CESI Conference January 2002 St.Patrick's College

Background
The use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) with the students, who are categorised as having an I.Q. in the 0 - 34 range, while used to best advantage are not a substantial issue in this paper. However, the use of ICTs by teachers working in this area could be of immense benefit both as a means of lessening the feelings of isolation and of forming a collaborative site to motivate and improve educational practice. This site would embody the theory of Communal Constructivism[12] whereby teachers would leave behind what they have learned to further improve the learning of those that follow.

Problem
In Ireland, education for the student with severe and profound learning disabilities has become a legal right in recent times. This category of student has only been formally recognised by the Department of Education and Science (DES) since 1997.

All students, regardless of their personal circumstances, have a right to access and participation in the education system, according to their potential and ability.[13]

The White Paper, like its predecessor, the Special Education Review Committee (SERC) Report[14]encompassed a vision of an educational provision with the flexibility to cater for the diverse needs of students with special educational needs. The right of students with special educational needs to the same opportunities and right of access to education as all other students are now enshrined in the Education Act[15]. Since 1986, educational provision has been made for student with severe and profound general learning disability. Special classes have been set up in schools catering for students with moderate general learning disabilities or by assigning teachers to Child Education and Development Centres (CEDs) under the hospice of the Department of Health. Initially this development was launched as a pilot scheme and has been spreading throughout the country to date.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), which was founded by the Minister for Education in November 1987 and is now a statutory body, is in the process of formulating national curriculum guidelines. Meantime, teachers in this area are keeping selective records. The proposal for this assignment is to form a group of six teachers working in the area, who, by contributing their record-keeping templates, will consensually design a dissemination draft of best practice for educating students who have severe and profound learning disabilities.

As a result, the research involved in this assignment the writer hopes will be of immense benefit in the field because record-keeping guidelines are ambiguous to date. It will benefit workplaces by acting as a clear guideline for structural educational possibilities. Concerned practitioners will thereby be empowered to compare and contrast records, identify best practice and make a contribution to the formation of education policies, which in turn will be available as a community dynamic to interested teachers on the web. My hypothesis is that the major use of ICTs in this area of education should aid practitioners’ involvement in peer and collaborative tutoring and formation of study groups to foster best practice. It is envisaged that communication on line between practitioners will improve as a result and decrease the sense of isolation experienced at present.

Research aims include
· Ascertaining the present state of practice

· Production of an open-ended system for dissemination

· Production of a best practice guide in the field of severe and profound intellectual disability education

· Improving communication and exchange of information both through the design of a prototype and continued design cycle

· Discussion on how change can be managed in an area where modelling does not exist

Literature review
During formulation of this paper I investigated relevant information already available on the web. While there is a multiplicity of sites, ranging from our own national educational portal (Scoilnet[16]), which has a section on learning disability and at the moment four lesson plans relevant to my research field, none that I investigated had the type of information I required. Scoilnet has excellent links to other sites including Teachers’ Idea Exchange[17], which encourages sharing of lesson plans, unfortunately not useful to my field. A further interesting link was provided to a website entitled Teachers[18] provided plenty of interesting information but again not what was required in this instance. I contacted this website with a view to investigating what information they had available in the Special Education Needs (SEN) area and I got a reply from Rachel Green inviting me to send my website address for inclusion on their list of references and asking that I would reciprocate on my site.

Our national educational portal had links to and descriptions of the Key Journals available in the area of disability, which, while useful were not relevant to this literature review.

On a global basis I found a useful site from U.S.A. called IDEA[19] that outlines in detail the requirements issued by the US Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services on developing an Individual Education Plan (IEP) which became effective in July 1998. The downloaded eight-page document details the language to be used in formulating the IEP, the people to be consulted and the frequency and methodology to be used in reporting progress. However, there was no example of a typical IEP given.

Under the Irish educational system, although not required by law, every school keeps an IEP for each student in manuscript form. These IEPs are reviewed at regular intervals during the year. This reports is very detailed and the basic details seldom change. Having this IEP in a computerised format would save valuable teachers’ time and by having a disc available for each student would simplify the storing of these confidential documents. If each school invested in a laptop computer the notes could be updated by teachers outside class time – which is always very busy.

In Britain BECTa[20] - British Educational Communications and Technology agency host the BECTa ICT in Practice Awards, which cover England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The aim of the awards is to reward exemplary ICT practice amongst teachers, lecturers, trainers or advisers and to discover practice that can be widely emulated. A scheme similar to this in Ireland would encourage more innovative use of ICTs in the field of education. BECTa is also responsible for the NGfL – National Grid for Learning, which is the largest educational Internet portal. It consists of more than 280,000 indexed pages of content and receives over two million hits per week. Despite all this content, I did not source sufficient information relevant to my field of study.

Currently there are a number of British companies working on supplying a commercially available computer software package for helping to formulate IEPs. The programme is not yet available, however B Squared[21] has a very helpful four-page checklist to help with the composition of IEPs. Resource[22] is a further valuable resource with a most effective section on product details. The resource page is well designed with mouse-over to maintain interest.

While researching the field I discovered a Canadian site - schoolnet[23] with interesting links, particularly to a site co-founded by a special education teacher and a psychiatrist who as a result of working with the intellectually disabled, decided to form a community to enhance the lifestyle of the disabled and their carers. This community has proved to be a resounding success and organises meaningful full time and holiday time activities for the disabled.

Selection of Collaborative Teachers
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) issued a discussion paper[24]to all teachers working in the area of special education in January 2000. This paper was intended to stimulate discussion and debate that would support the work of the NCCA and aid in the development of curriculum guidelines. In the document[25] attention is drawn to the traditional limited availability of pre-service and in-service training for teachers. It states that this lack of training results in the inability of teachers to develop and implement suitable curricula to the needs of their students.

This issue has been addressed by the DES and in the past year I have attended sixteen days of in-service training for which I was released from school and for nine of these days the DES paid travelling and accommodation costs while providing funding for a replacement teacher. This is a new departure, in my experience, and has proven to be of invaluable help.

The availability of age-appropriate, Irish-context teaching resources and learning materials for use in the education of students with special educational needs has been well documented as a concern in the SERC Report, ESF Programme evaluation Unit Summary Report on Training for People with Disabilities[26]and in A Strategy for Equality.[27] I hope my present assignment will help with the development of such resources and materials.

Because of the specialist nature of this field it was imperative to target the relevant people. This opportunity occurred at a TEACCH[28] Conference held in Roscarbery, Co Cork and attended by two hundred and fifty people in February 2001. I requested a five-minute slot to explain my idea to this audience, having previously designed a simple handout and questionnaire and organised ten people to distribute it immediately following my presentation.[i]

As a result, I received sixty completed questionnaires with very encouraging commentary regarding the setting up of the site. The breakdown of respondents by geographical location was as follows:

Not surprisingly, because of the location of the course, the response from Munster was highest, however it gives an indication of the keen interest in this area of education as 25% of the respondents travelled more than three hundred miles to attend the two-day course.

The breakdown of respondents by interest group was as follows:

Key To Groups

PST
Pre-school Therapist

SNA
Special Needs Assistant

Other
Psychologist House parent Childcare Development Officer

Team leader

Unit manager

This chart highlights the diverse group with an input into Special Educational Needs. Through the commentary accompanying the replies, a sense of isolation and a limited availability of pertinent information were cited as difficulties by the majority of respondents. All but one of the respondents (who supplied no personal details) believed the proposed project was an excellent means of communication of useful data and welcomed the development. The respondent who felt negative regarding the proposal believed that all necessary information is already available through Scoilnet and St. Patrick’s College, Dublin.

Interestingly, 3 respondents were studying for Masters degrees in various universities. Despite personal contact none were prepared to become involved in pooling information, citing lack of computer skills and time as critical factors.

Of the 60 respondents, 19 (almost 33%) supplied email addresses and a further 2 could not recall their address.

As a follow up to this initial questionnaire, I corresponded with all of the respondents by mail merge with an information update. I included 17 questionnaires for the teachers involved of which 4 were subsequently returned.

Not a single email was received as a result of this letter.

My second opportunity to illicit interest in my project occurred at Part II of an Induction course for Teachers of Pupils with Severe and Profound Learning Disabilities.

This course took place in St. Patrick’s College, Dublin and was funded by the In-Career Development Unit of the DES. Part I of the course was attended by twenty-six teachers, while Part II had an attendance of nineteen practitioners. I introduced the idea of the group having input into the development and design of our curriculum through collaboration. This could prove to be an historical event, if successful and the people involved would be remembered as educational innovators. The teacher’s questionnaire was distributed to the group and to date nine teachers have returned the completed questionnaire.

The graph below compares the response from both methods of requesting completion of questionnaires. It becomes obvious from the pictorial representation that the chance of a positive response becomes greater in proportion to the bond established between the groups surveyed. In other words the greater the camaraderie is the higher the response to the questionnaire.

The location of teachers shows a wide geographical spread, with County Cork having a high response, two of which were as a result of postal queries. Only 2 respondents came from a city environment, which may indicate a lesser sense of isolation in this sector.

Whereas this graph gives the impression that nine teachers are computer literate, it must be pointed out that only 2 teachers communicated via email. 1 teacher has an email address at home and 7 of the 9 teachers with email access are unable to use email unaided. This highlights the requirement for computer training and improved access to email facilities for all teachers working in this area.

The previous graph indicates that, of the teacher’s replying to the survey almost 36% are currently studying for their teaching diploma. This is a much higher proportion than is found in mainstream education. This could be for one of two reasons:

a) Jobs for new college graduates are more readily available in this area of education - of the surveyed group 2 fitted into this category

b) Teachers who have qualified outside Ireland or whose teaching qualifications are not in Primary School education are now being recognised by the DES in this area of education – of the surveyed group 6 fitted into this category.

The remaining 3 teachers surveyed have standard Primary School teaching qualifications.

The conclusion that I have reached as a result of this research (although restricted due to time constraints) is that teachers working in the area of severe and profound disability come from much more diverse teaching backgrounds than is apparent in mainstream education. This should auger well for our collaborative approach to devising a workable curriculum structure, as there will be an interesting mix of educational experiences.

The group of teachers involved in constructing and disseminating the information contained in the website are being asked to assess its usefulness. They will test the information by using it with their class group and hopefully will discuss and collaborate with the group through the Communications panel of the site. Finally the group will meet during the summer period to analyse the information and create new information as a result.

Setting up the Website
The decision to use Blackboard[29] as the software application for building my website was taken because

· It allows anonymity for the teachers involved

· The format exists to successfully create an online course that is easily navigable and clearly laid out

· Course documents which can be downloaded and discussed are easily attached

· The Control Panel allows all course administration to take place in an easy to follow structure

· The necessity to work as a group is satisfied under Group Pages within the Communication area of the course, which also has the facility for sending e-mail

My initial task was to persuade respondents to forward examples of their individual systems of planning and recording their schoolwork. Only 1 teacher e-mailed her notes as word documents, which had to be significantly amended before attaching to the site.

As can be seen from this diagram a further 4 teachers supplied their notes on photocopied sheets, which were not of a quality suitable for scanning and were therefore compiled as word documents.

Because of the number of documents involved, more than thirty, eight of which I supplied from my work practise, the site has to be amended to allow for documents of similar content to be included in folders. The conversion of information was a time consuming process, which so far, has not reaped many rewards, because of the unavailability of school web access to the group and the group’s lack of skill to access the web at the local library or Internet café.

Under the Course Information button in the navigation area of the Blackboard site can be found a visual representation[30] of the theory of Multiple Intelligence. This shows that no matter what the I.Q. of the student, there exists the possibility of learning under the seven headings involved. The chart, I felt, is meaningful in this context, as it breaks down every task to its composite parts and makes the teacher more aware of appealing to every student’s multiple intelligence.

Implementation
The website has been in existence for six weeks and to date the feedback has been minimal. With the exception of one e-mail contact from the group and three group emails from me, communication has been by phone – initiated by me. There is a plan to meet as a group for a two days trip over the summer break, during which we will have computer access and all files will be available for discussion. The results of this meeting will not be available until September.

Some of the teachers involved were adamant that their identities remain strictly confidential. When I consulted management as a matter of courtesy in my own work place, I was told that there were no circumstances under which any video or photographs of students could be used in the course of my studies. These two instances indicate the level of privacy demanded in this area of research, which create difficulties for obtaining or publishing meaningful results.

Research Findings
This writer has gained many useful insights as a result of this piece of research including:

· Underestimation of the difficulty of forming a collaborative group

· Timing of this research should ideally be at the start of a school year, because of considerable demands on teachers’ time in the summer term and teacher burn-out at this stage of the year

· The requirement for computer training for teachers in this area is immense

· Access to e-mail facilities for this group is essential

· Practitioners, while most anxious to gain from others learning, are reticent in sharing the knowledge they possess.

· The diversity of teaching backgrounds from this group needs to be further explored and combined experience utilised to best advantage in forming best practice

· The non-inclusion of stamped addressed envelopes with my mail merge letter may have been a mitigating factor in the poor response

· The selection of this particular assignment may have been over-ambitious

In conclusion, the assignment undertaken was to design and implement the development of a communal, collaborative educational best practice framework in the area of severe and profound disability. The writer feels that the task has been successfully discharged and hopes to achieve further collaboration with the group over the summer holiday period.