Concerning Participation
Posted on Oct 3, 2012
Posted on Oct 3, 2012
October, 2012
As Principal Investigators of the Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities, we are writing this letter to express some concerns about the present participation of students with disabilities in online learning.
Several months ago we accepted the challenge of finding answers to important research questions about how online learning environments can be optimally designed and implemented to be accessible, engaging, and effective for all students, including students with disabilities. To accomplish this goal, the Center is conducting research to identify and verify trends and issues as well as describe potential positive outcomes and negative consequences related to participation of students with disabilities in online learning. These findings will inform our development and testing of promising approaches to online learning for students with disabilities. This research program definitively has barely begun.
Our preparatory investigations have already raised a number of concerns that we think are urgent enough to report even now. Through professional networks, open-ended survey questions, examination of exemplar content, and reviews of publicly available “gray literature” (e.g., state policies, advocacy organization publications, vendor documentation), we have identified significant concerns in nine broad areas. While careful research ahead will be necessary to investigate these concerns, we think the entire educational community, from producers to consumers, should be aware of the issues that have come to our attention:
- Complaints: Reports of complaints and dispute resolutions are beginning to emerge as parents and others express serious concerns about how students with disabilities are served in online learning environments.
- Inconsistent Policies: Ambiguity and variability exist in cross-state and cross-district funding, policies, and roles and responsibilities for providing special education and related services to students with disabilities in online environments.
- Accessibility and Universal Design: Preliminary inspection of widely adopted online environments reveals major gaps in basic accessibility for students with disabilities. Equally concerning is the general lack of instructional design and the specific lack of universal design for learning options. As some states have begun to include online learning as a graduation requirement, this poses a significant civil rights issue.
- Teacher Training: Preparation for teaching online courses is often minimal even for regular education teachers. The special preparation in the unique competencies required to provide online instruction to students with disabilities is often totally absent.
- Monitoring and Accountability: No national data are available to demographically describe the students with disabilities engaged in online learning (e.g., socioeconomic status, types of disabilities, age/grade levels) and thus there is no way to monitor their progress, proportionality, and outcomes.
- Reasons for Placement: Educators and policy makers presently have little knowledge of why students with disabilities (and their parents) choose to engage in online learning (with the possible exception of those students involved in credit recovery activities). Some have raised concerns that online learning is being adopted as the least effortful alternative.
- Social and Emotional Supports: Educators and policy makers have insufficient information about whether and how online service providers address the non-academic and social-emotional aspects of special education in online learning.
- Lack of Guidance: No guidelines exist to determine whether an online learning environment is truly the least restrictive environment for students with disabilities.
- Inequities: A digital divide (e.g., access to bandwidth infrastructure and devices) remains in many communities throughout the U.S., and the extent to which this divide affects access for students with disabilities is unknown.
We are sharing these concerns at this time for two reasons. First, we want to raise awareness of them so that key stakeholders – teachers, parents, students, product developers, policy-makers – can be more informed about these issues when they design, market, choose, implement, or recommend online learning courses and activities for students with disabilities. The urgency for raising these concerns now, rather than later, stems from one clear finding: students with disabilities are rapidly being assimilated into online learning activities in the absence of enough information to address these concerns
Second, as a national research center, we want to stimulate vastly more research in this area. To support and facilitate the expansion of that research, we are hopeful that our Center can serve as a hub where researchers can share their most current research, can find useful tools, guidelines and technologies for research, can find collaborators and data sources, etc. To that end we have a website (www.centerononlinelearning.org) that is still early in its development, but already contains current analyses, informative blogs on articles on such topics as “Making online learning work for students with disabilities,” “Blended learning’s role in increasing graduation rates,” and “Advantages and disadvantages for special-needs students in online learning.” In addition, we have created an online reference and associated white paper that identifies an array of elementary and secondary instructional software products and digital materials with respect to Section 508 standards for physical and sensory access. On this website we will begin to share not only our research findings, but the tools and techniques with which we have conducted our research so that it can be replicated and extended by others.
Finally, we want to emphasize that we entered this field because we believe that new technologies, including online learning technologies, have enormous promise for students with disabilities. Like any other tool or resources, however, these new learning environments will need to be carefully designed and knowledgably implemented in order to be effective. We look forward to a future that embodies that potential, and to the work that lies ahead within our center and with other researchers as we endeavor to realize the promise of these new technologies.
Sincerely,
Don Deshler, Center for Research on Learning
David Rose, CAST
Bill East, National Association of State Directors of Special Education
Diana Greer, Center for Research on Learning
An accessible PDF version of this report can be found at this link.
I have just this year enrolled my son who is a senior and has a learning disability in the ECOT program. As a teacher in a brick and mortar school, I was originally very skeptical of this as a viable option for him, but I chose to enroll him after years of inadequate classroom instruction,statements of his lack of teachability, out of compliance IEPs and refusal to implement modifications and accomodations set forth in his IEP. After MANY fruitless meetings with teachers, administrators and the head of the special education department, I chose to withdrawl him. So far ECOT has been a fantastic alternative that is meeting his needs up to this point in the first quarter. If he were still learning to read, which is his biggest deficit, I don’t know how effective this would be, but the classes in which he is enrolled meet his goals and needs and accomodations.
New Mexico and Albuquerque Public Schools are requiring one of the following for graduation: Honors or AP class, Concurrent enrollment at local community college or university, on-line class. Students with disabilities are essentially excluded from the first two choices so that the on-line class becomes mandatory.
Blackboard training is the only requirement for teachers to teach some of the on-line classes, particularly those that serve our special education students. There is no training for the appropriate use of on-line learning for students with disabilities. As on-line learning becomes more prevalent, it is essential that administrations at state and local levels prepare teachers to “teach” rather than just manage on-line programs.
I teach at the college level. I have taught Statistics online for more than 5 years. I use videos that I made with our media center, pencasts from my on ground class, and the Pearson online site for homework/quizzes/tests. I frequently have students with disabilities in my online class. They usually remind me about extended time on tests and I can set both the Pearson site and the LMS to give them extended time. If I needed to close caption my videos then I would contact Academic Technology to work with them to do the captioning. I also provide my students with links to special services and other areas that night be of help to them. If the students are on campus, I welcome them to come see me to ask questions. Things usually go pretty well, especially after I added the videos and the pencasts.
Thank you for spearheading this very important research. I know it will provide a great resource for those involved in online education. In particular, providing safeguards for students with disabilities who all too often are “babysat” under the guise online “instruction” would be a critically beneficial outcome of this line of research. I wish you the very best of luck with these endeavors. Kathy
My son just finsihed his first quarter in ECOT. This experience has been far more successful than his experience in our public high school. He is able to listen to lessons as often as he needs to, log on daily for extra help, and call his teachers for assistance. The assignments are quite appropriate and there are versions with and without guided notes provided by some of the teachers. As in any school, there are some teachers better than others, but we have had a far more respectful and appropriate education here than in our public school in regard to his ability level and academic needs. Would I much prefer he had been able to continue in a “real” school? Yes, for many reasons, most of all that he is a very social kid and also that work opportunities and training were available that were very valuable to him. However, the trade off of a system that allows him his modifications and accomodations on a regular basis without a fight is worth it in many ways.
My currently 16 y/o son with autism attempted an online course I believe during open enrollment in the Ozaukee County on line program – prior to our school district offering. At the time he was in 7th/8th grade and we had to pull out of the public school as bullying and safety had caused significant depression and school anxiety. We attempted a photography course on line an unfortunately there was an assumption of significant computer expertise – using acronymns like j-peg, and telling us to attach documents and send to the teacher from within the program, which even with my help we could not do quickly enough to keep up with the conversation in the on line chat class. It became intensely anxiety provoking to my son who is academically brilliant and very computer savvy – who I think could have been successful had we been prepared well with terminology and some basic computer functions. Once we had 2 class sessions where he felt lost – I could not get him to continue trying.
I have an ESE son in grade 4 “other health impaired” disability for ADD. He entered grade 2 from a private school at 75% in the district and in one year was at 37%. Predicted to fail his FCAT, the next year his teacher and I worked together on an online learning system called Compass Odyssey to teach him what he missed in grade 2 as well as grade 3. He logged 112 hours throughout the year on Compass. It is a fun, interactive learning environment that is a proven research based intervention. Combined with an effective teacher, the result was he scored a 3 on math and a 4 on his FCAT. 3 is on grade level and a 4 is above grade level. Wow! Unfortunately the Broward district has dropped funding for this resource this year; and is offering a product they got free from a vendor which has no research to show it his effective. His teacher comments that it does not as engaging as Compass to meet the needs of students like my son. I am thus paying out of pocket for access to Compass which means it is no longer with the partnership of the teacher.
Dear Writers of Center on Online Learning,
I ran across your open letter on LinkedIn and was linked to your website. I wanted to say hello and will be visiting your website for updates.
I found the online concept and information provided very interesting because they already flooded my imagination on how this may applied to a developing country like Viet Nam. My current project is with VinaCapital Foundation (http://www.vinacapitalfoundation.org)and it’s regarding providing comprehensive care to children with disabilities.
I appreciate your hard work and thankful for the research’s mission.
Warm regards,
Kevin Tran
Accessibility for all became a special interest for me several years ago, as I noticed that all of us look forward to responding and engaging in-the-moment. I suppose there is no turning back, although I do remember the depth of thoughtfulness when I had to take my time to respond and contemplate choices instead of just being able to speak a mile a minute. Yes, I am concerned about making everything too easy. Even for our standard populations, there should be a little bit of a challenge…otherwise we are just looking at getting smarter, yet maybe fatter. What are the most cost-effective accessible programs? What is the reasonable balance?
Thank you for your open letter.
I’m a Resource Specialist in Los Angeles, in a “bricks and mortar” middle school.
In an effort to improve my teaching skills, I’m participating in the Innovative Educator’s Advanced Studies Certificate, which also includes a certification in Leading Edge Online and Blended teaching. I’m the only teacher in my cohort who is a Special Ed teacher.
I am experimenting with new innovations in my school and classroom. I look forward to connecting with other special education teachers who are providing online and blended teaching for students with mild to moderate disabilities.
To whom it may concern,
I have worked with emotionally/behaviorally disordered students ages 11-18 for the last 7 years. I have a great interest in possibly becoming a member of your team in constructing your online program for these students. Please let me know if you have an interest or area which my knowledge and experience would benefit your research and work.
Thank you,
Ann Stiens
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