Virtual Conference 2022 – June

Program – 15 June 2022

Start time

Los Angeles, USA – 02:30 PDT
Kansas City, USA – 04:30 CDT
New York, USA – 05:30 EDT
Toronto, Canada – 05:30 EDT
Dublin, Ireland – 10:30 IST
Cape Town, South Africa – 11:30 SAST
Vienna, Austria – 11:30 CEST
Brisbane, Australia – 19:30 AEST
Melbourne, Australia – 19:30 AEST

Welcome and introduction (5 Minutes)

Tobias Buchner

Keynote Address (20 Minutes)

Examining the affordances and the emerging possibilities of online education and training for people with intellectual and developmental disability, their families and teachers

Sofia Mavropolou (Queensland University of Technology, Australia).

During and post the global pandemic, emerging research evidence shows that students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), their families and teachers in some countries continue to face persisting barriers in their access to online education with considerable impact on their learning and well-being. The rapid shift to remote education has caused challenges which have perpetuated inequities in accessing online education and training. Despite this concerning reality, opportunities for inclusive education have been created through university-based collaborative teams, involving researchers, university lecturers, learning designers and learning technologists, sharing the same passion and vision to create online resources for teachers striving to achieve greater inclusion for students with IDD and their families. The implementation of remote learning across the globe has called for innovative solutions offering flexible access and new modes of connectedness for students with IDD, their families and teachers. It is anticipated that the presentations in this virtual session will offer insights into the design and production of online educational and training resources aimed to enhance our knowledge of strategies to support equitable remote learning for all stakeholders. Lastly, it is hoped that the experiences shared in this Conference will lay the seeds for research collaborations and projects exploring effective inclusive pedagogies for online education across countries and education contexts.

Session 1 (45 Minutes)

Experiences of online education for teachers of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Ncediwe Mdlulwa, Chantal Samuels & Widad Sirkhotte (All University of Cape Town, South Africa).

The move to online education during COVID 19 was as challenging, if not more so, for teachers as it was for students with IDD and their families. These challenges included lack of support in moving to an online mode, inadequate basic training, and absence of in-service training. A particular need was that of being able to work with families as partners in education. In this session we will look at how online education of caregivers, in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) dealt with some of these issues as they remain relevant going forward from the pandemic. The session will be divided into three parts.

1. What are the elements of designing online teacher education MOOCs? This will be a presentation from the learning design team that worked on developing a MOOC for educators of children with severe to profound intellectual disability. – Widad Sirkhotte (Learning designer, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town (UCT) ) on the development of the MOOC for families and carers of children with severe to profound intellectual disability.

2. How are MOOCs accessed and used in low- and middle-income countries? We will speak to users of MOOCs and ask them to share their experiences. – Chantal Samuels (research coordinator, IDEA Research Unit, UCT and master’s student) will interview her study participants.

3. What does preliminary research say about teacher education through online modalities with respect to IDD? – Ncediwe Mdlulwa (Master’s graduate, UCT).

Audience Question & Answer Session

Judith McKenzie

Session 2 (45 Minutes)

The development and experiences of an online Introduction to Work Course for adults with intellectual disabilities

Mary Petrie, Eilish King, Joseph Fulham & Audrey Copley.

Dublin City University (DCU) Ability has been supporting adults with intellectual disabilities since 2018. We target participants who may have limited work experience, and support them to take their first or subsequent steps towards employment. We offer a ‘Works for Me’ DCU campus course; a national online ‘Introduction to Work’ course; and a ‘Next Steps’ support programme. We offer practical and learner-centred interventions to enable the learners move towards their work and education goals. The project was initially co-financed by the Irish Government and the European Social Fund as part of the ESF Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning 2012 – 2020. In September 2021 the project was approved by Government with support from the Dormant Accounts and is funded to December 2022. In March 2020 with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic our campus based programme had to cease and we moved online. This was a significant change in our plans and required a different approach including the development of new materials and the adaptation of online platforms that would be accessible to the learners.

The session will be divided into three parts.

1. What was required to develop an online course? This will be a presentation led by Mary Petrie the specialist tutor who worked with the team to move from campus to online.

2. What do learners have to say? We will speak to Joseph Fulham and Audrey Copley and ask them to share their experiences.

3. Our occupational therapist Eilish King will detail how students are supported and what resources are required both during and after the course.

Audience Question & Answer Session

Deirdre Corby

BREAK (10 Minutes)

IASSIDD Award Ceremony (30 Minutes)

Los Angeles, USA – 05:00 PDT
Kansas City, USA – 07:00 CDT
New York, USA / Toronto, Canada – 08:00 EDT
Dublin, Ireland – 13:00 IST
Vienna, Austria / Cape Town, South Africa – 14:00 SAST
Melbourne/Brisbane Australia – 22:00 AEST