Beyond the IEP: Preparing Teachers for Authentic Special Education Work

New special educators consistently report feeling underprepared for the instructional, relational, and decision-making demands of teaching students with disabilities, suggesting gaps between what preparation programs teach and what classroom practice requires. Drawing on frameworks of practice-based teacher education, pedagogies of enactment, and adaptive expertise, this article presents a model that embeds authentic professional tasks within coursework, enabling preservice teachers to rehearse the complex, integrated work of special education before entering the field. Four signature assignments address documented areas of novice teacher difficulty: navigating difficult family communication, designing individualized instruction under real constraints, building functional accommodation toolboxes, and developing relationship-building as visible pedagogy. Each assignment is grounded in research on special educator preparation gaps and aligned with pedagogies supporting professional judgment. Implementation guidance is provided in condensed figures, with complete materials in appendices. The article offers teacher educators a theoretically grounded, practically oriented approach to shifting preparation toward enactment-centered instruction.