International Special Education Inservice Training: Challenges and Solutions

ABSTRACT: Although American special education teacher educators increasingly are involved in inservice teacher education in other countries, the professional literature offers little information for those planning such activities. This paper describes an inservice training project for teachers of deaf children in a province in China. Many potential challenges for the project were identified. An explanation is provided of how the challenges were met so that everyone involved in the project ultimately judged it to be successful. The description of this project offers suggestions for others planning and implementing international inservice training activities. A COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES design nd expand their special education pro-grams, they have steadily increasing needs for both preservice preparation and inservice training of special education teachers. To meet these needs, many of these countries reqularly call upon American special education teacher educators to assist with their teacher educatio