Teachers Assisting Teachers: A Prereferral Model for Urban Educators

A prereferral model designed to assist general educators in their work with urban children was implemented in two inner city schools. The model consisted of three components: information sharing sessions, peer exchange sessions, and peer coaching teams. The goal of the model was to create a structure wherein teachers could assist each other in the process of analyzing and generating solutions to problems or dilemmas presented by children in their classes who were experiencing learning problems. Interview data suggested that program participants offered more categories of teaching strategies to address children's problems and identified more successful teaching strategies than did nonparticipants. Referral rates, collected at the end of the school year, indicated that participants referred significantly fewer children than nonparticipants. Finally, as evidenced by their written comments, participants rated all components of the model positively.