Impacting Teacher Efficacy Through Collaborative Planning: An Action-Based Inquiry Into Co-Teaching and Visualized Data Usage for Inclusionary Instruction by General and Special Education Teachers

Teachers struggle to be most impactful when offering inclusionary services to identified students. Admission, review, or dismissal committees (ARDC) often make inclusion decisions without considering the time general and special education teachers need to analyze student data and plan together to ensure inclusionary instruction is most impactful. This design-based school improvement study utilizes visualized data to investigate the impact on teacher perspectives from professional development (PD) and collaborative planning sessions related to co-teaching and planning inclusionary instruction. This study's primary research question is: How does a professional development session impact effective co-teaching for inclusionary instruction for general and special education teachers? How well does this impact influence teacher satisfaction and instructional self-identified efficacy? How do collaborative planning sessions enhance teachers’ confidence in implementing visualized data for data-based decision-making related to instruction and inclusionary instruction strategies?