Practice with Feedback Makes Permanent: eCoaching Through Online Bug-in-Ear During Clinical Experiences

Abstract

Federal mandates (e.g., Every Student Succeeds Act [ESSA], 2015) require special educators to use evidence-based practices (EBP) when working with K-12 students. However, for this expectation to become a reality, teacher educators must make changes in educator preparation program (EPP) curriculum, policy, coursework, and clinical experiences (Kolb et al., 2018). The need for changes
in EPP clinical experiences has been underscored by the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC’s) shift from knowledge to practice-based standards for special educators (CEC, 2020). Real-time performance feedback (PF) delivered via online bug-in-ear (BIE) technology is an EBP (Sinclair, 2020) for coaching and supervising during early, mid, and late clinical experiences. In this article,
we offer a rationale for making widespread, digital-age changes to coaching and supervising, through online BIE; provide an overview of relevant research; and offer guidance and recommendations for successful online BIE integration during EPP clinical experiences.