Just uploaded a preprint (before peer review, so not final!) of a study I did this spring with Rachel Schuck, a doc student at UCSB in Special Education. I was working on a research study on UDL with some exceptional special educators. After schools were closed, some of the teachers consented to a series of interviews about their experience teaching during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), which is not distance learning, since ERT was unplanned and during a crisis. This first article is focused on teaching math from the perspective of a special educator teaching in a self-contained 3-5th grade classroom. We have a second article which is focused on the experiences of teachers whose students have significant support needs.

Here is the abstract:

“This paper presents a case study of the experiences of a highly experienced special educator named Ms. Z teaching standards-based mathematics during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) during the spring of 2020. Pre-COVID, Ms. Z provided her students, all of whom had an IEP for Specific Learning Disabilities and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, daily opportunities to tackle challenging mathematical problems and taught self-regulation strategies for students to better understand themselves as learners. After the shift to ERT, Ms. Z described “the wall between us” as various digital barriers that made teaching online far more challenging than in person. Challenges included supporting students with productive struggle when not present with them, engaging students in mathematical talk, and creating accessible multi-modal materials. Another barrier was supporting student self-regulation. We analyze Ms. Z’s experience using Universal Design for Learning as the important themes spanned emotional and cognitive engagement, as well as strategic self-understanding. We include recommendations for engaging students with LD and/or ADHD in meaningful mathematical problem solving in ERT. Despite the “walls” in ERT, teachers must create meaningful relationships with students, provide opportunities for students to engage in mathematical talk, create accessible multi-modal materials, and support students to better understand themselves as learners.”

Please read the article for more. Here is just one juicy quotes by this exceptional teacher (fake name Ms. Z), with some of my thoughts that are not in the article. She describes how her first few Zooms in April were taken over by kids:

The first week I started off very just like, the kids wanted to talk to each other. It was hilarious. In one screen, you see somebody having their little cars zooming by and another one, somebody is holding up like five Pokemon cards, just switching through them. And another one, somebody’s got like a family picture. And I’m just like, you guys, you’re supposed to be listening. But they were just so excited to see each other. So we were just doing share outs.

You can see from what Ms. Z says that her students, all of whom have disabilities, wanted time and space to connect with their peers. So much so that they took over the Zoom for an old-fashioned share time. It really bothers me that so many students with disabilities are not being given equal access to synchronous learning on platforms like Zoom. I hear districts and teachers saying that they are not allowed to use Zoom because someone might see a student with an IEP on zoom and know that they have an IEP. Yes, privacy is a concern, but it is inequitable to deny students with disabilities the chance to socialize during a pandemic that is resulting is widespread social isolation and SIGNIFICANT mental health issues. Students with disabilities are already more likely to have anxiety or other emotional disabilities. We need to control privacy risks without discriminating against students with disabilities.

Ms. Z describes “the walls between us” as the barriers that distance and technology have put between her and her students. What walls are you dealing with? Your students dealing with?

Paper citation:

Lambert, R., & Schuck, R. (2020, September 2). “The wall now between us”; Teaching math to students with disabilities during the COVID spring of 2020 PREPRINT. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/xe6b2