Special Education Teacher’s professional development through digital storytelling

 Ozgur Yasar-Akyar, Ankara (Turkey)

 Cinthia Rosa-Feliz, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic)

 Solomon Sunday-Oyelere, Luleå (Sweden)

 Darwin Muñoz, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic)

 Gıyasettin Demirhan, Ankara (Turkey)

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-07

Keywords

Professional development, teacher training, ICT, inclusive education, digital storytelling, special education needs

Abstract

This research presents the results of an exploration of special education teachers' understanding of how their participation in workshop-based digital storytelling (DST) would enhance their professional development concerning inclusive education. This study evaluates the usability of the Smart Ecosystem for Learning and Inclusion (SELI) platform for supporting teachers during the workshop-based digital storytelling process. We used a convergent parallel mixed-method research design approach with 47 secondary school teachers working with disabled people in the Dominican Republic. The results of this study indicated that the SELI smart learning platform had shown good usability in supporting teachers during the workshop-based digital storytelling pedagogical process. Besides, two themes emerge regarding how workshop-based digital storytelling can contribute to teacher professional development for promoting inclusive education. The resulting themes are expressing, listening, and learning through digital storytelling; and driving change with digital storytelling to create more inclusive environments. Teachers who participated in the interviews were optimistic about DST implementation. They expressed that the workshop worked for multiple ways of expression, listening from and connecting with other stories, and learning through DST. Moreover, teachers could reflect their idea about using DST in terms of its potential impact on inclusion in the classrooms for driving change, building meaningful learning, and influential practice when used in the classroom.

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Fundref

This work was supported by the ERANET-LAC project which has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme. The project entitled Smart Ecosystem for Learning and Inclusion (SELI)– with number ERANet17/ICT-0076 was also supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (118K447) with the project number and Ministerio de Educacion Superior, Ciencia y Tecnologia, MESCyT.

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Technical information

Received: 16-09-2021

Revised: 24-11-2021

Accepted: 03-12-2021

OnlineFirst: 01-02-2022

Publication date: 01-04-2022

Article revision time: 69 days | Average time revision issue 71: 45 days

Article acceptance time: 78 days | Average time of acceptance issue 71: 70 days

Preprint editing time: 152 days | Average editing time preprint issue 71: 144 days

Article editing time: 197 days | Average editing time issue 71: 189 days

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