Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) - College of Education and Human Development - George Mason University
About KIHd
About Us

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) is an interdisciplinary campus-based organization focusing on improving the lives and productivity of children and adults with disabilities. KIHd combines the resources of the university with local, state, regional, national, public, and private sector agencies and organizations to develop products, services, and programs for persons with disabilities.

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Licensure, Certificates & Training Grants

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) collaborates with a consortium of Virginia universities to offer training/licensure options for teachers of students with visual impairments and severe disabilities. Distance education makes the programs more accessible and maximizes the number of individuals who can receive the training.

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VDOE Grants

With the support from Virgina Department of Education KIHd serves teachers, parents, therapists, and community service providers by providing a variety of continuing learning experiences via annual workshops, conferences, and project activities. In many cases, KIHd uses distance education to provide teacher training and professional development across the state.

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Project We Got It
Research

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) continues to build and support numerous educational research projects that vary across disciplines spearheaded by the Mason faculty members. Our goal is to increase evidence based instructional and behavioral strategies to improve academic outcomes for all students with disabilities.

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Leadership Grants
DOCTORAL AND MASTERS STUDENTS

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) doctoral and masters students conduct cutting edge research at George Mason University that is aimed to serve persons with disabilities and their families.

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DCOP General Curriculum

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The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) supports the Dynamic Coaching Outreach Program in Special Education: General Curriculum (DCOP). The DCOP project uses a variety of technology-based enhancements to facilitate a more dynamic coaching and feedback cycle during the teaching internship experience. The teaching internship is required for provisionally licensed teachers enrolled in our general curriculum (K-12) licensure program at George Mason University. These provisionally licensed teachers complete the internship while on-the-job in their school.

What is eCoaching?

We define eCoaching as the effective and efficient use of technology to support non-evaluative coaching for the development of teacher candidates in our program. A menu of technology-based enhancements is used to provide eCoaching to provisionally licensed teachers who are completing their internship while on-the-job. The menu includes (a) virtual observations of their daily teaching and application of content learned over the course of the semester, (b) goal development, (c) individualized coaching inclusive of specific feedback and critiques of their practice, (d) real-time performance feedback, often via bug-in-ear (BIE) technology, (e) evaluations of their instructional videos, (f) guiding them with their reflective practices, and (g) providing them with small group interactions through online course management systems. The performance-based feedback is closely aligned with coursework and targeted behaviors and strategies are identified as a focus for coaching. The DCOP model is grounded in evidence-based research regarding teacher preparation practices in higher education. In 2021, DCOP developed a professional learning series on eCoaching. This series of modules takes you through the steps of eCoaching, building knowledge and skills at using eCoaching.

Who benefits from DCOP?

The Dynamic coaching outreach program directly benefits provisionally licensed special education inservice teachers who are currently completing on-the-job internships and acquiring a general curriculum(K-12) license. The goal of DCOP is to provide provisionally licensed teachers with timely and relevant performance-based feedback on targeted goals of their teaching practice so that they refine and increase their implementation of evidence-based practice in classrooms for students with disabilities.