TPC Journal-V6, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 4 310 and preferred descriptive items, participants ranked the degree to which they were currently and preferably differentiating school counseling topics for elementary school counseling, using a 0–4 point scale (0 = no differentiation and 4 = high differentiation). Participants’ current differentiation means were fairly moderate to low (means ranged from 1.09–2.62), meaning participants perceived providing little to average elementary school counseling topic differentiation. At the same time, participants communicated differences between their current level of differentiation and their preferred level of differentiation ( preferred means ranged from 1.69–3.26). For example, participants’ means for each preferred item were higher than the means for each current item. Thus, participants reported low to moderate differentiation for the elementary level, but desired to differentiate elementary school counseling content to a greater degree than they were actually doing. Further, participants reported conducting and desiring greater differentiation among practical or application- based topics (e.g., developing classroom lessons, addressing social and emotional issues) compared to theoretical or philosophically geared topics (e.g., professional identity, cultural competency). Through the open-ended responses, participants described their perceptions of and experiences with differentiating school counselor preparation for educational levels. For example, one participant described a practicum experience specific to the elementary level: Our program adopted a K–5 charter school who has no school counseling services. We . . . provided supervised classroom lessons pre-practicum in this elementary school. . . . The experience has been phenomenal for my students to learn about developmentally appropriate classroom management, curriculum design, lesson planning and delivery, as well as the social- emotional needs of kids. Another participant described differentiation as modifying class discussions according to level: “The discussion in a class will of course be different depending on the level being addressed.” A different participant described differentiation occurring for assignments, based on students’ interests, yet also provided an alternative strategy for viewing the concept of differentiation: Students can often tailor assignments so that they are most relevant to the [desired] level(s). . . . Readings that have to do with specific levels are generally required for everyone [because] . . . it’s good to know what’s happening at other levels. I wonder if differentiation is what’s called for or if instead, inclusion and gauging the needed depth of exposure and skill? A separate participant conceptualized differentiation as, “separate courses by level or that the instruc- tor differentiates within the course by providing examples or options for various levels.” Yet, another participant described differentiation within the context of school counseling compared to other coun- seling tracks such as mental health counseling: “I have seen programs with ‘concentrations’ by which students take only one standalone course in SC [school counseling], MH [mental health], CC [college counseling] and the rest of the program is generic counseling.” Overall, participants’ responses to open-ended questions revealed varying conceptualizations and the implementation of differentiation. K–12 Preparation Focus Through demographic data and open-ended responses, participants relayed exposure to and a preference for using a K–12 focus when preparing school counseling master’s students. First, the majority of participants conveyed graduating from a CACREP-accredited doctoral program (53%) and current employment in a CACREP-accredited school counseling master’s program (66%). Nearly all participants reported teaching the ASCA National Model in their preparation program (95%). Additionally, most participants (86%) reported working within states with K–12 school counseling