COVID-19 and learners with disabilities: Towards divergent praxis in teacher preparation for equity and epistemic justice

Emergence of COVID-19 further exposed educational inequalities and epistemic injustices experienced by learners with disabilities (LwDs). COVID-19 presents additional challenges for teachers and LwDs whose life and active learning engagements depends largely on social interaction. While the lockdown persisted, teachers of LwDs became anxious about potential relapse of previously gained learning outcomes and aggravated disabling condition. Unfortunately, there seem to be less teachers’ capacities to continually foster learning among their LwDs during the lockdown because there exist low teachers’ morale and pedagogical gaps for digital teaching. Based on current realities, it is evident that there is need for a paradigm shift in teacher preparation and training towards equity and epistemic justice for LwDs. Hence, this intellectual piece advanced the need to modify the existing teacher education curriculum to extensively build on teachers’ morale while it consciously infuses technological pedagogies in preparation programmes of teachers of LwDs in Africa

Pedagogical Infrastructures of Design Studio Learning

In the design studio, within educational contexts, sketching, model-making and prototyping of tangible objects are parts of the design process that support students in achieving final design solutions. This paper presents research in which three design experiments involving design studio settings, using a Learning by Collaborative Designing model for supporting knowledge-creating learning for university-level craft teacher education, were undertaken. The design studios aimed at guiding first-year students to appropriate professional processes and practices of design. The Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework was applied to analyse the social, epistemic, cognitive and material-technical aspects of three design-studio settings. Through meta-analysis of the three experiments we asked: What can we learn from these design studio experiments about the pedagogical infrastructure that supports creative design practices of working with design knowledge, tools and technologies in a real learning setting? As a result of the experiments we discuss the limitations and opportunities of these pedagogical settings, as well as considerations for future development of studio-based settings as pedagogic innovations emerging for integrating material-technical and socio-digital technologies, practices and spaces for learning.Peer reviewe

A MOOC on universal design for learning designed based on the UDL paradigm

This article presents the design and pilot of an open online course, based on the principle of universal design for learning (Center for Applied Special Technology, 2011), to promote inclusive virtual education as an improvement transferable to other contexts. The course constitutes the first massive open online course (MOOC) training proposal of the University of Atlántico in Colombia. In this case study, we employed the instructional design methodology of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (Branch, 2009) and the universal design for learning guidelines. The design of this online training activity enhances the quality of inclusive virtual education, improves accessibility with no need for platform adjustments, and involves participants in their learning. This educational initiative complements the academic offer for students, graduates, administrators, teachers, and external guests, and contributes to the democratisation of education. The result is the creation of a MOOC, “Inclusive Educational Contexts: Design for all”, which is accessible to a diverse range of learners.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under project TIN2017-89517-P

Understanding Education for the Visually Impaired

The contribution that this book makes to scholarship is regarded as ground-breaking, as it is based on recent research conducted with teachers on the ground-level, as well as on research and experiences of practitioners, gained over many years. In this volume, Understanding education for the visually impaired, the focus falls on understanding visual impairment within the South African context, more specifically on what the education of these learners entails. In addition to the contribution to existing literature in the fields of inclusive education and visual impairment, the publication has practical application value for teachers and practitioners who work with and support such learners

Communicating the Past in the Digital Age: Proceedings of the International Conference on Digital Methods in Teaching and Learning in Archaeology (12-13 October 2018)

Recent developments in the field of archaeology are not only progressing archaeological fieldwork but also changing the way we practise and present archaeology today. As these digital technologies are being used more and more every day on excavations or in museums, this also means that we must change the way we approach teaching and communicating archaeology as a discipline. This volume presents the outcome of a two-day international symposium on digital methods in teaching and learning in archaeology held at the University of Cologne in October 2018. Specialists from around the world share their views on the newest developments in the field of archaeology and the way we teach these with the help of archaeogaming, augmented and virtual reality, 3D reconstruction and many more

Teaching Archaeology with Inclusive Pedagogy

Introductory archaeology courses are attractive general education offerings at many colleges and universities, and teach students about human diversity in the past and present. Yet many professors struggle to manage the tremendous diversity within the classroom. This article incorporates inclusive pedagogy models, particularly Universal Design for Learning and Teaching Across Cultural Strengths, to propose an inclusive model of education in archaeology classes. An emphasis is placed on large introductory lecture classes, where many students are exposed to academic archaeology for the first time

Understanding Education for the Visually Impaired

The contribution that this book makes to scholarship is regarded as ground-breaking, as it is based on recent research conducted with teachers on the ground-level, as well as on research and experiences of practitioners, gained over many years. In this volume, Understanding education for the visually impaired, the focus falls on understanding visual impairment within the South African context, more specifically on what the education of these learners entails. In addition to the contribution to existing literature in the fields of inclusive education and visual impairment, the publication has practical application value for teachers and practitioners who work with and support such learners