Overview
This three-credit course is designed to increase awareness of the framework and rationale for collaboration, the facilitating factors involved, and the strategies for implementation. The main emphasis of the course is on understanding collaborative consultation as a process that enables people with diverse expertise to work together to generate solutions for educating students with special needs in regular public school classrooms.
Topics covered in EDPY 470 include:
- key elements in school-based consultation
- consultation models and professional practices
- problem-solving consultation
- communication and interpersonal skills
- legal and ethical issues
- consulting about students with social, emotional, and/or behavioral problems
- consulting about students with academic skills problems
- transition planning
- systems level consultation
Outline
EDPY 470 is divided into nine units.
- Unit 1 Overview of School-Based Consultation
- Unit 2 Consultation Models and Professional Practices
- Unit 3 Problem-Solving Consultation
- Unit 4 Communication and Interpersonal Skills
- Unit 5 Legal and Ethical Issues in School Consultation
- Unit 6 Consulting About Students with Social, Emotional, and/or Behavioural Problems
- Unit 7 Consulting About Students with Academic Skill Problems
- Unit 8 Transition Planning
- Unit 9 Systems-Level Consultation
Learning outcomes
When you have completed EDPY 470, you should be able to do the following:
- Explain consultation, collaboration, and collaborative consultation.
- Discuss the various consultation models and professional practices.
- Describe the components of effective consultation and collaboration.
- Illustrate effective problem-solving in consultation and collaboration.
- Outline effective communication and interpersonal skills for consultation and collaboration.
- Describe the legal and ethical issues in consultation and collaboration.
- Discuss effective strategies for consulting about students with academic skills problems and/or social, emotional, and/or behavioural problems.
- Discuss systems-level consultation and summarize the steps in the RIOT process.
- Outline strategies for transition planning in consultation and collaboration.
Evaluation
The final grade in EDPY 470 will be based on the completion of a Planning Activity, three Reflective Journals, and a Course Project, and participation in the Discussion Forum. To receive credit for this course, you must complete every assignment and achieve a grade of 50% or better on every graded assignment (i.e., the Reflective Journals, the Course Project, and participation in the Discussion Forum). Although you will not receive a grade for the Planning Activity itself, you must submit the Study Plan portion of the Planning Activity before your other assignments will be marked.
The following table summarizes the evaluation activities and the credit weight associated with each activity.
| Activity | Weight |
| Planning Activity | 0% |
| Reflective Journals | 45% |
| Course Project | 28% |
| Participation in Discussion Forum | 27% |
| Total | 100% |
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Kampwirth, T., & Powers, K. (2015). Collaborative consultation in the schools: Effective practices for students with learning and behavioral problems (5th ed.) Pearson.
Other Resources
All other course materials are online on the course website.