scholarly journals Parents’ Use of Digital Literacies to Support their Children with Disabilities in Online Learning Environments

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Frances Rice ◽  
Kelsey Ortiz

An emerging research base has highlighted various roles and responsibilities that parents of students with disabilities accept when they enroll their children in online schools. Since finding and using online texts and using various programs and applications that require search and evaluation skills to do work are typical for online learning, it follows that part of parent responsibilities in many families might involve using basic technological literacies or even more advanced digital ones. To focus on the range of technological literacies that parents employ, researchers gathered self-report data from parents about how they engage with online education technologies while working with their children with disabilities. Interviews with (n = 32) parents across six states in the West, Midwest, and Southern United States revealed that parents employ various skills with a specific set of purposes in mind. Literacies were used to (a) perform basic technological computing tasks, (b) evaluate information to supplement existing instructional materials, and (c) communicate with the school about children’s needs. Reported purposes for using these skills emerged as (a) instructing, (b) monitoring, (c) advocating, and (d) learning school expectations. Implications of this study include the potential for literacy-based approaches to parent preparation for supporting vulnerable children in online settings.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pamela Jean Backhouse

<p>International literature has focused on paraprofessionals working with students with disabilities in schools and similarly there is some investigative research on teacher aides working with children with disabilities in New Zealand schools. However there is little enquiry into Education Support Workers (ESWs) perspectives of working with children with disabilities in New Zealand Early Childhood Education settings. This study is intended to contribute to addressing this important gap in the literature. ESWs are allocated as primary supports for children with disabilities who need extra learning support and require intervention. This qualitative and quantitative research study is positioned within a sociocultural framework of the Te Whāriki (1996) Early Childhood curriculum which promotes inclusive practices for all children. One-hundred and three ESW respondents from the kindergarten sector completed and returned a questionnaire. Data collection included the role and proximity of an ESW, the child’s interactions with others, and the ESW’s relationship with the child with disabilities. The results revealed ESWs have a wide range of roles and responsibilities in their work with children with disabilities. They work in collaboration with teachers in determining their work with a child and integrate a child into the environment. The development of social skills and involving everyone in the child’s learning was a top priority. Also included was the building of relationships between the child, peers, teachers, and parents. In this study ESWs used a combination of positions such as working alongside, hovering, opposite, and behind and at the same time the child primarily interacted with the ESW, teachers, and peers. Even though there were some ESWs who worked exclusively with a child, the child still interacted in combination with the ESW, teachers, and peers. This result showed inclusion of others irrespective of the ESW’s close proximity. The ESW’s relationship with a child was reported as warm, caring, and positive and also described as very close, perhaps due to the nature of support for some children. This study explored ESWs’ perspectives on their work with children with disabilities and used self report. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed in the context of the ECE curriculum. Although some insight has been generated by ESWs’ participation in this study, there is still an urgent need for future research to ensure Ministry of Education policy and practice line up for children with disabilities and their families, in order for them to receive an equitable fair education as valued members of our community.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Laura E Mullins ◽  
Jennifer Mitchell

Following the World Health Organization’s announcement of the global pandemic because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019, most Canadian universities transitioned to offering their courses exclusively online. One group affected by this transition was students with disabilities. Previous research has shown that the university experience for students with disabilities differs from those of their non-disabled peers. However, their unique needs are often not taken into consideration. As a result, students can become marginalized and alienated from the online classroom. In partnership with Student Accessibility Services, this research revealed the impact of the transition to online learning because of the pandemic for university students with disabilities. Students registered with Student Accessibility Services completed a survey about the effects of online learning during a pandemic on the students’ lives, education, and instructional and accommodation. It was clear from the results that online education during COVID-19 affected all aspects of the students’ lives, particularly to their mental health. This research provided a much-needed opportunity for students with disabilities to share the factors influencing their educational experience and identified recommendations instructors should consider when developing online courses to increase accessibility and improve engagement. 


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pamela Jean Backhouse

<p>International literature has focused on paraprofessionals working with students with disabilities in schools and similarly there is some investigative research on teacher aides working with children with disabilities in New Zealand schools. However there is little enquiry into Education Support Workers (ESWs) perspectives of working with children with disabilities in New Zealand Early Childhood Education settings. This study is intended to contribute to addressing this important gap in the literature. ESWs are allocated as primary supports for children with disabilities who need extra learning support and require intervention. This qualitative and quantitative research study is positioned within a sociocultural framework of the Te Whāriki (1996) Early Childhood curriculum which promotes inclusive practices for all children. One-hundred and three ESW respondents from the kindergarten sector completed and returned a questionnaire. Data collection included the role and proximity of an ESW, the child’s interactions with others, and the ESW’s relationship with the child with disabilities. The results revealed ESWs have a wide range of roles and responsibilities in their work with children with disabilities. They work in collaboration with teachers in determining their work with a child and integrate a child into the environment. The development of social skills and involving everyone in the child’s learning was a top priority. Also included was the building of relationships between the child, peers, teachers, and parents. In this study ESWs used a combination of positions such as working alongside, hovering, opposite, and behind and at the same time the child primarily interacted with the ESW, teachers, and peers. Even though there were some ESWs who worked exclusively with a child, the child still interacted in combination with the ESW, teachers, and peers. This result showed inclusion of others irrespective of the ESW’s close proximity. The ESW’s relationship with a child was reported as warm, caring, and positive and also described as very close, perhaps due to the nature of support for some children. This study explored ESWs’ perspectives on their work with children with disabilities and used self report. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed in the context of the ECE curriculum. Although some insight has been generated by ESWs’ participation in this study, there is still an urgent need for future research to ensure Ministry of Education policy and practice line up for children with disabilities and their families, in order for them to receive an equitable fair education as valued members of our community.</p>


Author(s):  
J. Baker

Understanding the psychosocial classroom environment has been important in both traditional face-to-face courses and online education. Trickett and Moos (1974) pioneered the use of post-course self-report instruments to measure the classroom environment through the Classroom Environment Scale. More recently, Taylor and Maor (2000) developed the Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey (COLLES) to examine the students’ perceptions of online learning environment in light of social constructivist pedagogical principles. The 24-item, Likert-type COLLES instrument is a popular measure for examining online learning environments for a least two reasons. First, it measures the online learning environment along constructivist categories, which makes it in line with the dominant pedagogical philosophy for online instruction. Second, the COLLES instrument is freely included in the Survey Module of Moodle, the most popular open source course management system available. This makes it particularly convenient for online instructors to use COLLES in their teaching and research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147524092110343
Author(s):  
Kathleen Doll ◽  
Moira Ragan ◽  
Gerard Calnin ◽  
Sarah Mason ◽  
Kevin House

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, school buildings across the globe closed, leading educators, students and families to transition rapidly to online education. It is clear that schools will in the future continue to employ online learning, even as students and educators return to school buildings. While the education community has over a number of years generated a range of practical tips and guidance about online education—especially since the onset of COVID-19—many are not supported by research (DiPietro et al., 2010) and neglect international school settings (Barbour, 2014). This study investigates the experiences of sixty-one K-12 international educators via nineteen focus groups, contributing to the literature base on pedagogical, leadership and practical strategies needed to support effective online learning. Four lessons learned emerged from the data: technological challenges are exacerbated during a crisis; educators adapted to revise pedagogical strategies when under pressure; student and parent experiences were inconsistent and complex; and school leaders play an important role during a transition to online education. Although COVID-19 posed challenges, educators are resilient, adaptable, and deeply committed to student learning. School leaders now have an opportunity to reconstruct a model of education which offers students the best of face-to-face learning augmented by the most effective use of virtual technologies. This is more than planning for potential crises; this is reimagining the future of education.


2020 ◽  
pp. 143-152
Author(s):  
Jake Hilliard ◽  
Karen Kear ◽  
Helen Donelan ◽  
Caroline Heaney

There is growing recognition of the importance of emotions in academic online learning contexts. However, there is still little known about the role of emotions in social and collaborative online learning settings, especially the relationship between emotions and student participation. To explore this relationship, this study used a prospective longitudinal research design to follow 46 distance learning students throughout a 3-week assessed, online, collaborative activity. This approach allowed the fluctuating and dynamic aspects of emotions to be explored as well as the relationship between emotions and student participation in the collaborative activity. Self-report data were gathered using a semi-structured online diary at five time points throughout the task (once at the start of the collaborative activity, three times during the activity, and the final entry after the activity had finished). Findings revealed that learners generally perceived pleasant emotions (such as relief, satisfaction and enjoyment) to have positive impacts, or no impact, on participation, whereas unpleasant emotions (such as anxiety, frustration, and disappointment) were generally perceived to have negative impacts, or no impact, on participation. Interestingly, however, anxiety, and to a smaller extent frustration, were perceived by a number of students to have positive impacts during the activity. To conclude this paper, implications for educators are highlighted.


Author(s):  
Deki Peldon

Contact teaching has always been a common practice in Bhutanese Education System. But the COVID-19 pandemic threatened its stability and has mandated the shift in the way to cater to the need of learners. In the face of such adversity administration of online education came as an appropriate antidote. The transaction to online teaching took place in March 2020 with the detection of the first case of COVID -19 along with rising number of imported cases owing to the return of Bhutanese from abroad. This article portrays the ability of Bhutan to continue education in the midst of lockdown through online learning platforms and reaching out the unreached through distribution of SIM (self-instructional materials) for various key stages. This modus operandi took care of every individual student. No one was left behind in terms of their achievement of the expected learning outcomes. Bhutan’s experiences can intensify everyone’s attention towards sensitizing both teachers and learners on different modes of online delivery to engage learners meaningfully during unforeseen times. Furthermore, it can serve as a catalyst in bettering future preparation through teacher professional development.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Montag ◽  
Konrad Błaszkiewicz ◽  
Bernd Lachmann ◽  
Ionut Andone ◽  
Rayna Sariyska ◽  
...  

In the present study we link self-report-data on personality to behavior recorded on the mobile phone. This new approach from Psychoinformatics collects data from humans in everyday life. It demonstrates the fruitful collaboration between psychology and computer science, combining Big Data with psychological variables. Given the large number of variables, which can be tracked on a smartphone, the present study focuses on the traditional features of mobile phones – namely incoming and outgoing calls and SMS. We observed N = 49 participants with respect to the telephone/SMS usage via our custom developed mobile phone app for 5 weeks. Extraversion was positively associated with nearly all related telephone call variables. In particular, Extraverts directly reach out to their social network via voice calls.


2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 290-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuulia M. Ortner ◽  
Isabella Vormittag

With reference to EJPA’s unique and broad scope, the current study analyzed the characteristics of the authors as well as the topics and research aims of the 69 empirical articles published in the years 2009–2010. Results revealed that more than one third of the articles were written by authors affiliated with more than one country. With reference to their research aims, an almost comparable number of articles (1) presented a new measure, (2) dealt with adaptations of measures, or (3) dealt with further research on existing measures. Analyses also revealed that most articles did not address any particular field of application. The second largest group was comprised of articles related to the clinical field, followed by the health-related field of application. The majority of all articles put their focus on investigating questionnaires or rating scales, and only a small number of articles investigated procedures classified as tests or properties of interviews. As to further characteristics of the method(s) used, a majority of EJPA contributions addressed self-report data. Results are discussed with reference to publication demands as well as the current and future challenges and demands of psychological assessment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Buaphrao Raphiphatthana ◽  
Paul Jose ◽  
Karen Salmon

Abstract. Grit, that is, perseverance and passion for long-term goals, is a novel construct that has gained attention in recent years ( Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007 ). To date, little research has been performed with the goal of identifying the antecedents of grit. Thus, in order to fill this gap in the literature, self-report data were collected to examine whether mindfulness, a mindset of being-in-the-present in a nonjudgmental way, plays a role in fostering grittiness. Three hundred and forty-three undergraduate students completed an online survey once in a cross-sectional study, and of these, 74 students completed the survey again 4.5 months later. Although the cross-sectional analyses identified a number of positive associations between mindfulness and grit, the longitudinal analysis revealed that the mindfulness facets of acting with awareness and non-judging were the most important positive predictors of grit 4.5 months later. This set of findings offers implications for future grit interventions.


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