How to become Special Education Teachers, Secondary School in 2024

Special Education Teachers, Secondary School Teach academic, social, and life skills to secondary school students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Includes teachers who specialize and work with students who are blind or have visual impairments; students who are deaf or have hearing impairments; and students with intellectual disabilities.

Special Education Teachers, Secondary School is Also Know as

In different settings, Special Education Teachers, Secondary School is titled as

  • Career and Transition Teacher
  • High School Special Education Teacher
  • Interrelated Special Education Teacher
  • Learning Disabilities Special Education Teacher (LD Special Education Teacher)
  • Learning Support Teacher
  • Resource Teacher
  • Special Day Class Teacher (SDC Teacher)
  • Special Education Resource Teacher
  • Special Education Teacher
  • Teacher

Education and Training of Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

Special Education Teachers, Secondary School is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

Training Required for Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Special Education Teachers, Secondary School in different industries are

What Do Special Education Teachers, Secondary School do?

  • Maintain accurate and complete student records, and prepare reports on children and activities, as required by laws, district policies, and administrative regulations.
  • Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification and positive reinforcement.
  • Prepare materials and classrooms for class activities.
  • Establish and enforce rules for behavior and policies and procedures to maintain order among students.
  • Confer with parents, administrators, testing specialists, social workers, or other professionals to develop individual educational plans (IEPs) for students' educational, physical, and social development.
  • Instruct through lectures, discussions, and demonstrations in one or more subjects, such as English, mathematics, or social studies.
  • Employ special educational strategies and techniques during instruction to improve the development of sensory- and perceptual-motor skills, language, cognition, and memory.
  • Plan and conduct activities for a balanced program of instruction, demonstration, and work time that provides students with opportunities to observe, question, and investigate.
  • Teach personal development skills, such as goal setting, independence, and self-advocacy.
  • Prepare students for later grades by encouraging them to explore learning opportunities and to persevere with challenging tasks.
  • Establish clear objectives for all lessons, units, and projects, and communicate those objectives to students.
  • Develop and implement strategies to meet the needs of students with a variety of handicapping conditions.
  • Modify the general education curriculum for special-needs students, based upon a variety of instructional techniques and technologies.
  • Meet with other professionals to discuss individual students' needs and progress.
  • Confer with parents or guardians, other teachers, counselors, and administrators to resolve students' behavioral and academic problems.
  • Meet with parents and guardians to discuss their children's progress and to determine priorities for their children and their resource needs.
  • Guide and counsel students with adjustments, academic problems, or special academic interests.
  • Coordinate placement of students with special needs into mainstream classes.
  • Observe and evaluate students' performance, behavior, social development, and physical health.
  • Monitor teachers and teacher assistants to ensure that they adhere to inclusive special education program requirements.
  • Prepare, administer, and grade tests and assignments to evaluate students' progress.
  • Instruct students in daily living skills required for independent maintenance and self-sufficiency, such as hygiene, safety, and food preparation.
  • Meet with parents and guardians to provide guidance in using community resources and to teach skills for dealing with students' impairments.
  • Provide additional instruction in vocational areas.
  • Prepare objectives and outlines for courses of study, following curriculum guidelines or requirements of states and schools.
  • Confer with other staff members to plan and schedule lessons promoting learning, following approved curricula.
  • Instruct and monitor students in the use and care of equipment and materials to prevent injuries and damage.
  • Use computers, audio-visual aids, and other equipment and materials to supplement presentations.
  • Administer standardized ability and achievement tests, and interpret results to determine students' strengths and needs.
  • Collaborate with other teachers and administrators in the development, evaluation, and revision of secondary school programs.
  • Prepare for assigned classes, and show written evidence of preparation upon request of immediate supervisors.
  • Attend professional meetings, educational conferences, and teacher training workshops to maintain and improve professional competence.
  • Plan and supervise class projects, field trips, visits by guest speakers, or other experiential activities, and guide students in learning from those activities.
  • Attend staff meetings and serve on committees, as required.
  • Select, store, order, issue, and inventory classroom equipment, materials, and supplies.
  • Perform administrative duties, such as school library assistance, hall and cafeteria monitoring, and bus loading and unloading.
  • Provide assistive devices, supportive technology, and assistance accessing facilities, such as restrooms.
  • Visit schools to tutor students with sensory impairments and to consult with teachers regarding students' special needs.
  • Provide interpretation and transcription of regular classroom materials through Braille and sign language.
  • Sponsor extracurricular activities, such as clubs, student organizations, and academic contests.

Qualities of Good Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.

Tools Used by Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

  • Alternative computer keyboards
  • Assistive amplification systems
  • Audio tape recorders or players
  • Braille slates
  • Braille styluses
  • Bunsen burners
  • Communication boards
  • Computer laser printers
  • Desktop computers
  • Digital video cameras
  • Dissection scalpels
  • Document cameras
  • Emergency first aid kits
  • Enteral feeding equipment
  • Eye controlled computer mouse equipment
  • Foot operated mouse equipment
  • Glass beakers
  • Head operated joysticks
  • Interactive whiteboards
  • Jellybean switches
  • Laboratory heating plates
  • Laminating equipment
  • Laptop computers
  • Liquid crystal display LCD projectors
  • Microphones
  • Mouth operated joysticks
  • Multimedia projection equipment
  • Optical compound microscopes
  • Oral suction tubes
  • Page turners
  • Pencil compasses
  • Personal computers
  • Photocopying equipment
  • Portable communication devices
  • Portable oxygen equipment
  • Reading pens
  • Safety gloves
  • Safety goggles
  • Science activity kits
  • Sound switches
  • Tablet computers
  • Talking calculators
  • Teletypewriters TTY
  • Television monitors
  • Trackballs
  • Video camcorders
  • Video cassette recorders VCR
  • Video magnifiers
  • Wheelchairs
  • Wireless touch screen monitors
  • Word prediction software

Technology Skills required for Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Email software
  • Facebook
  • Hand held spell checkers
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • Screen magnification software
  • Screen reader software
  • Text to speech software
  • Video editing software
  • Voice activated software
  • Web browser software
  • Word processing software