This article describes the results of a qualitative study on researchers’ observations of teachers of students with visual impairments and how the teachers spend their time in the classroom. The researchers report on the types of training and services being provided to students, including instruction in areas of the expanded core curriculum, also known as disability-specific skills training.
There are significant personnel shortages in education and rehabilitation in the field of blindness and visual impairment. Some university-based programs that prepare teachers, orientation and mobility specialists, rehabilitation teachers and counselors, and low vision specialists to serve individuals with visual impairments strive to increase the number of service providers and assist professionals in maintaining skills and best practices in many ways. This article provides a brief overview of one approach-distance education.
What is distance education?Reference to correspondence study, an early form of distance education and learning, in higher education can be found as far back as the mid-1800s. In 1873, Ticknor (1891) created a society to encourage women of all social classes to study at home; her Boston-based, mostly volunteer effort provided correspondence instruction to 10,000 members for nearly a quarter of a century.
This national study reviews national and state policies and guidelines, as well as surveys and focus groups of administrators and teachers, on the implementation of policies for students with low vision to gain visual access to the general education curriculum. The findings demonstrate that few states provide the necessary services to enable students to achieve access and that people, philosophy, and systems are the main impediments to and the solutions for change.
The federal Office of Special Education Programs funded a consortium-based project that produced a self-study manual, a videotape and discussion guide, a reprints collection, annotated bibliographies, and an in-service training manual. This article highlights the field-test evaluation of these materials by teachers, which provides a glimpse into the professional situation of the primary target group—teachers without specific training for teaching students who are deaf-blind. The teachers’ pre- and posttest knowledge and attitudes about teaching these students are also analyzed.
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