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Developing preservice teachers with a strong understanding of culturally relevant pedagogy should be a priority for all teacher education programs. Although much focus is placed on diversity in urban areas, diverse classrooms are found in all education settings. This paper demonstrates how a rural opportunity expanded the cultural awareness and culturally responsive teaching of four preservice special education teachers. Knowledge shared between teachers in an Old Order Mennonite community and these preservice teachers resulted in growth for all participants. Through immersion with the Mennonite community, four key themes emerged: (a) culturally relevant communication, (b) goal setting, (c) culturally sensitive curriculum materials, and (d) creation of a classroom to match the students' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in online learning have benefited rural special education teacher preparation programs through increased recruitment, access, and collaboration. This paper describes how additional challenges, such as monitoring teacher candidate use of evidence-based practices, can be addressed through a digital teaching platform. Project REACH online is a freely available website developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. The platform includes information on 67 evidence-based practices and six formative assessments aligned with professional standards. The assessments, designed to further and measure teacher candidate skills, mirror daily classroom tasks, such as planning before instruction and reflection after instruction on the impact on student learning. Assessments are aligned with Common Core Learning Standards and include tasks, such as applying Universal Design for Learning to instructional plans, field-testing reports, and annotating student work. Faculty benefit from the constant stream of formative assessment data at their fingertips. For teacher candidates, the platform provides a vehicle for learning and tracking progress toward goals through surveys, feedback requests, and digital badges. The platform increases interactions among teacher candidates, graduates, and faculty and extends collaboration to content experts and school partners. Preliminary research suggests that teacher candidates report variance in efficacy for teaching students with disabilities related to their program, general or special education. Data may be helpful in revising courses and program sequences to foster greater teacher efficacy and abilities to use evidence-based practices to ensure all students in inclusive settings learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]