterly, Winter 2003 by Kelly, Karen L, Schorger, John R

Program Overview: ACCESS

Key Components

Currently, in economically challenged areas, such as northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, there exists a serious shortage of special education teachers (L. Adams, personal communication, January 12, 1999; USDOE, 1999). In order to pursue a master's degree in these rural areas, many teachers are faced with traveling as far as 200 miles to the nearest college or university. Distance and weather make sitebased programs impractical in areas where the population density is low. In May, 1999, as a means of addressing this special education teacher crisis, the School of Education and Graduate Studies at Adams State College was awarded a 4-year personnel preparation grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). This grant supported the development and implementation of a personnel preparation program entitled: A Colorado Consortium for Equity in Special Education Services (ACCESS). ACCESS was a distance education program, which included two summer sessions on the ASC campus and sufficient funding to serve two consecutive 2-year cohorts of graduate students. The grant funding allowed for 44 qualified educators to obtain their master's degrees at no cost, as the award paid for tuition and fees for each funded candidate. Since twothirds of the program coursework was offered on-line, educators currently employed in a school setting were able to complete their degree program while "on the job." ACCESS, designed in collaboration with rural schools and state agencies in Colorado and New Mexico addressed the following goals: (1) to increase the number of Special Education personnel in rural Colorado and New Mexico, (2) to increase the number of bilingual, bicultural and culturally sensitive Special Education teachers in Colorado and New Mexico, and (3) to develop a permanent delivery system and Special Education master's program that replaces outmoded and inherently inequitable site-based programs.

Participant Selection and Program Structure

During initial recruitment for the first cohort of ACCESS students, 115 applications were received by ASC. Following a review of transcripts and applications by project co-directors, 60 candidates who met both ACCESS and ASC graduate admission requirements were invited to attend face-to-face structured interviews in one of three rural communities in the target area. As specified in the grant recruitment model, a diverse team of instructors, special education administrators and parents selected 25 candidates to participate in the first cohort of the master's degree program. The students selected were linguistically, culturally, and geographically diverse and included 5 Native Americans and 7 Latino teachers. The mean undergraduate grade point average of the cohort was 3.67 on a 4-point scale.

A weekend orientation session was held on the campus of ASC at the onset of the program. All participants attended the 2-day orientation and signed an ACCESS Service Obligation Contract required by the grant which noted that they would remain in the target geographic areas and teach in special education settings for 2 years following completion of their degrees. During the orientation, students received their first Internet instructions, reviewed and were advised according to the master's degree curriculum plan (Table 1), and were provided an overview of distance learning methodologies.