Abstract
For many students, university is the passage to gain the education and opportunities that they need to pursuit their life goal. However, some students with special education needs (SEN) might find it difficult in the process due to physical or non-physical disabilities. As one of the best universities in Asia, CUHK values the importance of whole person development and providing suitable education plan for every enrolled student. According to Student Disability Support Services (SDSS), there are over 50% increase of students with self-declared disabilities in the past five years. In particular, there is a growing trend of students with non-physical and multiple disabilities every year since 2015. Non-physical disabilities include attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders, mental illness, and specific learning difficulties. Multiple disabilities refer to student who is having more than one of the physical and non-physical disabilities or combination of both.
Special education needs students with non-physical disabilities often find it difficult to adjust and adapt university life in their freshmen year, some of them are even having academic, class scheduling, mental, and interpersonal challenges in their senior years in university. Currently, we are facing an unprecedented situation with the COVID-19 pandemic that impacts on teaching and learning drastically. Both teachers and students are facing new challenges. Students with SEN will have even more difficult time during this critical time. However, it is uncertain about the specific issues faced by SEN students. Therefore, the current project will provide guidance to teachers to improve their awareness on students with special education challenges. By the end of the project, we will provide a list of recommendations and solutions for the betterment of online teaching to SEN students. The project will provide new insight for the development of SEN support to both teachers and students on online teaching at CUHK in the future.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
1. To investigate the difficulties SEN students faced in online classroom.
2. To provide guidance to teachers to raise their awareness about SEN students’ challenges.
3. To provide recommendations for the betterment of online teaching targeting to SEN students.
Activities, process and outcomes
1. Two online questionnaires for all the undergraduate SEN students and teachers were sent through emails.
2. Individual interviews of the SEN students and teachers were conducted.
3. Four micro-modules are produced to provide tips and recommendations to teachers to raise their awareness about students with special learning difficulties.
Deliverables and evaluation
- a list of criteria for assessing the quality of eLearning courseware
- a questionnaire to gauge teachers’ and students’ views of eLearning usage and benefits
- a report on the analysis of micro-modules in terms of presentation style and usage
- a list of recommendations on eLearning development and promotion
- eight faculty-based sessions on eLearning and flipped classroom
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
A representative group of 8 SEN students and 23 teachers answered the questionnaires while 10 SEN students, 8 teachers and 2 staff were interviewed in January 2021. Findings showed that physical disabled students have more difficulties in technology-related issues. Non-physical disabled students found it difficult to concentrate in ZOOM lessons and therefore mentally overloaded. Most of the SEN students being interviewed have mental illnesses that they stressed out easily. Teachers’ main difficulty was being unable to identify SEN students in online classes.
Impact on teaching and learning
Pedagogical suggestions include adopting the universal principles in instructional design; encouraging peer support; constructing a more structured learning environment and providing more individual consultations to the SEN students.
