Taking Charge of Your Professional Learning: Tips for Cultivating Special Educator Expertise

Becoming an expert special educator is no easy task! Even if you have mastered the basic expectations for your job, those expectations are continually evolving, becoming increasingly complex and rigorous. Unfortunately, your efforts to develop the knowledge and skill to effectively meet these expectations and serve students with disabilities are probably not supported by the kinds of meaningful professional learning experiences that you need to grow. Fortunately, you do not have to rely on others to provide you with the knowledge and skills that you need to develop your capacity to effectively teach students with disabilities; you can take charge of your own professional learning. The purpose of this article is to support you in cultivating your own expertise. We first describe the context in which special educators are working, with increasingly complex demands and insufficient professional development opportunities. Next, we outline the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of effective special educators. Finally, we draw from research on the development of professional expertise to provide specific tips for taking charge of your own professional learning.