Becoming a School Consultant

Lessons Learned

Sylvia Rosenfield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136737176
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Education in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Most consultation courses in school psychology focus heavily on theoretical models of consultation and associated intervention procedures. Little time is devoted to developing communication and process skills. Yet these process skills are key to properly identifying student problems and selecting appropriate interventions. Without skillfully conducted consultations, implementation and evaluation of an intervention can be minimal. This book is designed to help students develop the process skills needed to become effective school consultants in consultee-centered consultation, with special emphasis on the instructional consultation model. The authors address specific skills and issues faced by novice consultants and documents how they worked through particular issues that are likely to occur in school consultation practice.

Part I

Supporting the Novice Consultant

Moving into the application stage of a skill is key to becoming competent. However, to maximize development in the chaos of the application stage, it is essential to have the opportunity to refl ect upon those experiences and to receive support. Katie Burkhouse details how consultation skills can be monitored and measured over time, with tools for reflection and evaluation. Daniel Newman provides an overview of common concerns of consultantsin- training and how supervision is supportive of working through these issues. Reading these chapters will set the stage for understanding the refl ective process of the case narrative authors.

1

Educating a Reflective School Consultant: Multi-Faceted Techniques

Burkhouse, Katie Sutton

Advance Organizer Questions

• What are the differences between evaluating didactic knowledge and skill growth?
• How can we engage in critical self-reflection and evaluation to understand our own skill growth and areas of need?

School psychology training programs must impart both knowledge and skills to prepare competent professionals ready for practice or academia. Evaluation of knowledge comes in many forms; e.g., traditional tests, oral exams, and class participation. Evaluation of skill growth presents more challenges for school psychology trainers and for their students, who are learning new skills. It is not always explicit how to measure the growth of practice skills. Although, students start at varying levels of skill with different background experiences upon entering training programs, it seems likely that there is a threshold or minimum level of skill attainment necessary for all students regardless of their prior experience, in order to produce competent practitioners. Truly it is difficult to ensure that students leave graduate school with the skills necessary to be professional psychologists.

Consultation, one main component of most school psychology training programs, is an area where evaluation is especially challenging. Consultation requires the attainment of a broad knowledge base as well as growth in interpersonal and problem-solving skills. Not only is it difficult to measure consultant skill growth for the aforementioned reasons, consultation has additional challenges because there is such variety in the competencies that are taught (Anton-LaHart & Rosenfield, 2004; Hazel, Laviolette, & Lineman, 2010). The field of school consultation lacks both a consensus and research that would indicate the necessary skills and knowledge to be taught, leading to a diversity of training approaches. The purpose and focus of this chapter is three-fold:

1. to encourage students to become reflective practitioners and learn how to monitor their own skill growth in the area of consultation;
2. to provide trainers with additional tools for their consultation training toolbox to help evaluate student skill growth; and
3. to demonstrate how evaluation can fulfill multiple purposes.

Unlike other chapters in this book, this chapter is not a case study per se but a guide on evaluation of consultation cases. The recommendations in this chapter are the product of my own experience, taking and peer supervising over 20 consultation cases in schools, as well as the guidance of my instructor, an expert in the area of school consultation. Further, the recommendations in this chapter are the result of engaging in a process of critical self-reflection and, through coursework and supervision, helping other students to engage in such a process for their own growth and development.

Assumptions

Due to the dearth of research in consultation training, I want to share some of the basic assumptions that help to guide my approach. Because this chapter is intended to be applicable for students and trainers from a variety of consultation perspectives, I hope that outlining the following assumptions will not only aid in understanding my approach, but also allow readers to reflect on some of their own assumptions. In addition, it may help students and trainers to reflect upon how to tweak the recommendations in this chapter to match their own assumptions about consultation in schools.

First, coursework in consultation must have a practical, in-school component, in which students are taking consultation cases and receiving supervision and support through university and/or school based supervisors. In order to build skills, students need in vivo experience with extensive reflection. Without application, it is very difficult, maybe even impossible, to know one’s own level of competence and skill when applying consultation principles. Further, many people believe consultation skills are intuitive. With application, it becomes clear that consultation is not as easy as it looks.

Second, learning about consultation involves learning about other important topics, such as:

1. how the culture of schools impact service delivery;
2. how systems work and how to affect system change; and
3. how to become a reflective practitioner.

This last point is salient because practitioners report that they have difficulty building consultation skills in the field because of a lack of supervision and support (Hall, 2002). In fact, once school psychologists complete their pre-service training and internship, it becomes very difficult to gain additional skill and knowledge in consultation. Therefore, for psychologists who choose to consult as part of their service delivery, it is vital that they are able to reflect in productive ways upon their own practice.

Finally, trainers should have a variety of tools in their toolboxes for evaluating students. There are different approaches for evaluating didactic knowledge and skill growth. While most faculty members are comfortable evaluating the growth of knowledge through a variety of different approaches, it is less clear how to evaluate discrete skill growth and determine attainment of acceptable skill levels. With an increasing focus on accountability for accredited training programs and new training guidelines from NASP and APA, it is necessary to think more about how to go about evaluating practical skill growth.

Components of an Evaluation System

Didactic Components

Training in school consultation involves learning in a variety of knowledge domains regardless of the training program’s approach to or model of consultation. Although traditional criterion-referenced tests may have their place in a comprehensive evaluation system, graduate students benefit from evaluation that involves a variety of approaches to measuring knowledge gained. In addition to helping instructors determine if their goals have been accomplished, evaluation of didactic knowledge can also be targeted toward helping students to reflect on their own knowledge and how they will apply this knowledge in schools. Table 1.1 includes some possible examples to use to evaluate consultation knowledge.

Table 1.1 Examples for Evaluating Didactic Consultation Knowledge

Component

Description

Reflective Journals	Thoughts shared between student and instructor on a regular predicted interval that synthesize knowledge and help the student derive individual meaning
School Culture Analysis	Formal analysis of school characteristics and culture of practicum placement with reference to applicable readings
Case Summaries	Thorough account of case progressions, reviewing problem solving process, relationship building, interpersonal communication, supervision, etc.
Class Participation/ Reflection on Readings	Structured (outlining) and unstructured reflection on course readings as well as participation in class discussion through individual or group work
Exams	Formal measures of knowledge with rubrics for evaluating answer applicability, accuracy, and completeness

Journaling

Reflective journals are one way to integrate and synthesize course readings and experiences. They provide a venue for communication between instructor/supervisor and student to meet a variety of purposes. Consultants-in-training (CIT) should be encouraged to view journaling as an opportunity to go beyond the readings. Students may be instructed to pose questions, infer broader concepts, tie together different readings, and/or reflect on how the information will impact their practices. Journals also provide the course instructor with a way of determining if CITs are deriving the intended messages from the reading and to ensure adequate preparation for in-class discussions.

CITs should be instructed on the expected timeline for turning in journals and an approximate amount of reflection expected by the instructor. While instructors can offer some additional guidelines, they should do so with the consideration that guidelines may result in the stifling of journal material. In the end, what goes into each journal may be different for each CIT and different throughout the course. I have included in Appendix A an example of a journal I wrote during my second consultation course. This journal provides an example of relating course reading to my current experience in a school and trying to fit the readings into my growing conceptual framework for the practice of school psychology.

School Culture Analysis

Each CIT should do a thorough analysis of the culture of the school(s) they are placed in for practicum work. Students can begin by reflecting on the demographics of the school and try to understand how these demographics impact the people in the school. Also, students can reflect on the leadership and school administration, integrating readings on school culture. Some examples are: Fullan and Hargreaves (1991), Fried (2003), Horn and Little (2010), Little (1990, 2007), Sarason (1996), and Wyner (1991).

Other potential topics of reflection include school meetings, high stakes testing, school teaming, response to intervention, and system level school programs such as positive behavioral supports and pre-referral services. CITs should pay careful consideration to the relationships and collaboration among and between teachers and other staff at their particular school, exploring relational challenges presented in the work of Sarason (1996) and collaboration presented in the work of Little (1990), as two possible examples. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to outline all aspects of culture to be investigated, it is important for CITs to have spent time reflecting on the context of their consultation activities to understand the types of collaboration, teaming, leadership, and relationships that exist in their school.

Case Studies

Case studies are a crossover between didactic and practical knowledge gained through consultation training. In other words, they provide CITs with an opportunity to reflect on their own practice by integrating relevant research and course materials. Further, case studies can provide a forum for self-reflection that goes beyond just what was done and involves critical reflection on what could be done differently in the future. Generally speaking, case studies can be summative in that they are the result of the culmination of consultation experiences throughout the course(s) and formative in the sense that cases can be presented in milieu to obtain feedback from instructors and peers. Format for these studies should match expectations of each unique training program and can coincide with the format for case logs (described below).

Class Participation/Reflection on Readings

An important part of any consultation course is the in-class discussion. Graduate students rely on in-class discussions to make connections and sense of numerous readings and to understand how the knowledge they are gaining has practical application. One way to minimize the load on students...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Reviewer Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Becoming a School Consultant
• Part I: Supporting the Novice Consultant
• Part II: Starting at the Beginning
• Part III: Consulting in the Elementary Grades
• Part IV: Consulting on a Class-Wide Concern
• Part V: Consulting with Special Education Teachers
• Index