Exploring Learning from Success in a Special Education School for Students with Severe Intellectual Disabilities

In light of the growing complexity of schoolwork, researchers and practitioners have highlighted the critical importance of transforming schools into learning organizations (Mulford & Silins, 2011). In such organizations, teachers continuously deliberate with one another as to how to solve problems that relate to teaching and learning (Fullan, 2016; Stoll, McMahon, & Thomas, 2006). Research exploring organizational learning (OL) in the typical education system highlights the importance of learning from previous success in the organization. Learning from success aims to reveal the hidden knowledge that contributed to those earlier successful practices, and to "capture" the specific actions that were taken along the path to success (Schechter, 2010). With an attempt to investigate learning from success in the field of special education, earlier research indicated that school leaders have been challenged to establish learning communities as a means for meeting the intent as well as the spirit of federal laws concerning the education of students with disabilities (DiPaola & Walther-Thomas, 2003). The study explored the factors that promote or hinder collective learning from successes when working with students who have severe intellectual disabilities. While insufficient theoretical and empirical research has been conducted on learning from success in such schools, the purpose of the current research is to address the gap in the literature. With an attempt to implement learning from success in special education schools, implications for generating collective learning and limitations of this research will be discussed, followed by suggestions for future research avenues.