The Consulting Teacher Simulation Program

Abstract

With recent changes in the philosophy regarding placement of handicapped students, special educators are now often asked to serve as consultants to regular educators. A computer simulation was designed to expose special educators to some of the situations they may encounter in this new role. First, a Master Test was developed describing 30 typical consulting situations. Next, “correct” choices on this test were validated by experienced graduates of four university consulting teacher programs. Then the twenty situations on which there was a consensus of opinion were expanded into computer simulations of the problems, in which the participant was shown the likely consequences of each choice and asked to make further decisions to solve the problem. The Mastery Test was given to 19 special educators before and after they completed the simulation. Results indicated that the simulation enabled subjects to choose strategies significantly more like those of expert consulting teachers.