Remote Learning: Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families and Students with Disabilities

Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on New Trends in Teaching and Education

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Remote Learning: Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families and Students with Disabilities

Lusa Lo, Kimberly Lee

ABSTRACT: 

Since March 2019, due to COVID-19 pandemic, schools around the world had to temporarily close. To ensure that student learning continued, schools had no choice but moved student learning from in-person to remote. This sudden change did not provide schools sufficient time to plan and be prepared. Schools did not know how they could provide remote instruction effectively. Many teachers also were not technologically prepared to teach remotely. Although schools have been reopened since September 2021, teachers continue to offer remote teaching to students who need to be quarantined due to COVID-19 exposure. Furthermore, various variants, such as Omicron, cause COVID-19 cases to suddenly rise again around the world. For example, many school districts in the United States do not have enough teachers and staffs to reopen after the winter break, because many are tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to COVID-19. Some schools have no choice but to start with remote learning temporarily. This presentation will focus on (a) the characteristics and needs of students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, (b) challenges these families and students continue to face during remote learning, (c) how community can offer support to this population, and (d) indicate important guidelines special education teachers may follow when working with students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds at a distance.

keywords: remote learning, diverse population, families, special education, remote teaching strategies.