By Dan Hickey
Our continuing efforts to explore and understand online and virtual learning takes us in many directions. Since the pandemic, our efforts have increasingly concerned students with special needs. Of course, most readers probably know about the extensive research and reporting about how poorly special needs students were served by "emergency remote teaching." (Here is a good updated summary from Fall 2022 from ASU's Center for Reimagining Public Education).
As we put the pandemic behind us, I am quite fascinated by the longer-term impact of the pandemic, including stuff like legislative limits on virtual learning days (three in Indiana). I am certainly no expert in special ed. Still, I am intrigued by the growing evidence that the residual virtual infrastructure appears to be leading some districts to assign students with behavioral challenges to virtual learning. According to the trustworthy folks at the Hechinger report, these can be open-ended assignments that go unreported because the students are not technically suspended.
Before some upcoming workshops and presentations, I have been trying to learn more from the experts in virtual learning and special education. Mary Rice at the University of New Mexico and her colleagues have been extremely productive in recent years. Mary is a national expert in online learning, and I know her from her leadership of the Online Learning Special Interest Group at the American Educational Research Association. I was able to access most of her paywalled articles and she sent me several more and has invited me to share them with readers here. Here they are with brief annotations from the abstracts.
- Rice, M., & Rose, R. (2023, June 28). How schools can step up to accessibility. SmartBrief for Educators (online). This is a great starting point for educators concerned with the accessibility of increasingly popular digital learning technologies.
- Rice, M. F., & Dunn, M. (2022). Inclusive online and distance education for learners with dis/abilities. Distance Education, 43(4), 483-488. This is the introduction to a special issue that Rice and Dunn edited, which is a great set of relevant resources.
- Rice, M. F., & Ortiz, K. R. (2022). Parents of children with special educational needs shared work in fully online learning. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 1-15. This study explored the experiences of 18 parents of children with special needs in fully online schools.
- Rice, M. F., & Pazey, B. L. (2022). Ensuring IDEA implementation for students with disabilities across instructional modalities. Management in Education, 1-9. This article links key elements of special education law to the challenges faced by schools and suggests implications for educational leaders who continue to support students in the pandemic and beyond.
- Dunn, M., & Rice, M. (2022). Practicing Teachers' Use of Online Tools for IEP Goal Writing and Instructional Support. Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals, 49-65. This study investigated special educators’ perspectives about an online toolkit that offers teachers example goals and objectives statements to use in service plans for students with special educational needs as well as teaching strategies and assessments.
- Rice, M. F., & Smith, E. (2023). Special education teachers’ entangled agencies, intersectional identities, and commitments to equity and inclusion. Journal of Special Education Technology, 38(1), 37-49. This was a fascinating narrative inquiry that extended these important issues into diverse educator identities. Part of a special issue worth exploring.
- Rice, M. F., Cantergiani, K., & Macias, D. (2023). A research-based conceptual framework for inclusive K-12 online, distance, and digital education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 1-17. This article proposes a research-based conceptual framework for Inclusive Online, Distance, and Digital Education for K-12 settings.
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