THE ROLE OF THE SPECIAL
EDUCATION TEACHER IN EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY USE
Presenter
# 1
Najmoul Sadat Mousavi
University of Weifare and Rehabilitation Street
Address: Koodak yar St
Tehran
north
1985717443
Iran
Day Phone: 00989121392743
Fax: 00982122401401
Email: sdolab@yahoo.com
The Iranian experience of the role of the special education teacher is
presented orally. The research data was collected from teachers, students and
students’ guardians.
Najmoul Sadat Mousavi
Assistant Professor of educational management in the
Students with specific learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, speech or
language impairments, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, hearing
impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism, traumatic
brain injury, and other health impairments are subjected to special educational
programs with one major objective of enabling them to use their own potential
capabilities appropriately. Obviously to reach this goal, the interaction
between special education teacher and special education student in an educational
environment plays a major role and technology—based instruction coo facilitate
this interaction. Although the importance of teacher’s role in any educational program
has been substantiated, little is known about the details of which technology
to use, how and when to use it, and whether it -is appropriate to use the
technology in certain situations.
The
new theories of educational management emphasize on the point that the
educational objectives can be achieved or expected to be effective when the interaction
between teacher and students in a class, as the basic educational environment,
is managed
• ppropriately3. Considering the huge number of special education students, the
increasingly progressing educational system and the recent developments in
technology an
Materials and method:
To achieve rigorous evidence of the impact of the role of the special education
teacher on the quality of education, a triangulation approach was designed in
that data was collected from triple sources; special education teachers,
students and the students’ parents or guardians from the schools affiliated to
the region three of Iranian Ministry of Education from April 2004 to April
2005. The participants were 12 employed special education teachers with minimum
of five years of working experience with special education students, 10 special
education students with physical disabilities studying in the secondary school
and capable of involving in a discussion regarding the efficiency of the
programs and eight special education students’ guardians whose children were
studying in the secondary school. All the participants were willing to
cooperate and fully aware of the objectives of the study.
The data was collected through several interview sessions. In the first session
lasting for one hour and 45 minutes data was collected from the teachers
through a focus group discussion after office hours. The questions were open
ended providing the ground for further discussion and interaction between the
teachers. The second session lasting fur one hour and 20 minutes and third
session lasting for 75 minutes (in another occasion) aimed at collecting data
again in a focus group discussion with the students’ guardians. The fourth
session lasted for one hour 35 minutes interviewing the special education
students in one of the normal school classes. All the interview sessions were
decided and the researcher’s assistant recorded all the information. Even
participants’ facial and psychological changes during recalling their previous
experiences were written down.
After collecting the relevant data, the video cassettes were transcribed on pages
leaving both margins blank for further reflective and marginal remarks3,4. The transcribed manuscripts were qualitatively analyzed
and notes were written down on the margins of the manuscripts. To code the
motes and find out the core variables, the researcher went through immersion
process and developing the concepts through summary writing, selective review
of the literature and selective sampling of the data. Thus the process of
coding occurred in three stages. In the first stage the notes were analyzed
into 132 codes. In the second stage they were more refined and further
classified into 11 classifications with specified headings. In the last stage,
all the codes and classifications were integrated into three major classes: the
teacher roles in relation with special education students, the ideal teacher
and the impact of technology on the education process and teacher’s role. The
codes and the marginal remarks were again reviewed to establish the conceptual
framework for discussion. The codes and new findings were given back to the
participants for final - approval.
The findings to achieve rigorous evidence of the exact role of special
education teachers in the process of education, a qualitative analysis of the
data collected from three sources; teachers, students and students’ guardians
was performed and the findings were coded after immersion process. The findings
indicated that the role of special education teacher is to evaluate the
individualized student needs, act as needed and use appropriate technology. In
such cases education is effective and lead to student’s progress. The findings
showed that special education teacher needs to consider three important factors
in education:
awareness of the variety of roles she/he can play, considering the past
experiences and applying the relevant technology and understanding the
individualized student needs.
Discussion
According to the results of the study three factors were important in special
education programs: teacher’s awareness of his role, using past experiences and
new technology and understanding the individualized student needs. The results
suggest that there are three conditions that the special education teachers can
fall into: a. The teacher is using all the three
factors in education but they are not managed meaningfully that is each factor
is not used in the appropriate situation, not used correctly or not used to the
appropriate amount needed. Thus there is not a harmony among
the three factors.
b. The teacher is using all the three factors in education moderately, that is,
s/he can relatively understand the situations and use the appropriate
technique. The role of such teacher can be effective in education.
c. The teacher is using all the three factors completely satisfactorily. The
harmony among the factors is perfect, each is used appropriately to the right
amount and there is a balance among them. The result is that in any given
situation one, two or all the three factors are used a lot, very little or not
at all. This is called the ideal teacher who is playing his role perfectly
well.
The recommendation is that the appropriate management among the three factors lead to the appropriate use of technology and decision
making in the given educational situation so that special education students
can use their potential capabilities. This will eventually facilitate learning
and education in general.
1-Smith P, Harris C, Sammons L, Waters J, Jordan D, martin D et al. Using
multimedia portfolios to assess pre—service teacher and k—12 student learning. Action in teacher education 2001, 22 (4), 28—40.
2-Popham W. Classroom assessment: what teachers need to know.
3rd ed.
3. streuber T, Heleness, Carpenter, Dona B. Qualitative research in
nursing. Eippincott Company; 1999.
4. Scoot, casebeer. An overview of qualitative
research: approaches data collection and analysis. BMJ 1999
April.
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