4,717 research outputs found
A modern history of educating students with mild intellectual disabilities in Saskatchewan (1900-2002)
Get PDFThis study is an historical analysis of the education for students with mild intellectual disabilities in Saskatchewan from 1900-2002. The thesis analyzed the beginnings of thought on the construct of intelligence, its hereditarian orientation, and the IQ test that originated in 1904 to measure individual differences in intelligence. The use of the IQ test was traced as it progressed through the eugenics movement that dominated from approximately 1900-1940, as well as the mental hygiene movement that was present during roughly the same time period. The importance of the concept of intelligence and the IQ test was analyzed for how it affected the identification of individuals with an intellectual disability, and how the identification process affected their treatment and education. The classification and educational placement of students identified with an intellectual disability had parallel affects on the curriculum for these students.
The changes in attitudes from eugenics and institutionalization of those identified with an intellectual disability and their subsequent deinstitutionalization, beginning in the 1960s, are examined for the effects these attitudinal shifts had on the education for these individuals. Education developed a system of special education that was based on measuring individual differences and making placement and curriculum decisions based upon these results. The education system in Saskatchewan developed from a segregationist philosophy to integration beginning in the 1970s. As the belief in the educability of these individuals and information on how to educate the intellectually disabled increased, a move towards full inclusion of these students began in the 1990s. As early as the 1970s, Saskatchewan Education began to develop specific curriculum guides and policies on the education of students with an intellectual disability. The progression of these documents up to 2002 is analyzed to determine the shifts in curriculum and student placement policy that occurred during this time period. The continuance of a reliance on the IQ test to identify and place students with an intellectual disability in the education system was analyzed. The attempt of Saskatchewan Education to deal with difficulties in providing for an appropriate education for students with an intellectual disability and suggestions for future directions are discussed
Ontology-based personalisation of e-learning resources for disabled students
Get PDFStudents with disabilities are often expected to use e-learning systems to access learning materials but most systems do not provide appropriate adaptation or personalisation to meet their needs.The difficulties related to inadaptability of current learning environments can now be resolved using semantic web technologies such as web ontologies which have been successfully used to drive e-learning personalisation. Nevertheless, e-learning personalisation for students with disabilities has mainly targeted those with single disabilities such as dyslexia or visual impairment, often neglecting those with multiple disabilities due to the difficulty of designing for a combination of disabilities.This thesis argues that it is possible to personalise learning materials for learners with disabilities, including those with multiple disabilities. This is achieved by developing a model that allows the learning environment to present the student with learning materials in suitable formats while considering their disability and learning needs through an ontology-driven and disability-aware personalised e-learning system model (ONTODAPS). A disability ontology known as the Abilities and Disabilities Ontology for Online LEarning and Services (ADOOLES) is developed and used to drive this model. To test the above hypothesis, some case studies are employed to show how the model functions for various individuals with and without disabilities and then the implemented visual interface is experimentally evaluated by eighteen students with disabilities and heuristically by ten lecturers. The results are collected and statistically analysed.The results obtained confirm the above hypothesis and suggest that ONTODAPS can be effectively employed to personalise learning and to manage learning resources. The student participants found that ONTODAPS could aid their learning experience and all agreed that they would like to use this functionality in an existing learning environment. The results also suggest that ONTODAPS provides a platform where students with disabilities can have equivalent learning experience with their peers without disabilities. For the results to be generalised, this study could be extended through further experiments with more diverse groups of students with disabilities and across multiple educational institutions
E-Learning: Implications for Mathematics Educators
Get PDFThe search for knowledge is an everyday thing amongst humans. This has resulted in the enrolment of people into different institutions of learning. The development of technology and the discovery of the internet resulted in their usage for learning. Several institutions have implemented this in their programmes over the years. This paper examined the concept of e-learning; how it works, it benefits to learners, educators and the society and some challenges it faces. Consequently, its workability for mathematics educators was deduced
How students with intellectual disabilities evaluate recommendations from internet forums
Get PDFSocial networks enable people with intellectual disabilities (ID) to participate actively in society and to promote their self-determination. However, concerns have been raised regarding the potential limitations of people with ID to deal with untrustworthy information sources on the Internet. In an experiment, we assessed how adult students with ID evaluated recommendations in Internet forums authored by either self-reported experts or by users under pseudonyms who supported their claim either with documentary sources or their personal experience. We compared the performances of students with ID to that of students of similar ages but higher educational levels (chronological age-matched control group) and to younger students with similar verbal mental age (verbal mental age-matched control group). Participants were asked to evaluate to what extent a fictitious user should follow particular recommendations given in a forum and to justify their evaluations by writing a message to the fictitious user. Students with ID, as opposed to the two control groups, recommended the forum advice to a higher extent regardless of authorship and evidence used, and they included in their messages to the fictitious user a higher number of opinions and information sources not present in the forum without linking them to the actual discussion. The pattern of results suggested that students with ID have a limited ability to evaluate recommendations in forums and that they do not necessarily present a delay in the development of these abilities, but rather an atypical development. Finally, we discussed the potential implications for teaching digital literacy to students with ID.This research was funded by a grant from the Spanish Secretaría General de Universidades (EDU2014-59422)
Teaching strategies and approaches for pupils with special educational needs: a scoping study
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